Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Carsten Höller. Book of Games

Carsten Höller. Book of Games

Obrist, Hans Ulrich
Hessler, Stefanie
Höller, Carsten

Hardcover

Series: Varia

Art HistoryIndividual ArtistsPerformance Art

ISBN10: 3836582236
ISBN13: 9783836582230
Publisher: Taschen
Published: Nov 30 2024
Pages: 760
Weight: 3.57
Height: 2.20 Width: 7.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: Multiple Languages

Carsten Höller invites readers to disrupt their daily lives with 336 mind-expanding diversions. They can be played alone, in pairs or in teams, in the street, in bed, on a train, wherever. No props or materials are needed. Just one body, all senses and a willingness to try something new, that's possibly conceptually or physically challenging, but guaranteed to entertain and to widen the player's horizons.

Some games are more obviously daring than others - unexpectedly shouting 'bang!' when your driver's reversing into a parking space is sure to elicit a reaction - but that's absolutely the point. Other games involve covertly dropping strange phrases into conversation, executing somersaults (without practice), or plucking hairs from your opponent's head while they stay poker-faced.

Höller's scientific professional background informs his keenness to create what he calls Influential Environments. He wants to tease the brain while testing its limitations, through activity and passivity, agency and inertia. He conceived his first game with a group of friends in 1992, during a tedious dinner after an exhibition opening. Since then, he has collected and invented ideas, inspired by friends, life, the Surrealists, and Arthur Rimbaud. All games are illustrated with commissioned or pre-existing artworks and photographs. We find portraits by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin, August Sander, and Nan Goldin next to paintings by Salvador Dalí; snapshots of Joseph Beuys plus son and Donna Haraway plus dog next to appointed pieces by Christine Sun Kim and Anri Sala; film stills by Chantal Akerman, extracts from Shakespeare as well as treasures from Höller's personal archive--and his mother's.

Edited by Stefanie Hessler and Hans Ulrich Obrist, this book encourages readers to engage in playful yet cerebral experiments that will leave them with a sense of wonder, disorientation, and a subtle smirk on their face.

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