PARIS.- Gagosian announced the installation of a new sculpture by Carsten Höller at Place Vendôme in Paris, titled Giant Triple Mushroom (2024). Höller’s sculpture is presented as part of Art Basel Paris’s public programming and will be on view from October 15 through November 24, 2024.

This large-scale sculpture combines enlarged cross-sectional segments of three different wild mushroom species into a single form. Three meters (almost ten feet) in height, the work features the bright red cap of Amanita muscaria (fly agaric), the distinctive netlike “skirt” of the Phallus indusiatus (long net stinkhorn), and the ribbed gills of Tricholoma columbetta (dove-colored tricholoma). Whereas the latter two species are edible, Amanita muscaria is toxic, and, at smaller doses, psychotropic. The artist’s interest in this particular mushroom lies in its cultural, historical, religious, and spiritual importance, both through its psychoactive hallucinogenic properties and its alluring visual qualities.

Höller’s use of fungi as subject stems from his background as a scientist; he has a doctorate in agricultural science, having conducted research in entomology before devoting himself to producing art. Represented at a grand scale, the mushrooms’ complex structures and biological functions are monumentalized within the public site of Place Vendôme, while the artist’s use of spatial division and reassembly into a new conglomerate recalls strategies he has employed in other experiential projects, including different iterations of The Double Club (2008­–09/2018/2024)—where the spaces’ interiors, music, food, and drink were all distinctly divided in varied ways—and his mirrored Revolving Doors (2004/2016) installation.

The installation of Giant Triple Mushroom follows Gagosian’s previous presentations of monumental public sculptures at Place Vendôme. Installed in 2021–22, Alexander Calder’s Flying Dragon (1975) coincided with the opening of Gagosian’s gallery at rue de Castiglione. In 2023, Urs Fischer’s Wave (2018) was presented for the second edition of Paris+ par Art Basel.

In 2022, Höller opened the restaurant Brutalisten in Stockholm, which follows his “Brutalist Kitchen Manifesto” by using a minimal number of ingredients, devoid of decoration, per dish. Brutalisten will open a pop-up in Paris in collaboration with We Are Ona as part of the public program of Art Basel Paris, between October 14 and 20.

Also on view at Gagosian’s Paris galleries are Maison Ancart, featuring new paintings by Harold Ancart, at rue de Ponthieu (October 14–December 20, 2024), and James Turrell: At One at Le Bourget (October 14, 2024–Summer 2025).

Carsten Höller was born in 1961 in Brussels to German parents and lives in Stockholm and Biriwa, Ghana. Collections include the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée d’art contemporain, Marseille, France; Tate, London; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Fondazione Prada, Milan; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Kyiv; McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco; and 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan. Exhibitions and installations include Une exposition à Marseille, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Marseille, France (2004); Test Site, Tate Modern, London (2006); Amusement Park, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts (2006); Carrousel, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2008); The Double Club, Fondazione Prada, London (2008); Double Slide, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2009); Divided Divided, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2010); Soma, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2010); Experience, New Museum, New York (2011); LEBEN, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna (2014); Decision, Hayward Gallery, London (2015); Doubt, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2016); Video Retrospective with Two Light Machines, Mu.ZEE, Ostend, Belgium (2016); Y, Centro Botín, Santander, Spain (2017); Sunday, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2019); and Day, Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon (2021). He has participated in the Berlin Biennale (1999, 2014); Bienal de São Paulo (2002, 2008); Biennale di Venezia (2003, 2005, 2009, 2015); Biennale de Lyon, France (2003, 2005); Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2010, 2014); Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2013); and Noor Riyadh Festival, Saudi Arabia (2023).