Olafur Eliasson (; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scaled installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's experience. In 1995, Olafur established Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research. In 2014, Olafur and his long-time collaborator – German architect Sebastian Behmann – founded Studio Other Spaces, an office for architecture and art. Olafur represented Denmark at the 50th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

in 2003 and later that year installed '' The Weather Project'', which has been described as "a milestone in contemporary art", in the Turbine Hall of

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

, London. Olafur has engaged in a number of public projects, including the intervention ''Green river'', carried out in various cities between 1998 and 2001; the

Serpentine Gallery The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Westminster, Greater London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Galler ...

Pavilion 2007, London, a temporary pavilion designed with the Norwegian architect Kjetil Trædal Thorsen; and ''The New York City Waterfalls'', commissioned by Public Art Fund in 2008. Olafur also created the Breakthrough Prize trophy. Like much of his work, the sculpture explores the common ground between art and science. It is molded into the shape of a

toroid In mathematics, a toroid is a surface of revolution with a hole in the middle. The axis of revolution passes through the hole and so does not intersect the surface. For example, when a rectangle is rotated around an axis parallel to one of its ...

, recalling natural forms found from black holes and galaxies to seashells and coils of DNA. Olafur was a professor at the

Berlin University of the Arts The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the second largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research uni ...

from 2009 to 2014 and has been an adjunct professor at the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design in Addis Ababa since 2014. His studio is based in Berlin, Germany.

Life and career

Early life and education

Olafur Eliasson was born in Copenhagen in 1967 to Elías Hjörleifsson and Ingibjörg Olafsdottir.Cynthia Zarin (November 13, 2006)
Seeing Things: The art of Olafur Eliasson
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

''. His parents had emigrated to Copenhagen from Iceland in 1966, his father to find work as a cook and his mother as a seamstress. He was 8 when his parents separated.Dorothy Spears (September 2, 2007)
Thinking Glacially, Acting Artfully
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. He lived with his mother and his stepfather, a stockbroker. His father, then an artist, moved back to Iceland, where their family spent summers and holidays. At 15, Olafur had his first solo show where he exhibited landscape drawings and gouaches at a small alternative gallery in Denmark. However, Olafur considered his "break-dancing" during the mid-1980s to be his first artworks. With two school friends, he formed a group that called themselves the Harlem Gun Crew and with whom he performed at clubs and dance halls for four years, eventually winning the Scandinavian championship. Olafur studied at the

Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts () has provided education in the arts for more than 250 years, playing its part in the development of the art of Denmark. History The Royal Danish Academy of Portraiture, Sculpture, and Architecture in Cope ...

from 1989 to 1995. In 1990, when he was awarded a travel budget by the Royal Danish Academy, Olafur went to New York where he started working as a studio assistant for artist Christian Eckart in

Williamsburg, Brooklyn Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordered by Greenpoint to the north; Bedford–Stuyvesant to the south; Bushwick and East Williamsburg to the east; and the East River to the west. It was an independe ...

, and reading texts on phenomenology and

Gestalt psychology Gestalt psychology, gestaltism, or configurationism is a school of psychology and a theory of perception that emphasises the processing of entire patterns and configurations, and not merely individual components. It emerged in the early twent ...

.Christopher Bagley (July 2007)
From the Archives: Olafur Twist
'' W''.

Artistic career

Olafur received his degree from the academy in 1995, after having moved in 1993 to Cologne for a year, and then to Berlin, where he has since maintained a studio.Peter Schjeldahl (28 April 2008)
''Uncluttered. An Olafur Eliasson retrospective.''
''

''. First located in a three-story former train depot right next door to the

Hamburger Bahnhof Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart is the former Train station#Terminus, terminus of the Berlin–Hamburg Railway in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstrasse in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as ...

, the studio moved to a former brewery in

Prenzlauer Berg Prenzlauer Berg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin, forming the southerly and most urban district of the borough of Pankow. From its founding in 1920 until 2001, Prenzlauer Berg was a district of Berlin in its own right ...

in 2008. In 1996, Olafur started working with Einar Thorsteinn, an architect and

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

expert 25 years his senior as well as a former friend of

Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...

