In his provocative installation works, UK conceptualist Simon Starling tells stories about natural and cultural processes of transformation. "He displaces, inverts, reserves and remakes existing things with self-conscious, ironic amateurishness. He is a tinkerer with objects of design and bits of history, an alchemist of arcana and late modernism," according Michael Kimmelman of
The New York Times
. This volume presents three projects by Starling: in "Kakteenhaus," (2002), an Andalusian cactus is transplanted to Berlin's winter, where a converted automotive engine ensures its survival; "Plant Room" (2008) creates a mud-brick chamber for sensitive historical photographs; and for "Under Lime" (2009), Starling cut a lime branch from the nearby "Unter den Linden" boulevard and grafted it beneath the Kunsthalle's rafters.