SLIP SLIDIN' AWAY

Between ball pits, balloon rooms and the unstoppable rise of the café that’s also a petting zoo, London is in the midst of a full-on childhood regression. Great news then, kiddywinks – it’s been revealed that a pair of big tubular slides will be coming to the South Bank this summer, which you can zoom down while eating an ice-cream and singing the theme tune to ‘Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles’, if you want.

You’ll look a bit of a dick if you do, mind, as the slides are part of an actual proper grown-up art exhibition. ‘Decision’, on show at the Hayward Gallery from June 10, is a collection of works by Belgian contemporary artist Carsten Höller, who previously showed off his slides (known as ‘Test Site’ to art bods) inside the Tate Modern’s turbine hall back in 2006.

Many of Höller’s pieces encourage visitor interaction and, as the name of the show suggests, the precise nature of this interaction entails an element of choice. Do you step up to the water cooler and pop one of the plain white pills dropping out of the ceiling? Do you step up and strap yourself into the various playground-esque pieces or simply stand back and gawp?

And of course, there’s those slides, where the question is less ‘do or don’t?’, but rather ‘head-first or feet-first?’

‘Carsten Höller: Decision’ runs June 10–September 6 at the Hayward Gallery.

Source: Time Out London