Markus Kahre

Markus Kahre, No title, 2012. Photograph by Jerry Hardman-Jones

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Markus Kahre’s commission for the 2012 Liverpool Biennial discreetly transforms the upper floor of The Monro on Duke Street, a building that dates back to 1756 and presently functions as a gastro-pub.

The installation, whilst engaging the history of the site and evoking the presence of the house’s former inhabitants, challenges the senses of the viewer as well as our common understanding of the categories of time and space. Upon entering the lodging rooms designed by the artist, the conventional divide between past and present, reality and illusion, superstition and science, blurs indistinct in front of our eyes.

Ultimately, Kahre’s intervention questions the idea that seeing is believing: in fact, one can never be sure of what it is shown or hidden in this inn designed by the artist.

Markus Kahre's (b.1969, Helsinki, Finland) installations consist of hidden rooms within rooms, exact replicas seen as if through a mirror, or blurry dreamlike renditions, projected through special lenses. He was the winner of the Ars Fennica: Finnish Art Now prize, 2008.

Markus Kahre at Liverpool Biennial 2012

Installation
Exhibited at The Monro