A haunted house that does not hide its tricks
In BARBARIAN, Oscar Peters built an immersive maze of slowly turning faux-stone walls, dancing skeletons and moving mouths. The wooden structures and theatrical effects remain visible; that handcraft is part of the installation.
At the end of BARBARIAN, a skull several metres high stands beside a ticket machine. Visitors can buy a symbolic ticket to the end of existence or enter the maze again. Artist Oscar Peters does not hide the workings of his haunted-house setting; he makes the scenery part of the experience.
Monopole contains dancing skeletons, oversized mouths that move downwards, and a green maze of imitation stone walls that slowly rotate. Peters explores why people voluntarily seek out tension and fear, for example in horror films, haunted houses and roller coasters.
The wooden structures, brushstrokes and theatrical effects are deliberately left visible. Monopole describes the work as a tribute to handcrafted spectacle at a time when more and more experiences are digital. The installation reveals the trick while keeping the game alive.
The maze is accompanied by a cabinet of curiosities from Peters’s own collection, including Jan Pieńkowski’s pop-up book Haunted House and the board game Spookslot. The exhibition connects its built environment with objects that evoke memories of being scared.
BARBARIAN has been on view since 13 September and runs through 17 May 2027 at Monopole, Appelmarkt 2A in Schiedam. The venue calls itself a new art space; its exact organisational relationship with Stedelijk Museum Schiedam is not explicitly stated.
Monopole is open Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00 to 17:00. The installation is only partly accessible to wheelchair and rollator users; payment is by card only. The AI illustration above is fictional and does not depict the actual installation.