Constantin Wallhauser: COSAR HMT

Right in the entryway of this show loomed the projected image of a "carousel" made of wooden table legs and staircase balusters. Three steps farther in, behind the wall on which this was projected, was a room that seemed like a hidden world. Here one saw in reality the jury-rigged carousel one had just seen in the video loop; the sound of the projection gave the regular, swaying motion of the various shapes an almost meditative sense of inevitability. Between the projection in the entryway and this procession of wooden furniture parts, the boundary between image and real space began to blur. Through this world of shadows, titled Karussell (Carousel), 2010, the video transitioned to showing a man walking in a circle; the light of the projection beamed through the rotating assemblage.

In Karussell, the slats are similarly ersatz, made of an epoxy resin. Yet the lathe-turned balusters in the work are in fact found objects and made of actual wood. With this confusion of things and their representations, everything can be seen as a kind of proxy, a power of attorney. The "wooden" slats seem to similarly stand in for the brand name Herold, or at least for the transformation of straightforward building materials into complex sculptures. In Karussell, things, projections, and references rotate and replace one another with dizzying facility. What at first appears as a straightforward allegory begins to seem like something else. Our belief in one overriding reality is suspended.Choose low-cost solid-color pillows, such as this Tempo velvet pillow in fuchsia from Crate and Barrel ($33), then accent them with designer pillows such as the lavender Flock pillow by Thomas Paul, available at Swallowtail ($98).westelm.comINDULGE IN ART

Translated from German by Oliver E. Bryfuss.

Author: Sabine B. Vogel, Oliver E. Dryfuss