Pedro Gómez-Egaña

Pedro Gómez-Egaña’s installation refers to the prewar novel par excellence, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain (1924). Mann’s characters have fled the relentless course of history to a sanatorium in the Alps, where time appears to stand still. Gómez-Egaña restages this location as a generic, stage set–like interior and domestic bubble. Seemingly designed to insulate the individual from hostile forces, it is nevertheless broken by uncanny and drastic cuts, representing the fractured nature of today’s reality. Visitors can climb a mountain to reach a special reading position, from which they can reflect upon the interior as if it were a landscape.

Pedro Gómez-Egaña (1976, Bucaramanga, Colombia) is an artist who addresses economies of attention with purpose-built, often large-scale immersive spaces that seek to modulate audiences’ perception. Gómez-Egaña has led artistic research projects at Goldsmiths, University of London; Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; and other institutions. His work has recently been shown at Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden; MUNCH, Oslo; Oslo Opera House; Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku; Istanbul Biennial; Contour Biennial, Mechelen; Performa, New York; and Kochi-Muziris Biennale. He lives in Oslo.