Labyrinth, strips and Matryoshka

0insidethematro.jpgReason to be happy to be in Berlin number 1: there’s a fantastic exhibition at PROGRAM (Invalidenstrasse 115, Berlin-Mitte).

Rodney LaTourelle‘s In the absence of unambiguous criteria is a site-specific installation that explores relationships between color, space and the body.

From the outside, it doesn’t look like much: a big structure of brownish material, all angles and dullness. Then you find the entrance, squeeze in and get a blast of strips and coulours.

LaTourelle’s installation is a labyrinth with a series of rooms lit by neon lights. One is pink and white, the second is green and white, and a third is silver and white. To pass from one to the other you have to find the doorway, LaTourelle used optical illusions to hide them within the stripes.

But there’s more than the labyrinth and optical effects, it also feels like you’re inside a Matryoshka doll: inside the gallery is the wooden structure, inside the structure are the stripped rooms and in each room is a tiny pink space lit by neons. You sit down and take a bath of bright pink and it feels good.

0batth1.jpg0bathhhhi2.jpgThe colour system is based on psychological, physiological, and aesthetic responses and combines two distinct regimes of chromatic relationships; one based on natural phenomenon (such as a cliché sunset) and another based on tones associated with the chakra system, an esoteric structure of energy centres linked within the body.

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Closes on February 17. I snapped like a maniac.