. The first piece they created called ''8900054'', was a stainless-steel dome wide and high, designed to be seen as if it were growing from the ground. Though the effect is an illusion, the mind has a hard time believing that the structure is not part of a much grander one developing from deep below the surface. Thorsteinn's knowledge of

and

space Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. Modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless ...

has been integrated into Olafur's artistic production, often seen in his geometric lamp works as well as his pavilions, tunnels and camera obscura projects. For many projects, the artist works collaboratively with specialists in various fields, among them the architects Thorsteinn and Sebastian Behmann (both of whom have been frequent collaborators, Behmann working on the Kirk Kapital headquarters on

Vejle Fjord Vejle Fjord is an East Jutland-type fjord in Denmark. It is approximately in length, and it stretches east from the town of Vejle at its head to the towns of Trelde Næs on the south side and Juelsminde on the north side at the mouth. The fjord ...

in Denmark, completed in 2018), author

Svend Åge Madsen Svend Åge Madsen ( born 2 November 1939) is a Danish novelist. He studied mathematics before he began writing fiction. His novels are generally philosophical and humorous. Several of his works have been made into films in Denmark. His writings ...

(''The Blind Pavilion''), landscape architect Gunther Vogt (''The Mediated Motion''), architecture theorist

Cedric Price Cedric Price FRIBA (11 September 1934 – 10 August 2003) was an English architect and influential teacher and writer on architecture. Early life and education The son of the architect A.G. Price, who worked with Harry Weedon, Price was b ...

(''Chaque matin je me sens différent, chaque soir je me sens le même''), and architect Kjetil Thorsen (Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, 2007). Studio Olafur Eliasson, which the artist founded as a "laboratory for spatial research", employs a team of architects, engineers, craftsmen, and assistants (some 30 members as of 2008) who work together to conceive and construct artworks such as installations and sculptures, as well as large-scale projects and commissions. Olafur is influenced by

Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...

, as well as

James Turrell James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. He is considered the "master of light" often creating art installations that mix natural light with artificial color through openings ...

and Robert Irwin. As professor at the

, Olafur Eliasson founded the Institute for Spatial Experiments ( Institut für Raumexperimente, IfREX), which opened within his studio building in April 2009. ''Huffington Post'' named Olafur one of "18 green artists who are making climate change and conservation a priority."

Selected works and projects

''Beauty'' (1993)

Nadine Wojcik, after attending the ''In real life'' exhibition in 2019, dubbed ''Beauty'' (1993) a "simple yet powerful water installation that evokes a rainbow via spotlights.” Anna Souter called the work "a reminder of the intensely fragile beauty of the natural world and its elements. .. it’s simply and superbly beautiful".

''Ventilator'' pieces

Early works by Olafur consist of oscillating electric fans hanging from the ceiling. ''Ventilator'' (1997) swings back and forth and around, rotating on its axis. ''Quadrible light ventilator mobile'' (2002–2007) is a rotating electrically powered mobile comprising a searchlight and four fans blowing air around the exhibition room and scanning it with the light cone. In a 2008 review of the ''Take Your Time'' retrospective (at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

), Peter Schjeldahl dubbed ''Ventilator'' "a witty finesse of the MOMA atrium’s space-splurging grandiosity"

''The weather project''

''The weather project'' was installed at the London's

in 2003 as part of the popular Unilever series. The installation filled the open space of the gallery's Turbine Hall. Olafur used humidifiers to create a fine mist in the air via a mixture of sugar and water, as well as a semicircular disc (reflected by the ceiling mirror to appear circular) made up of hundreds of

monochromatic A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, mon ...

lamps which radiated yellow light. The ceiling of the hall was covered with a huge

mirror A mirror, also known as a looking glass, is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror forms an image of whatever is in front of it, which is then focused through the lens of the eye or a camera ...

