PLAY – Installation by Ayzit Bostan40 Years of Gasteig
For her PLAY installation, Ayzit Bostan has deliberately chose an object associated with pop culture: her giant mirror ball stands for celebration, reflection and playfulness. The mirrored orb will adorn Hall E, suspended high above the heads of visitors, for the whole season.
For her PLAY installation, Ayzit Bostan has deliberately chose an object associated with pop culture: her giant mirror ball stands for celebration, reflection and playfulness. The mirrored orb will adorn Hall E, suspended high above the heads of visitors, for the whole season.
For a whole season, visitors to the Gasteig HP8 – the Isarphilharmonie, the Public Library and the Münchner Volkshochschule adult education centre – will be able to admire the PLAY installation. The appeal of the object, which consists of many small mirror surfaces and is almost five metres in diameter, lies in the contrast it creates. It is a surprising, glittering and festive disruptive element in the otherwise rather functional, sober former industrial hall.
“The installation aims to play with visitors’ perceptions. Points of light and reflections alter the space in the hall. It is a classic disco ball, scaled up and transferred into a different cultural context,” says Ayzit Bostan.
“I wanted to create something simple, big and memorable; something that invites you to experience this space in a new light.”
The mirror effect PLAY creates can be experienced and interpreted in very different ways: Does the sphere in Hall E, with its many different visitors, also mirror society? Does it naturally reflect the diverse range of activities taking place in the Gasteig? Or does it invite us to reflect on the arts centre’s past 40 years?
The various levels of Hall E with their balconies provide different vantage points from which to view the sphere. With individual elements being doubled up or distorted, sunbeams or spotlights reflecting the light, the installation opens up new perspectives for the observer.
Get your PLAY tote bag at the München Ticket counter.
Ayzit Bostan
After graduating from the Munich Meisterschule für Mode fashion college, Ankara-born Ayzit Bostan set up her own label in 1995. Only two years later, in 1997, she received the city’s sponsorship award for her work. She has been a professor of textile product design at the Kunsthochschule Kassel since 2012. Ayzit Bostan has received numerous prizes and awards, including the 2023 Munich Design Award, and takes part in many national and international exhibitions. Most recently, her Parasol installation was on display in the park of the Palais Galliera fashion museum in Paris in 2021 and her Ayzit Bostan Palast in Munich’s Rathausgalerie in 2023. Her works are regularly on display in the Neue Sammlung of the Pinakothek der Moderne.
Facts & figures
PLAY will create a (birthday) party atmosphere in the Gasteig’s 2025/2026 anniversary season.
- Diameter: 5 metres
- Weight: 2.5 tonnes
- Number of individual mirrors: approx. 3500
- Surface area: 80 m²
