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Giant Flying Mushrooms Sprout in London

A kinetic mushroom mobile is just one of the highlights from Carsten Höller's London retrospective.
Carsten Höller, Flying Mushrooms, 2015 © Carsten Höller. Installation View Carsten Höller l Decision, Hayward Gallery, London 2015. Courtesy of the artist, Photo © Linda Nylind

A humongous whirling fungus mobile entertains vistors at the art playground that is Carsten Höller's Hayward Gallery retrospective, Carsten Höller: Decision. One romp around his Flying Mushrooms—an interactive, kinetic update to the vibrant plantlife that has graced his work since 1994—gets the blood pumping before a night spent on a laser-guided robotic bed. Metal branches support the titular caps as visitors push them in circles around tree-like formation, spinning the vertically split, half upside-down, and half right-side-up Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) mushrooms like propellers. "It’s about making them fly really—they will dance around in space," Höller says in the exhibition catalogue. This acts as a reward for making through the dark, winding Decision Corridor, which Höller lightly calls a "punishment"—but nothing that a few giant spores can't solve.

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Flying Mushrooms appears alongside Höller's signature works like Isometric Slides and Flying Machine, which you can check out in the videos below.

Carsten Höller, Flying Mushrooms, 2015 © Carsten Höller. Installation View Carsten Höller l Decision, Hayward Gallery, London 2015. Courtesy of the artist, Photo © Linda Nylind

Carsten Höller, Flying Mushrooms, 2015 © Carsten Höller. Installation View Carsten Höller l Decision, Hayward Gallery, London 2015. Courtesy of the artist, Photo © Linda Nylind

Carsten Höller, Flying Mushrooms, 2015 © Carsten Höller. Installation View Carsten Höller l Decision, Hayward Gallery, London 2015. Courtesy of the artist, Photo © Linda Nylind

Carsten Höller: Decision shows at London's Hayward Gallery through September 6, 2015. Visit Artsy for more of Carsten Höller's work. Carsten Höller: Decision is published by Hayward Publishing. Special exhibition price £20.

Related:

Slumber Party at a Gallery on Laser-Guided Robotic Beds

Carsten Höller Installed A Giant Playground Inside Frieze London

Carsten Höller Experiments On Visitors At The New Museum

Giant Slides Return to London for Carsten Höller's Retrospective