Carsten Höller

Carsten Höller’s photogravure series Four Birds depict broods of hybrid birds that were born infertile as a result of their breeding. Their depictions are muted in colour, giving their individual posture and expression a quiet, nostalgic beauty, as well as serving as a reminder of their transience. The birds’ unique qualities are captured for posterity and their sad destiny gain a new esteem in Höller’s prints.

The photogravure series Puppen draws on Höller’s background as an entomologist in the intricate depictions of insects metamorphosing. The delicate structures of pupae are rendered in six black and white photogravures, featuring minute details that are rarely seen. The photographs were taken specifically for the purpose of the photogravure series, and the workshop adapted the production process to match the natural rhythm of the insects’ circle of life. The resulting magnified images capture the sculptural appeal of the cocoons and focus on the artefacts of the regenerative transformation process that these insects undertake.

Carsten Höller’s Canaries was his second photogravure series to depict hybrid birds that were born infertile as a result of their breeding. The images were taken by Leone Giuliano Pidalà and Höller’s photogravures were printed in gold and black ink, capturing the birds’ unique qualities for posterity. The series serves as a reminder of the birds’ transience – the birds’ sad destiny gain a new esteem in Höller’s prints.

Birds is Carsten Höller’s first photogravure series depicting hybrid birds that were born infertile as a result of their breeding. While the individual characteristics of the birds are the result of experimental breeding, each bird is treated respectfully and captured for posterity in the photogravures. The muted blue backgrounds are reminiscent of carefully hand-coloured photographs and the images serve as a reminder of the birds’ transience.

Carsten Höller frequently deploys fly-agaric mushrooms in his work. He is particularly fascinated by the fact that the practical purpose of their bright colouring is unknown to science: while flowers attract honey bees and thereby encourage them to distribute their pollen, fly-agaric mushrooms are not palatable. They seem to look beautiful just for the sake of their own beauty. The photogravures were printed from two slightly displaced plates, which results in a blurry effect imitating the psychoactive effect that fly-agaric mushrooms have on the human senses.