Simon Starling : kakteenhaus

Under the title "Kakteenhaus / Cactus House", Simon Starling transforms the exhibition space of Portikus into a greenhouse. A heating system developed for the installation raises the room temperature accordingly. This heating system consists of a Volvo engine. The vehicle itself, which stands in the back of Portikus, is connected to the engine via the necessary conduits such as petrol tube, radiator hoses, exhaust pipe and electrical wiring. The engine is started from inside the automobile. All connections to the engine are merely extended in a way so that the heat released across the distance is passed on to the space. Using this principle, ideal conditions are created in the exhibition space to temporarily accommodate a large cactus, which prior to the start of the exhibition travelled from southern Spain to Frankfurt in precisely this red Volvo.
Simon Starling tells stories with his works. Time and again, he displays widely encompassing interconnections between places, objects, cultural and historical facts. Starling himself takes on the role of a literary narrator who never reveals the point of the story directly, but rather takes the long route or chooses a detour in order to then represent a network of relations in an often absurd reduction.