numen/for use create massive parasitic-like tape sculpture for you to explore

visitors to the des moines art center in the state of iowa are invited to crawl into a huge suspended tape sculpture. the parasitic like structure, called simply ‘tape’, has been conceived and realised by artist collective numen/for use for the exhibition ‘drawing in space’.

all images courtesy of the artists

the show hopes to explore lines and space through the creation of large-scale, site-specific installations using the novel yet humble material of tape. based in vienna and zagreb, the collective were particularly interested in the brutalist concrete surface and expressive geometric composition of the gallery building. located in the I.M.pei gallery, the lightness and translucency of the installation are highly accentuated by a radical contrast between the structure and the rough interior. 

‘deriving from of such a dominant host, the parasite structure formed an organic representation of actual spatial flux of the building’, the collective states on their website. ‘the inhabitable structure of the installation thus followed the major trajectories of visitors movements, enabling them to move along the usual paths, only in an elevated, enclosed, surreal space of tape.’

visitors to the museum are encouraged to explore the piece from the inside out as long as they wear socks, move in a clockwise direction and limit the time to 5 minutes. the installation has even had to close at points to restore damage. previous iterations have been built in paris, frankfurt, and vienna. See more of numen/for use’s work on their website and facebook.