Mückenhäuser / Mosquito Houses

There are various levels of interaction between sculptural artworks and found everyday situations here: Michael Sailstorfer installed five standard “whip type” street lamps on the bicycle path on the former colliery railway line which has been converted into the Recklinghäuser Kunstmeile (Recklinghausen Art Mile). The unusual element are the “Mückenhäuser” which enclose the light sources like lampshades. During the day they resemble differently shaped transparent polyhedra of metal rods covered with mosquito nets. In the dark, even the local fauna becomes part of the artwork, when swarms of mosquitoes dance around their houses glowing in a warm yellow light. Michael Sailstorfer had built multiple “Mückenhäuser” before, beginning in the early 2000s with individual sculptures, when he gave the mosquitoes a home pared down to the classic house-shaped pentagon. Now his mosquito architecture has become somewhat more sophisticated: Every street lamp has an individual shell that functions as a sculptural structure at an unusual place during the day and as a light installation at night.