Powerless Structures, Fig. 82, 1999
Elmgreen & Dragset

Installation view: Lichtkunst aus Kunstlicht | light art from artificial light, ZKM Center for Art an Media, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2006


© Bildrecht, Vienna, 2017 | Photo: Franz Wamhof | ZKM Center for Art and Media
© Bildrecht, Vienna, 2017 | Photo: Courtesy of Galerie Klosterfelde
© Bildrecht, Vienna, 2017 | Photo: Courtesy of Galerie Klosterfelde
Collection

Plastic pipe, black pigment, transparency, light box, fluorescent lamp
Peephole: diameter 60 mm / Moon: diameter: 50 mm


Elmgreen & Dragset’s Powerless Structures series examines the destabilization of the traditional art space. In this series of projects, the artists challenge the conventional perception of space: architectural and social structures are reorganized in order to investigate the desires underlying everyday objects and the mechanisms of ideological control structuring even the simplest arrangements of walls, ceilings, entrances and exits. Elmgreen & Dragset identify/employ natural forces as a means to suppress and extend experience within the rarefied territory of exhibition design and the white cube space. Powerless Structures, Fig. 82 brings the full moon into the spatial enclosure of the gallery, making millions of celestial gazers in fields and rooftops everywhere seem quite private in comparison.


Michael Elmgreen: *1961 in Copenhagen, Denmark | Living and working in Berlin, Germany
​Ingar Dragset: *1969 in Trondheim, Norway | Living and working in Berlin, Germany