Peter Kogler

For years, Peter Kogler’s work has agitated the borders between real and virtual space. In his installation at Galerie Mezzanin, the two-time Documenta participant presents six large-scale textiles that hang down from the ceiling, gently swaying like curtains in the currents of air. Kogler has never shied away from the decorative, and here the fabrics are printed on both sides with exuberant, digital-psychedelic patterns. In the next room his trademark ants, which he conceptualizes as the living modules of elaborate spatial systems, are projected on the floor, so that stepping on it becomes a nerve-racking experience. And on the gallery’s upper level, we’re treated to a glimpse of Kogler’s working methods. An entire wall is papered with fascinating collages from the late ’90s through the present, showing how Kogler takes found shapes from magazines and puts them through elaborate computerized paces to come up with his designs. As a kind of small-scale retrospective, the exhibition shows the provocative complexity of the games Kogler plays at the edges of space, architecture, decoration, and art.

Translated from German by Emily Speers Mears.