Olafur Eliasson – An exceptional figure at the intersection of art, environment, and vision of the future

What does physics have to do with art? A great deal, actually just as much as physics has to do with nature. Many artists engage with nature, but relatively few with the physics within nature.

Olafur Eliasson does exactly that – creating beautiful works of art by transforming the physical phenomena in light and movement, in water and in the reflections of materials into art objects that fascinate the viewer.

Eliasson was born on February 5, 1967 in Copenhagen, then his Icelandic parents moved from the Danish capital back to their home island, where Eliasson spent his childhood.

Growing up in the small Icelandic town of Hafnarfjörður , a port city on Iceland's southwestern coast in the North Atlantic, certainly didn't hinder the artistic imagination of the inspired artist: Hafnarfjörður is considered one of the centers where Iceland's elves gather. Many Icelanders still firmly believe in their existence today, and suspected elf dwellings (and children) are treated with sensitivity.

Olafur Eliasson wanted to see himself and his Relationship to elvesBut never wanting to put it at the center of his art, he went to Copenhagen for his art studies, where he studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts until 1991.

A chance acquaintance brought Eliasson into contact with Berlin gallery owners and led to Eliasson being able to realize his first exhibition in Berlin : Tim Neuger and Burkhard Riemschneider had noticed Eliasson's works, and they exhibited him in the city, which had just been liberated by the fall of the Berlin Wall, even though they themselves still had to work on the side to finance the costs.

From 1994 onwards, Eliasson lived permanently in Berlin, where he benefited from the contacts he made with the numerous artists who had been flocking to the newly chosen capital city since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Early projects featured oscillating fans with electric drives , which were set into vibration and perhaps also rotated around their own axis. One such fan was exhibited at the first Berlin Biennale in 1998 in a historic postal carriage temporarily used for exhibition purposes; this project helped the artist gain considerable recognition in Berlin.

It fit well with Eliasson's view of art when EXPO 2000 was intended to create a "new type" of world's fair, showcasing visions of the future as well as exhibits illustrating the delicate balance between nature, humanity, and technology. One EXPO project within the framework of the "REGIONALE 2000 / EXPO Initiative OWL" was the concept of the "Garden Landscape East Westphalia-Lippe," for which Eliasson created a fragrance tunnel, bringing together strongly scented plant species from the Botanical Garden in Gütersloh.

Over time, his projects are becoming increasingly spectacular and the artist becomes increasingly interesting:
His project lasted from 1998 to 2001 Green River, in which he dyed the water in various rivers around the world green. Of course, he used a completely harmless dye, but nobody knew that: the dismayed, appeasing, or bewildered reactions of the surprised public and the equally uninformed authorities were to become part of the art.

The year 2003 marked a major breakthrough for Eliasson, when he was able to realize his “Weather Project” in the vast Turbine Hall of London’s Tate Modern. A gigantic sun made of hundreds of light bulbs illuminated the large hall, which, mirrored from the ceiling and filled with fog from a fog machine, became a grand, romantic scene that was enjoyed by 2.2 million people over six months.

In 2004, he created "Rewritings," an endless staircase that circles itself like a double helix; this walk-in artwork adorns the German headquarters of an international auditing firm in Munich. In 2005, also in Munich, he designed the glass facade for the building that houses the rehearsal stage of the Bavarian State Opera.

The completely new type of glass surface is called “Stage Window” and is made of tinted layers that are simultaneously transparent and reflect the life on the Marstallplatz square in front of it. In 2006, this was followed by “light lab,” a light installation for the roof of the Portikus, an exhibition building for contemporary art in Frankfurt am Main, which constantly changed the appearance of the Portikus for two years.

In 2008, Eliasson installed huge waterfalls at four points in Manhattan; these “New York City Waterfalls” circulated incredible amounts of water in the East River for over three months, with the energy consumption of this water cycle supposedly offset by trading in wind energy.

Also in 2008, the “Yellow Fog” was installed on the Vienna building of the Austrian Electricity Company (Österreichische AG für Elektrizitätswirtschaft), transforming the old square “Am Hof” into a stage for an hour-long performance of fog, wind, and light at dusk. This installation perfectly illustrated two of the artist's main concerns: the transformation of the view and perception of urban space through art, and the perception of time, which changes with the daily rhythm and leaves entirely different sensory impressions.

His most recent major project was the facade for the new Harpa concert hall in Reykjavík, a honeycomb-like glass installation whose dichroic glass reacts to weather and daylight, thus capturing the many different light moods that a port city on the island of Iceland offers. The concert hall opened in 2011.

Eliasson has many honors , including the Danish Crown Prince and Princess's Culture Prize and the Spanish Joan Miró Prize. In addition to his public installations, he has exhibited his art at prominent venues, such as the Berlin and Venice Biennales, the Tate Gallery in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, and the Centre for International Light Art in Unna.

And he can be seen in Berlin time and again, whether in an exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, in his gallery neugerriemschneider or directly in the urban space, e.g. with a light installation that was shown in 2005 for the opening exhibition of the new building of the Academy of Arts at Pariser Platz.

His students can experience him directly in his studio , a converted Berlin factory building where a number of other employees now work on his designs. Eliasson was appointed to the Berlin University of the Arts in 2006, and in 2009 he founded the Institute for Spatial Experiments there; however, he usually holds his university courses in his own studio.

Since 2012 he has been a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts, as an active member from whom further presence in the city is expected.

Although this dedicated artist is now mentioned in the same breath as "the greats," he does not prioritize commercial success in his work. His latest project, exhibited at the Tate Gallery in London in the summer of 2012, is called "Little Sun.".

This video also shows a small selection of his installations, giving you a glimpse into his fantastic world. Unfortunately, this video is only available in English. But the images alone speak for themselves…

more great videos, images of his works, and information about the MoMA exhibition “Take your Time” on Olafur Eliasson from 2008 directly on the New York museum's website :
Exhibition “Take your Time” on Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson's "Endless Staircase" at KPMG in Munich ;
by Oliver Raupach (own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons.