Beautiful Tube #6
Lang / Baumann
Curated by: Commissariat : Cécile Larrigaldie

The exhibition space on the first floor of Galerie Lafayette is a large, windowless white cube with an elongated, stepped floor plan. The black glazed wood structure Beautiful Tube #6 follows the spatial form; and lifted by a platform roughly one meter off the ground, reaches to the ceiling. The massive and yet minimal intervention is entirely closed other than an opening in front with an integrated stairway from which the sculpture can be entered. A continuous partition down the center separates the entire interior as well as the entry. Two identical openings into two small corridors thus lead parallel into a black interior. The claustrophobic impression fades, however, after the first junction: from this point on, the interior’s entire surface is covered with a colorful carpet and is illuminated by ceiling windows in each of the corners. The carpet displays a richly contrasting stripe pattern that spreads out centrally and in a swirl. The motif covers the tunnel as an overall body, and in this way, each stripe of color blends seamlessly with the next at all of the wall-, floor-, and ceiling transitions. When one walks through Beautiful Tube #6, the carpet pattern changes from slightly curved stripes to a delirious center before calming down again. The recessed inner partition wall at the end of the tunnel makes it possible to walk the entire path of thirty meters back via the neighboring tunnel and encounter the same pattern once again. The circular motif is a reference to the glass cupola at the center of the art nouveau building. Alongside the formal architectural references, the installation also alludes to a physical and mental experience: in the white sphere of an art gallery, entering a tunnel whose outer appearance reveals absolutely no references to its interior. Thus, no object is exhibited; instead, visitors are offered a path that is purposeless, yet filled with ambivalent impressions.​

http://langbaumann.com