The Collector’s House, 2016

Basel 2016
The Collector’s House

Marianne Boesky Gallery, Galleria Continua, Galerie Krinzinger

Installation
monochrome solid plaster and other sculptural materials
With the immersive monumental installation titled The Collector's House, Hans Op de Beeck aims to fully maximize the viewer’s experience. The viewer enters a strange Gesamtkunstwerk: a black-and-white neoclassical evocation of a private room, a Wunderkammer-like lounge with its grand piano, art library, and museum drawing room. The sculptures, paintings, furniture, and books are fully sculpted and handcrafted from soft grey plaster, as if everything, like in Pompeii, were frozen and petrified. This surprising fictional space with its innumerable (art) historical, cinematic, and literary references is a staging of a highly compelling, profound, mysterious mood that stimulates the senses.