Gregor Schneider's creepy art

This aseptic linoleum corridor by German artist Gregor Schneider is designed in the style of the hallways of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The space, with its strong disinfectant smell, evokes unpleasant associations: Is anyone being tortured behind those fake doors?

This street of a village in the Lower Rhine region appears deserted. In areas affected by brown coal mining, entire villages are emptied to be razed by giant diggers, creating ghost towns. The artist created a touching video with the surreal scenery in Garzweiler.

Schneider filmed these images in Kolkata (Calcutta), in the south of India. The video shows the construction of a temple; the streets are loud and busy. The artist reproduces this atmosphere in the Bonn Bundeskunsthalle museum, where the film is projected onto giant screens covering three walls.

Gregor Schneider is a room collector. Sometimes he takes an existing structure down to rebuild it elsewhere. Other times he creates artificial spaces that trigger uncomfortable associations. This shower is one of the stations of the Bonn exhibition, a work entitled "Bathroom," from 2004.

A small pink mattress is the only piece of furniture in this windowless room with walls covered by linoleum. It looks like a children's cell in a secret prison - either Guantanamo, or perhaps the one Josef Fritzl built to hold his own daughter captive for 24 years? In any case, the space is disturbingly creepy.

"The design principles of the artist are set in darkness," says Ulrich Loock, curator of the exhibition. Visitors also discover the rooms more clearly by going through the dark as well, such as through this tunnel leading to Schneider's children's room.

One room over, we find Gregor Schneider's "Alte Hausschlampe" lying on the floor. The conceptual artist's exhibition "Wall Before Wall" in Bonn can be seen through February 19, 2017.