The Power Plant

Scandinavian artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are well known for their large-scale interventions into gallery architecture and its mechanisms of display. In an ongoing series entitled Powerless Structures (1997–), the artists have rebuilt and refashioned gallery interiors, offices and ancillary spaces. Elevated Gallery / Powerless Structures, Fig. 146 (2001), for example, is a gallery office suspended in mid-air by two large helium-filled balloons. Most recently, the artists opened a fully realized Prada boutique in the middle of the West Texas desert. Prada Marfa is a store with no entrance that has been stocked with Miucci Prada’s 2005 fall accessories. Following its inauguration in October 2005, the site has now been left to decay.

The Welfare Show is a multi-tiered installation and performance work that offers a provocative commentary on the erosion of social welfare programs throughout the world. The exhibition is produced by the Bergen Kunsthall, Norway, in collaboration with The Power Plant and the BAWAG Foundation, Vienna, Austria. It will be accompanied by an ambitious publication addressing the global changes in the relationships between states and citizens since the 1980s.