Olafur Eliasson: Your Contemporary Artist

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Marshall Berg | Contemporary Art History | 5.8.11 OLAFUR ELIASSON: YOUR CONTEMORARY ARTIST I find contemporary artist Olafur Eliasson the most intriguing individual producing work today. He is constantly expanding how we look at, and act in space and time. His work engulfs the viewer, allowing them to become a participant. Eliasson uses perceptual phenomenon as an entry point that leads to much larger conceptual ideas. His work discusses physics, perception, natural and man-made phenomenon, social and cultural realms, and personal and collective experience of space and time. Eliasson incorporates elements from all the curiosities of life, and

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I find Olafur Eliasson the most intriguing individual producing work today.

Transcript of Olafur Eliasson: Your Contemporary Artist

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Marshall Berg | Contemporary Art History | 5.8.11

OLAFUR ELIASSON: YOUR CONTEMORARY ARTIST

I find contemporary artist Olafur Eliasson the most intriguing individual

producing work today. He is constantly expanding how we look at, and act in space and

time. His work engulfs the viewer, allowing them to become a participant. Eliasson uses

perceptual phenomenon as an entry point that leads to much larger conceptual ideas. His

work discusses physics, perception, natural and man-made phenomenon, social and

cultural realms, and personal and collective experience of space and time. Eliasson

incorporates elements from all the curiosities of life, and translates them into

environments, objects, and information. While creating certain situations that have never

been conceived of, he is not avant-garde. His pieces, while appearing aesthetically new,

embrace and evolve questions humanity has been asking since (and almost positively

before) ancient Greece,

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“What’s actually going on between the subject and the space – and how much of

that is happening in his space, his perception? The question of the position of the subject

within his space has become the theme of my artistic work.” 1

Eliasson creates installations that prompt participants to ask these same questions

within his mediated spaces. These experiences may stain the memories of the individuals,

because they are uniquely uncanny yet, subtly informative, activating a dichotomous

process in the mind of the individual, of experience and reflection. This cerebral reflex

constantly compares the fully sensuous now, with the curious memory of then. The

perception of the individual dictates how they will read the work. The relative experience

of the work encodes referential memories, changing how they perceive the world

following it. Experience shapes perception, and exists as the only limitation of human

development and consciousness. Eliasson searches to artistically investigate this

boundary. “I am interested in enhancing the role of art as a participant in society and find

that it can contribute with reflections of a spatial nature; it can have political, social and

aesthetic impact in non-artistic practices as well.”2

Olafur Eliasson was born in 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied at the

Royal Danish Acadamy for Fine Arts between 1989 and 1995. In an interview with 032c

Magazine he describes his first artistic endeavors, and how he started thinking about his

own creative potential. “In 1984 I was completely convinced that (my break dancing) was

art. It was pretty hardcore… My father was an artist... It doesn’t get any more banal than

that.” Upon entering art school, Eliasson started experimenting with post-modern artistic

practices surrounding phenomenology, and delved into researching Gestalt psychology.3

“When I started art school, one thing that seemed interesting to me

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about Gestaltpsychologie was that it worked with a specific idea of the

subject—the subject as a very productive entity. This was unlike

phenomenology, which had a much more formal or objective idea of

the subject. I think Gestaltpsychologie works specifically because it

also has more to do with cognitive science and neurology. This is what

triggered my interest—the idea that you could reinterpret the meaning

of the individual based on the experience of the artwork… When I read

about Gestaltpsychologie, I focused on the general, basic experiments

—about how expectations could influence the way you see very

elementary ideas.”4

With these conceptual tools Eliasson set off to smartly and

elegantly show people their perception, expanding it in the process.

Connecting ideas of relativity to social systems and reinstalling a sense

of temporality in objects and experience.

In an early project; Green River, Eliasson poured non-toxic green

dye into four international city rivers and documented them, between

1 Blessing, Joachim “Experiencing Space: Olafur Eliasson” 032c Magazine Issue #8: Space Begins Because We Look Away From Where We Are (Winter 2004/2005) 1002 Eliasson, Olafur. “Your Engagement has Consequences.” Experiment Marathon: Serpentine Gallery. Edited by Emma Ridgway. (Reykjavik: Reykjavik Art Museum, 2009) pg20.3 “Gestalt psychology attempts to understand psychological phenomena by viewing them as organized and structured wholes rather than the sum of their constituent parts. More specifically, they tried to explain human perception of groups of objects and how we perceive parts of objects and form whole objects on the basis of these.”Soegaard, Mads “Gestalt principles of form perception.” Interaction-Design.org http://www.interactiondesign.org/encyclopedia/gestalt_principles_of_form_perception.htmls (2010)4 Obrist, Hans Ulrich. “VIII — The vessel interview, part II: NetJets flight from Dubrovnik to Berlin, 2007.” Olafur Eliasson & Hans Ulrich Obrist: The Conversation Series; Vol. 13.(Edited by Matthew Gaskins. Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walter König, Köln, 2008) 163-64

