FOERSTER’S TOTALITY
2022
Reminiscing of Hollywood Film sets, with a Disneyland allure to it. We are exposed to multiple spaces in which different settings are presented. But in here each set of stories contribute to the other without necessarily having evident similarities to make a visible line. It feels like Paris; J’taime, an endless array of narratives, so vivid yet inanimate through the use of multimedia, common of Foresters work.
As stated by Pernille Albrethsen at Kunstkritikk Nordic Art Review “I entered the exhibition three times, and I finally sat down in a sitting chair in front of the entrance in order to replay the situation in slow-motion.” The exhibit gives a sensation rather similar to that of a book, or a film we can rewatch and revisit without ever growing oh so tired from it.
Subjects are first welcomed with Brasilia Hall, which opens with a sense of nostalgia coming back from the Windows desktop background. As Foerster describes it, it is the start of a democratic city where the viewer becomes subject actor and is faced with the uncertainty of which path to take next in this stage.
Not a single space is gone to waste, as the works inhabit even the corridors of Centre Pompidou. It goes from a tropical rainforest in Promenade sound installation to Chambre 19, a door which references Foerster’s book 1887 Splendide Hotel, which is then emphasized in Splendide Hotel (annex)’s environment. And as we move away from the small universes, we are then faced with giant sculptures such as Dublinesca, challenging now the illusions that Foerster has created with the glass shell and scenery of Paris reality. Creating a complete immersive experience in which the only way to break the illusion is to leave the glass-shell enclosure and admire it from outside, before once again entering Foerster’s universe.
Isabella Pirro