Square Wheels and Other Ideas

A crowded exhibition hall displays odd contraptions behind velvet ropes on a tiled floor patterned in bright triangles. A bicycle with square wheels hangs on the back wall beside a wind-up rocking horse fitted with an airplane propeller and a stubby model submarine. In the center, a top-hatted polishing machine buffs a giant ice cube while a second contraption peels a banana beside a clockwork rocking horse a child rides. A line of visitors in striped coats and bowler hats waits to take a turn, watched by a grey cat. Nearby, a broken umbrella riddled with holes shelters two visitors from nothing, and shelves display shattered telescopes and toy planes. On a side table, a leaking iron, a dripping toaster and a bent fan sit as failed kitchen inventions, while a man mops up a puddle of spilled green liquid below. Every roped-off exhibit here tells its own small story of an invention gone wrong.