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1998-2000.5 This project encompasses a vast number of ideas seen in

Eliasson’s work. A major theme being how we perceive the complexity

of our natural surroundings. For example: a person, who is familiar with

rivers, in turn takes them for granted. Our brains interpret our

experience of the specific, yet relative, life giving natural phenomenon

of fresh water flowing through the Los Angeles Metropolis in the form

of a river. In order to store it as a functional idea, our mind takes the

specific experience of the LA river, and transforms it into an illustration

of a river, which, to simplify, becomes an icon: river. The icon river,

represents the functions of the medium to humans. This globally

occurring natural event can be represented with the word; river.

Reading the word conjures up the icon, and communicates generalities

about the effects of rivers, without specifying any specific beauty,

more divine purpose of a moment, the specificity of a personal

experience. After we perceive various rivers over time, and talk about

rivers out of context, we accept our relative experience of river as “the

fact of river” and can categorize, archive, and consequently ignore

rivers, because they are known to us.

We do this constantly. It becomes the device of both social

cohesion and unrest. Relative perception results in a paradox. When

put in a social equation, the variables of lived personal truths find

different solutions to the same problem. The real solution to all

5 “Green River 1998-2000” Art Info Online http://www.artinfo.com/news/photos/1069/11758/

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problems lies in acknowledging the paradox of perception. This

unification is the point of Eliasson’s work. “If an idea only exists as a

process, the traditional definition of truth and non-truth is shattered.”6

When bright green dye is

poured into the river, the

fluid dynamics of the water

disperse the highly

concentrated pigmented

molecules throughout a

continuously growing

area of water. The color of the fluid decreases in opacity proportionally

to the dispersion. These works are naturally temporal. As the green

propagates from the source in the very large and complex water

systems of LA, Stockholm, Bremen, and Moss it breaks expectations.

Our brains work extremely hard to contextualize our world. It is

necessary for survival, it allows us to adapt in a vast amount of

situations. We perceive our actions in a specific time and place, and

through them dictate personal truth. Systems acquire and adapt to

trending relative truths. These systems enforce specific truths through

indoctrination and consequence; this forms the basis of perception and

builds the boundary of what is humanly acceptable or known. A

6 Eliasson, Olafur. “Your Engagement has Consequences.” Experiment Marathon: Serpentine Gallery. Edited by Emma Ridgway. (Reykjavik: Reykjavik Art Museum, 2009) pg 19

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phenomenon is a situation that brings that boundary into question. The

boundary is a complicated metaphorical line in the sand that artists

regularly jump over. Eliasson, on the other hand presents the line, in

an attempt to erase it completely.

Eliasson initiates his experience by first jumping over that line, exposing it, like

many other artists. This action relates to spectacle, it points to avant-garde. Eliasson has

been placed in a privileged situation to present something unique, undone, lying almost

completely out of art history. What separates him from other artists in a similar position

is he presents phenomenon in a way that simultaneously explains it, he doesn’t “isolate

the viewer,” rather, “empowers the participant.” The phenomenon draws us to the work

initially, the reveal of underlying mechanisms exposes the subtle power of the work and

ask us to “Take (Our) Time.”

If a city dweller catches the momentary

Green River, it will immediately activate their

attention. A break in the normal activates an alarm

deep in the brain, which quickly surfaces in the

consciousness. This alarm is asking: Why? Any

break in perceived reality could mark potential

danger.

Moving water represents life. It is the second most vital element to our continued

existence. Lime green color represents poison, and radioactivity. It can kill us. Eliasson

creates a situation in which people will pay attention, because of the perceived threat

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caused by combining these highly symbolic elements. If they become worried and spend

time with the piece, they will deduce an answer, one much less dramatic then initial

potential outcomes their fearful brain. As they come to a realization of phenomenon, they

start to reflect on the potentials, they ask why they just experienced this in the first place.

Eliasson exists as the pinnacle of post-modern art. By that I mean he was put into

the right time and place. Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, Germany is the closest space to

physical utopia I can imagine, as a man of similar passions. Any project is possible.

