Look Again: 6 Art Installations Defy Expectations
Six unparalleled art installations demand a double-take.
1. Firm: Gijs Van Vaerenbergh
Project: Labyrinth
Location: Genk, Belgium
Standout: A maze formed from 16-foot-tall steel panels, which would measure nearly 1 mile laid end-to-end, covers 15,000 square feet at a former coal mine.
2. Firm: Tokujin Yoshioka
Project: Tornado
Location: Saga, Japan.
Standout: To inaugurate the renovation of the Saga Prefectural Art Museum, 2 million custom plastic straws spilled out of a gallery also containing the artist’s inventive furniture.
3. Firm: Marc Fornes/TheVeryMany
Project: Vaulted Willow
Location: Edmonton, Alberta
Standout: Inspired by tree roots, then modeled with complex computatinos in Rhinoceros software, painted aluminum shingles rose to form a folly.
4. Firm: Robert Gober and Damien Hirst
Projects: Corner Door and Doorframe and Trittico
Location: Milan
Standout: Housing a wide variety of artwork was the goal for Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture in transforming a former distillery complex into the Fondazione Prada.
5. Firm: Patrick Dougherty
Project: What the Birds Know
Location: Salem, Massachusetts
Standout: Intertwined basswood, maple, and beech saplings form five giant birdhouses on the grounds of the Peabody Essex Museum.
6. Firm: Miguel Arraiz García and David Moreno Terrón
Project: Ekklesia
Location: Valencia, Spain
Standout: Ritualistically ignited as a rite of spring, cardboard columns sprouted from a mosaic that mimicked local patterned tile in painted wood instead of ceramic.