Carsten Höller "Experience" at the New Museum

Mirror carousel

Slide on which visitors can swish down from the fourth floor and land in on the second floor in a space illuminated by flashing lights.

Animal group

Giant triple mushrooms

Carsten Höller: Experience is on view at the New Museum in SoHo through Jan. 15, 2012. Over the past 20 years, scientist-turned-artist, Carsten Höller has created a world that is equal parts laboratory and test site. His works, including his signature slide, carousels, and experimental installations, are designed to explore the limits of human sensorial perception and logic through carefully controlled participatory experiences. The exhibit is both a feat of scientific wonderment and an ironic exploration of perception, down to the upside down goggles that visitors can use to invert their view of the show. In this exhibit, visitors can swish down from the fourth floor on a slide and land in on the second floor in a space illuminated by flashing lights, stick their heads inside of a fish tank without getting wet, relax on a swing on a mirrored carousel that moves at a low, lulling speed, or take a discreet dunk in a sensory deprivation tank (clothes optional). ”Society can be reinvented through the power of laughter,” said exhibition curator Massimiliano Gioni said of Höller’s ethos. The exhibition is stimulating for both the mind and body, the ultimate artist’s laboratory." The New Museum is located at 235 Bowery Street.