Ai Weiwei and Herzog & de Meuron installation at The Park Avenue Armory
31 May 2017
Hansel and Gretel, a new large-scale immersive installation by Ai Weiwei and Pritzker Prize-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron opens 7 June at The Park Avenue Armory in New York. The work fills the Armory's Wade Thompson Drill Hall and extends into the first floor of the Head House, creating a world permeated by modern-day surveillance. Under the eye of surveillance drones and infrared cameras, viewers navigate a disorienting terrain where every movement is recorded, broadcast, and fed back to the installation. The experience inverts the fairytale of 'Hansel and Gretel'—instead of purposively leaving a trail to avoid getting lost, the surreptitious tracking of visitors makes it impossible to hide their location.
Hansel & Gretel also marks 15 years of collaboration between Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, and Ai Weiwei, who have worked together on the 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion and the National Stadium in Beijing, created for the 2008 Summer Olympics and coined the “Bird’s Nest” for its exterior façade of interwoven steel.
The installation is on view through 6 August. For more information, please visit The Park Avenue Armory's website.
