artnet, review by Kate Brown
2025
Jordan Wolfson is known to assault the senses. He often does this by centering the body, using machination, animatronics, and other tech to create unsettling relationships between viewer and subject. Wolfson’s world includes: a chained puppet thrashing on the floor; a mannequin dancing while affixed on a mirrored wall; disembodied robotic arms clunking about with theatrical pathos; a first-person VR perspective on victimhood. I would not have expected having my own body snatched from me in his most recent work to be the most horrifying of them all.
At the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Wolfson’s new work Little Room at first glance reads more as tech lab than art show. The artist’s virtual reality work—a medium with which he has been experimenting since 2017—is physically and psychologically involved. Getting set up have the experience is akin to getting through airport security while queuing up for a blood donation. To start, you have to get your entire body scanned, eye retinae included. For this, there is a full-body scanner that you need to step into, involving 96 cameras. Once you have lined up your body according to very specific cues from one of the Beyeler workers, your form is captured in one massive multidirectional flash, creating a detailed 3D model of yourself that is then uploaded into the VR environment.