Peter Regli’s ongoing Reality Hacking series seeks to catalyze questions about the world around us by placing artworks in incongruous contexts. These installations are often situated in urban centers, poised to interrupt everyday routines with moments of surprise and discovery. Regli often probes the relationship between craftsmanship and kitsch, with carved wood and marble assuming non-traditional forms and unexpected relations to space. Resisting a specific style, medium, or material, Regli explores the poetics of banality and the sublimity of quotidian objects. Through his formal and conceptual approach to the sculptural encounter, he seeks to challenge ingrained assumptions. Reality Hacking No. 313 is one work comprised of five monumental pillars – three columns, a bear, and a phallus – carved from wood with a chainsaw. The work’s immense scale and wry juxtapositions invite reconsiderations of each form’s specific history and psychic power (of architecture, nature, and masculinity, respectively). The columns tower over passersby; both in and out of place – and with a healthy dose of absurd sanctitude – they hack away at our visual expectations.
