Carsten Höller offers childlike wonder with the ‘Upside Down Mushroom Room’

Belgium-Germany-based Carsten Höller employs his educational training in science for his art practice, manipulating human perception and self-exploration. Höller’s Upside Down Mushroom Room was at OMA'S Fondazione Prada, as a part of the group show Atlas, at Milan Design Week 2023, offering visitors a chance to tap into childlike wonder with the Alice in Wonderland-aesthetic installation. The Atlas project, born from a dialogue between Miuccia Prada and Germano Celant, is hosted on the six exhibition floors of the Tower, bringing together installations, paintings and sculptures in a succession of spaces that welcome solos or comparisons, created by assonance or contrast, between artists such as Carla Accardi (Italy, 1924-2014) and Jeff Koons (the United States, 1955), Walter De Maria (the United States, 1935-2013), Goshka Macuga (Poland, 1967) and Betye Saar (the United States, 1926), Michael Heizer (the United States, 1944) and Pino Pascali (Italy, 1935-1968), William N. Copley (the United States, 1919-1996) and Damien Hirst (United Kingdom, 1965), John Baldessari (the United States, 1931-2020) and Carsten Höller (Belgium, 1961).

The set of works on display, created between 1960 and 2016, represents a possible mapping of the ideas and visions of the artists who have contributed to the development of the Foundation's activities over the years. Atlas, thus testifies to an evolving path between personal and institutional, open to temporary and thematic interventions, to special projects and events, with possible integrations from other institutions.