Christoph Büchel’s vast installation in Venice is compelling, obsessive and sometimes hilarious.
Ascending the grand marble staircase in the center of the Venetian palazzo, you encounter a selection of fake Gucci, Hermes and other luxury handbags laid out on a blanket. A street hawker seems to have been disturbed, leaving their knockoff wares behind.
Then, turning right on the mezzanine level, you climb another staircase into a control room. A bank of live CCTV monitors flicker above an empty office chair and espresso-stained plastic coffee cup.
Next, a room for cryptocurrency traders with whirring servers, and a fridge, quarter-filled with tins of Red Bull; followed by the recording studio of a grandmother-aged TikTok influencer; a washroom with a print of Leonardo’s $450.3 million “Salvator Mundi” pasted to the wall; a 1950s-style cocktail bar; a pole dancing den; a kitchen filled with untouched trash. Room after room looks recently abandoned.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
