Olav Westphalen

(Germany, 1963)

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Realized in San Diego, for IN/SITE92, A faithful reconstruction of the upstairs room with all its content was a situation in a warehouse space, announced to the local art going public as an installation. A workshop, a kind of lab, containing a group of mechanisms that performed therapeutic functions. Some of them were in working order, others were assembled. They were appliances and could be applied to and by whoever came to see them. Olav Westphalen was presented as a lab technician or therapist or fellow patient most of the time.

Curators: Mark Quint and Ernest Silva
Venue: Mission Brewery Plaza, San Diego
Organizer: Installation Gallery

German artist Olav Westphalen created a two-part project. Titled Landscape/Paisaje and Pendulum/Péndulo, respectively, Westphalen’s project was located at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Using the museum’s existing Foucault pendulum, the artist lined the circular perimeter of the pendulum’s trajectory with toy figures that one by one were knocked over as the pendulum made its way full circle, proving the Earth’s rotation. The other part of Westphalen’s project consisted of photographs of a desert landscape along with a topographical model that brought dimension to a desert floor scene.

Curator: Mark Quint
Organizer: San Diego Natural History Museum
Venue: San Diego Natural History Museum