Elmgreen & Dragset

The Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

Past
Sep 13 – Oct 25, 2025
Los Angeles

Pace is pleased to present The Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, Elmgreen & Dragset’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles—and their fourth with the gallery—from September 13 to October 25. This immersive two-part presentation will occupy the main exhibition space and the adjacent south gallery, exploring themes of scale, perception, and psychological distortion through enactments of doubling and resizing. The show follows Elmgreen & Dragset’s recent solo presentations at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the Amorepacific Museum of Art in Seoul, and it coincides with the artists’ thirtieth anniversary of working as a duo and the twentieth anniversary of their famed Prada Marfa installation, which was unveiled in Texas in 2005.

Renowned for their subversive sculptural interventions, Berlin-based artists Elmgreen & Dragset often examine questions of identity and belonging in their collaborative practice, and they are particularly interested in radical recontextualizations of objects and new modes of representation in sculpture and large-scale installation.

In The Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, the artists explore how scale influences our understanding of reality. For this presentation, the duo plays with the physical features of Pace’s Los Angeles gallery, using the architectural division of the gallery as a framework for doubling and resizing. Each artwork is presented in full scale in the main gallery, while exact half-size versions are shown in the adjoining space, which the artists have rescaled into a half-size replica of the main space. This spatial reduplication and resizing is inspired by the neurological condition called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, or Dysmetropsia, in which shifts in perception, often triggered by fatigue, alter one’s experiences of distance and scale.

The first work that visitors will encounter in the exhibition is a hyper realistic sculpture of a female gallery assistant slumped over the reception desk, seemingly asleep. The surreal presentation that follows in the exhibition spaces, where objects appear out of scale, could be a vision or dream playing out in her mind, in which visitors are the protagonists.

The main gallery space will feature new sculptural works and wall pieces—works from the duo’s Sky Target series—that probe the boundaries of the real and the reflected, the seen and the sensed. In their circular Sky Target paintings, fragments of clouds drifting across blue skies are rendered on mirror polished stainless steel disks. The skies are partially obscured by reflective surfaces, allowing viewers to glimpse themselves within illusory “heavens.” Each Sky Target is named after a specific location that the artists have visited. Two circular wall works, which the artists refer to as “stripe paintings,” will also be on view. In these works, vertical bands revealing airplanes and their contrails in the sky alternate with equally sized bands of mirrored strips, creating a rhythm of image and reflection. The tension between transparency and opacity, and representation and self-awareness, is heightened by the viewer’s shifting position within the space.

Two figurative sculptures carved in marble will be presented on the floor of both the main and adjacent galleries. One of these works depicts two young men, both wearing VR goggles, embracing—physically close but mentally elsewhere. The other shows a young man seated with headphones, absorbed in his own auditory reality. These figures embody the contemporary condition of disconnection, amplified by digital mediation. The immateriality of the digital experiences represented in both works is contrasted with their medium, marble, a historically significant and physically durable material that is deeply rooted in the tradition of sculpture.

The Alice in Wonderland Syndrome invites visitors into a mise en abyme of visual and spatial contradictions. While much of our reality has been compressed into the format of an iPhone screen, Elmgreen & Dragset continue their investigations into how physical environments shape our sense of self and how bodily presence still plays an important role in the way we interact with our surroundings.

We often have done what we call ‘dressing the white cube up in drag.’ You change its identity for at least a certain period.

Michael Elmgreen, (opens in a new window) Vogue

Films

Experiencing The Alice in Wonderland Syndrome with Elmgreen & Dragset

The artistic duo Elmgreen & Dragset takes us on a journey through their first solo exhibition in Los Angeles in this new film. “This is an exhibition where you as a visitor become very aware of yourself being in the gallery space,” Ingar Dragset says. “A lot of the works are reflecting both you and the space around you.”

Il Cielo Sopra Venezia by Elmgreen & Dragset

The Sky Over Vancouver by Elmgreen & Dragset

The Sky Over Marfa by Elmgreen & Dragset

Toronto - Los Angeles by Elmgreen & Dragset

Il Cielo Sopra Venezia (1:2) by Elmgreen & Dragset

Berlin - New York (1:2) by Elmgreen & Dragset

The Sky Over Vancouver (1:2) by Elmgreen & Dragset

The Other David (1:2) by Elmgreen & Dragset

The Sky Over Marfa (1:2) by Elmgreen & Dragset

Toronto - Los Angeles (1:2) by Elmgreen & Dragset

Pace Live

Elmgreen & Dragset in Conversation with Ottessa Moshfegh

Author Ottessa Moshfegh joins the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset for a Pace Live conversation, reflecting on their mutual motivations and inspirations as well as their interest in exploring states of suspension, alienation, and the uncanny.

About the Artists

Elmgreen & Dragset pursue questions of identity and belonging and investigate social, cultural, and political structures in their artistic practice. They are interested in the discourse that can ensue when objects are radically re-contextualized and traditional modes for the representation of art are altered. Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are based in Berlin and have worked together as an artist duo since 1995.

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EXHIBITION DETAILS

Elmgreen & Dragset
The Alice in Wonderland Syndrome
Sep 13 – Oct 25, 2025

GALLERY

1201 South La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles

PRESS

Press Release

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(opens in a new window) @elmgreenanddragsetstudio
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Elmgreen & Dragset

The Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

Films

Experiencing The Alice in Wonderland Syndrome with Elmgreen & Dragset

Checklist

Pace Live

Elmgreen & Dragset in Conversation with Ottessa Moshfegh

About the Artists

EXHIBITION DETAILS

GALLERY

PRESS

CONNECT

Journal

Elmgreen & Dragset in Conversation with Ottessa Moshfegh

Experiencing “The Alice in Wonderland Syndrome” with Elmgreen & Dragset

Elmgreen & Dragset: The Audience at Prada Mode

Elmgreen & Dragset in Vogue