elmgreen & Dragset
Double visionaries
Scandinavian duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset made for grand Guest Editors in 2013. Architecture and design buffs, champions of elevating public spaces and never afraid of a sight gag, the pair make smart (but never alienating) art for smart people. They made their name in 2005 with End Station, a recreation of a 1980s New York subway stop, and Prada Marfa, a fake luxury goods store that opened in the Texas desert the same year. Their work has taken on celebrity culture, consumerism, the failings of social housing and the way domestic interiors can speak of complex interior lives.
As Guest Editors they took us on a tour of their favourite fictional homes, from the punchy pop-art pads of Richard Hamilton and David Hockney and the film sets of Alfred Hitchcock, to the angsty interiors of Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi. We also previewed ‘Tomorrow’, the imaginary home of a fictional architect they conjured at the V&A that year using its archive and their own works.
Since then, the pair have had shows in Tel Aviv, Beijing and Seoul; installed pop-up public art in New York, including A Greater Perspective, an oversized, useless bronze telescope on the High Line, and
Van Gogh's Ear, an upright ear-shaped swimming pool at the Rockefeller Center. They’ve also curated 2017’s Istanbul Biennial, opening 16 September.