“I have two electricians, two blacksmiths, a carpenter, a furniture

builder, as well as geometricians and artists. I also have two people

who are educated in stage design and theater. Then, of course, I have

a group of architects, but even within that group there are large

differences: some of them are from the world of graphic design, some

do very sophisticated 3D-drawings, and some are more hands-on. I

have an electrical engineer, and I have a light planner. Occasionally, I

have one or two model makers, just as architectural offices do. Finally,

the office itself is divided into rather diverse areas: I have a publication

department and an archive with two or three art historians. And then

there’s the bookkeeper and a project manager. I do make crucial

decisions about what I feel is artistically important, but there are still

hundreds of decisions about bookkeeping, for instance, that I’m not

aware of. Sometimes it eats up my time to talk to everyone, but I don’t

have the feeling that it’s difficult to run. And, at the end of the day,

when I look back at what we’ve achieved, I usually feel that we’ve

been very productive.”

Not only is Studio Eliasson a factory of conceptual artistic

production that could put Worhol to shame, but also an idea

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laboratory, and a site of workshops, symposia and collaborations. He

uses his studio space to experiment with spatial phenomenon and

create a language around that exploration. I can only imagine the

studio space, from video documentation of symposia, and still images

that fill the book Small Spatial Objects.7 In his essay From Observer to

Participant Philip Ursprung describes the potential I can only imagine,

“I visited the Studio several times and on each occasion it looked different.

The first time I was there, I noticed the chassis of a BMW on which Eliasson

was working, having been commissioned to turn it into an “Art Car.” Another time,

small-format prints of photos of his most recent trip to Iceland were spread out on

large tables. From among them he was choosing suitable shots to be enlarged and

assembled in a series. The hall has a fitted kitchen and a long table, at which everyone

can eat lunch or take a break. Above the large central area is a gallery. There, a group of

about eight architects was working under the supervision of Sebastian Behmann. In the

basement is the work space of Einar Thorsteinn, an Icelandic architect, theoretician, and

artist with whom Eliasson has worked for a good ten years—their first joint project was a

pavilion built in 1996—and whose geometric models in cardboard, paper, and plastic are

among Eliasson’s many sources of inspiration. Nearby is the workshop where various

assistants assemble artworks, saw wood, solder wires, and weld metal. A

specially designed white room is used to test optical effects and find out how our

perception of objects changes when they are lit with varying shades of white light.

Everywhere there are wooden crates for transporting artworks to galleries and museum

spaces all over the world. Next to the office and administration department at

the entrance is the archive managed by Biljana Joksimovic´ . It contains files of the

numerous projects worked on since the mid-1990s, along with stacks of catalogues

and publications. And this is where data is organized, which is available to assistants

and other interested parties who want to refer back to earlier projects, whether or not

they came to fruition.”8

7 TYT Vol. 1: Small spatial experiments (Published by Studio Olafur Eliasson, November 2007)

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While most of Eliasson’s work deals in physical perception of an experience, and

a good deal of his studio effort is dedicated to creating artistic works of a temporal

nature, he also contributes to the literary discussion. His publishing department designs

catalogues for museum shows, documentation of process and product, and theory written

by the in house art historians, and Eliasson himself.

I have yet to actually encounter anything Eliasson has created, which makes me

feel somewhat naive writing this essay. Despite this fact, I feel like Eliasson has been

publishing ideas and examples that clearly communicate his intent in the work. By

publishing with such attention to detail, he reveals a massive 13-year long web of

carefully constructed historical reference. Because he is such an expert in perception, he

goes to extreme lengths to make sure he is not misinterpreted. In the process he reveals

writing and theory that communicates his genius. This part of the work can be viewed as

8 Ursprung, Philip. “From Observer to Participant: In OlafurEliasson’s Studio.” In Studio Olafur Eliasson: An Encyclopedia,10-19.

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the conceptual artist’s scientific method, and experimental journals. When Olafur writes

himself, he explains himself simply and consciously. His ideas jump off the page,

instantly translating words into concepts. He is truly inspirational.

Olafur Eliasson is a prolific artist, his experiences and media in high demand. He

has published over 45 books from his studio, and his full bibliography of essays, media,

and shows, is 45 pages long, with hundreds of references from his short 15-year career as

an artist. He has shown at the Tate Modern, ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, San

Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the MOMA, and the Venice Biannale9, among many

others. He has created architectural structures in the form of pavilions, and is presently

constructing his largest architectural project to date; the façade for Harpa Reykjavik Concert

Hall and Conference Center.10 Eliasson’s work attractively breaks down ideas, and distracts

people into enlightenment. For him the banalities of life destroy the time spent in it.

9 “Olafur Eliasson Selected Biography” http://www.olafureliasson.net/pdf/Eliasson-selectedbiography.pdf10

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Eliasson sees a way to shape the world, in which nothing is taken for granted. He seeks to

manipulate a world in which perception shapes how we interact with each other and the

environment, and in oppositely, where interaction shapes experience. Eliasson places the

participant in a specific space, creating an awareness of a moment, then, drawing

attention to how relative perception dictates that time.

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