The deliberately rudimentary materials used by Ian Kiaer are in marked contrast with the complex, fragmented narrative they generate. This artist usually creates very small-format works whose strange combinations are home to subtle linkages. For "Endless House" project: convalescence/Kortrijk Kiaer has drawn on Thomas Mann’s "Magic Mountain", which recounts the way convalescents in a sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps see the world "down there". Based on a proposal made by the artist to a hospital in Belgium, the work looks at the world from the point of view of someone who is unwell, a distressing starting point which nonetheless offers an alternative to the self-confidence that comes with physical health: the artist’s fragile objects – limp balloons and models resulting from alpine architecture sketches by theoretician/architect Bruno Taut – come together to form a potential place of encounter in which the spectacular closes inward on itself.

With the support of Alison Jacques Gallery, London.