Into the Maze: Tobias Rehberger’s set up for LG OLED dazzles at Frieze London

Into the Maze: Tobias Rehberger’s set up for LG OLED dazzles at Frieze London

Whereas Frieze lounges have historically supplied a chic but nondescript spot of leisure for well-heeled fairgoers, lately LG Electronics (‘LG’) has led the cost in creating a unique type of lounge, open to all and providing immersive experiences by main creatives who leverage its newest OLED know-how to push the boundaries of artwork and know-how.

Following collaborations with Damien Hirst, Kevin McCoy, Anish Kapoor and Barry X Ball, LG OLED is now teaming up with German artist Tobias Rehberger for its Frieze London lounge. Titled Into the Maze, Rehberger’s set up within the lounge defies routine expectations of artwork honest areas, presenting itself as an immersive labyrinth that toys with gravity and notion. ‘A maze is one thing the place you get misplaced,’ explains the artist as he exhibits Wallpaper* across the lounge on preview day. ‘Right here, what will get misplaced is the excellence between object and projection, between the display and bodily house, between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional.’

The lounge partitions and flooring are populated with rectilinear types that bear perpendicular black-and-white stripes. The road between vertical and horizontal surfaces is blurred, tempting us to stroll up the partitions as if we’re characters in Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Although distinctively up to date, the sample additionally pays homage to dazzle portray, a camouflage approach that British artists developed for battleships throughout the First World Struggle. This custom has impressed Rehberger’s artwork since 2009, when he created a dazzle-pattern cafeteria that gained him the Golden Lion on the Venice Biennale the identical 12 months. 

‘Camouflage is such a incredible paradox,’ Rehberger displays. ‘It makes use of such loud and powerful visible language, however to disguise what you shouldn’t be , or to just remember to gained’t see one thing even for those who do take a look at it. It’s the other of the concept of visible artwork. Which is why I believe dazzle portray works finest not in an exhibition house, however in an area with one other operate – on this case a lounge.’

A pair of LG SIGNATURE OLED TV R – the world’s first and solely rollable TV – is cleverly built-in into Rehberger’s Frieze London set up, complemented by three common OLED TVs. At instances they show movies that supply additional spatial optical illusions, at different instances they return to the patterns of the partitions behind them. Their considered placement enhances the hypnotic results of Into the Maze, whereas leaving us all of the extra impressed by the rollable OLED TV’s strikingly slim type issue. Recalling Arthur C Clarke, who as soon as posited that any sufficiently superior know-how is indistinguishable from magic, Rehberger says, ‘I hope I gave it one other layer of magic.’

The in any other case rectilinear house is punctuated with flashes of highlighter orange and magenta, which aligns with the artist’s philosophy. ‘I all the time like to make use of these units to disturb the rhythm,’ he explains as he factors at an oblong patch of orange. ‘If you take a look at this orange from right here, it nearly seems to be prefer it’s flying. You don’t actually perceive if it’s a part of this quantity. I all the time imagine in interruption, this second of bringing in one thing else.’

The pulsating soundtrack – excerpted from ‘NYX’, which is called after the traditional Greek goddess of the evening – likewise provides to our sense of awe, and encourages us to take a second to lose ourselves in Rehberger’s world. It’s the work of German DJ Sven Väth, Rehberger’s outdated buddy and recurring collaborator. ‘He launched a brand new report once I was making the video for these screens,’ says the artist, ‘I really like the rhythm, and the way summary it’s, so I requested if I may use it.’ The admiration is mutual: so fond is Väth of Rehberger’s work that he subsequently invited the artist to create a full-length video for the tune.

In the end, Rehberger hopes that Into the Maze will provide guests a second of pause in an artwork honest surroundings that may typically really feel hectic and relentless: ‘One of the best ways to expertise this set up is to simply hang around – take the time to view the screens, perceive the work, and simply be current,’ he advises. 

The set up aligns with one other main profession second for Rehberger, who unveils the set design for a stage adaptation of Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel at Volkstheater Wien on 14 October. It’s the artist’s first venture on this realm, and entails a rotating stage – which he additionally describes as a maze – that took one and a half years to develop. It could appear that the world of theatre, too, shares the artwork world’s enthusiasm for Rehberger’s capacity to dazzle. §