Page 22 - "he 2020 Guggenheim issue of World of Art Contemporary Art Magazine

Installation View: Countryside, The Future
Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

predatory starfish-killing underwater drone-is paired with a current global wellness industry that profits from a natural
reproduction Roman sculpture of a fisherman. world conditioned for corporate retreats and curated
adventure.
Levelland High Gallery: Introduction As Koolhaas notes in the exhibition text: ”Before Christ
Koolhaas’s essay, titled’?,” composed of questions related was born there existed a moment of global consensus on
to the countryside, is featured on the wall of the High the countryside; the Romans and the Chinese, thousands
Gallery alongside an animated map that identifies the of miles apart, developed intricate and coherent treatises
geographic scope of the project. Also introduced on Levellis on the countryside as a space of creative and idealized
the ’’Semiotics Column,” created by journalist Niklas Maak existence. Today’s ’Wellness,’ a 4.5-trillion-dollar industry,
with students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, in has abandoned such cultural and creative dimensions. An
which one of the few vertical elements of the Guggenheim ’elevated’ form of consumption has transformed whole
Museum building is plastered with a matrix of images from sections of the countryside. In Italy, abandoned villages are
advertisements, fashion campaigns, toys, and country converted in their entirety into luxury spas; in Andermatt,
music to illustrate fantasies and stereotypes of rural life. Switzerland, a huge new hotel is an extruded ’stretch-
chalet’; and in China, authentic villages are remodeled into
Level 2: Leisure and Escapism wellness resorts.”
A 180-foot-long, full-height, fully saturated curtain takes
over this section to tell a punctuated story of leisure in the Level 3: Political Redesign
countryside. Using visual and textual collage, the curtain Through a series of eight case studies focused on the
begins with early Roman and Chinese cultures and cuts twentieth century, this section provides representative
forward in time through episodes in Europe and America, examples of ”political redesign,’’ the application of political
from Marie Antoinette to hippie counterculture, to the will and vision to the transformation of the countryside

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