, in which visitors could see themselves as tiny black shadows against a mass of orange light symbolizing the sun. Many visitors responded to this exhibition by lying on their backs and waving their hands and legs. Art critic Brian O'Doherty described this as viewers "intoxicated with their own narcissism as they ponder themselves elevated into the sky.""Public Spectacle: Mark Godfrey and Rosie Bennett talk to Brian O'Doherty," ''Frieze,'' issue 80, Jan./Feb. 2004, p. 56. ''The Weather Project'' was highly successful. Open for six months, the work reportedly attracted two million visitors, many of whom were repeat visitors. O'Doherty was positive about the piece when talking to ''Frieze'' magazine in 2003, saying that it was "the first time I've seen the enormously dismal space—like a coffin for a giant—socialized in an effective way." ''The Telegraph'''s Richard Dorment praised its "beauty and power". It remains his most famous work and ranked 11th in a poll by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' of the best art since 2000, with Jonathan Jones describing Olafur as "one of the century’s most significant artists.". The Weather Project attempted to give viewers the impression that they were near the sun inside the clouds, but in actuality, a large semicircle was suspended from a mirror ceiling, giving the impression that the reflection was a full circle. The mirrors on the ceiling produced the image of the space below that was visible. The audience completed the effect by frequently being observed lying down on their backs, staring at the ceiling, and making various motions to observe their reflections. This was done by both adults and children.

Light installations

Olafur has been developing various experiments with atmospheric density in exhibition spaces. In ''Room For One Colour'' (1998), a corridor lit by low pressure sodium lamps, the participants find themselves in a room filled with monochromatic yellow light which affects their perception of colours. Another installation, ''360 degrees Room For All Colours'' (2002), is a round light-sculpture where participants lose their sense of space and perspective, and experience being subsumed by an intense light. Olafur's later installation ''Din blinde passager (Your blind passenger)'' (2010), commissioned by the

Arken Museum of Modern Art ARKEN Museum of Modern Art () is a state-authorised private non-profit charity and contemporary art museum in Ishøj, near Copenhagen. The museum is among Denmark's major contemporary and modern art collections, holding a variety of international ...

, is a 90-metre-long tunnel. Entering the tunnel, the visitor is surrounded by dense fog. With visibility at just 1.5 metres, museumgoers have to use senses other than sight to orient themselves in relation to their surroundings. After attending the 2019 ''In real life'' exhibition, Souter deemed ''Your blind passenger'' one of Olafur's finest works, reporting that she felt "alone in the universe. ..I thought I could see my own irises, flashing as a ring of blue in front of me, and I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears." For ''Feelings are facts'', the first time Olafur has worked with Chinese architect Yansong Ma as well as his first exhibition in China, Olafur introduces condensed banks of artificially produced fog into the gallery of Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing. Hundreds of fluorescent lights are installed in the ceiling as a grid of red, green, and blue zones.

''Green river''

In 1998, Olafur discovered that uranin, a readily available nontoxic powder used to trace leaks in plumbing systems, could dye entire rivers a sickly fluorescent green. Olafur conducted a test run in the Spree River during the 1998

Berlin Biennale The Berlin Biennale (full name: Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art) is a contemporary art exhibition, which has been held at various locations in Berlin, Germany, every two to three years since 1998. ...

, scattering a handful of powder from a bridge near

Museum Island The Museum Island (, ) is a museum complex on the northern part of Spree (river), Spree Island in the Mitte (locality), historic heart of Berlin, Germany. It is one of the capital's most visited sights and one of the most important museum sites ...

. He began introducing the environmentally safe dye to rivers in

Moss, Norway Moss is a coastal List of cities in Norway, town and a Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Østfold Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Moss. The city of Moss was established as a ...

(1998), Bremen (1998), Los Angeles (1999),

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

(2000) and Tokyo (2001) — always without advance warning. He first achieved international prominence with ''Green river'', which initially made Stockholm pedestrians concerned that the city's water had been tainted.

''Riverbed''

At Denmark's

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, also known as the Louisiana, is an art museum located north of Copenhagen, Denmark. Attracting over 700,000 guests annually, the Louisiana is Scandinavia's most visited museum for Modern art, modern and contempor ...

in 2014–2015, Olafur created a riverbed installation. He compiled natural rocks, dirt, and water to transform the gallery space into a landscape and titled the piece, "''Riverbed''". Olafur captures physical phenomena in a way that appears both real and slightly artificial, while contained in a constructed space that invites viewers to participate. ''Riverbed'' becomes an immersive experience, using all five senses, in which the individuals can either follow or curiously step away from. Freedom exists in both of these actions, allowing the participant to discover a paradox or enter a void, questioning their true freedom and will happening within a designed system. In a 2014 review of the exhibition, Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner said that Olafur "cuts us off from the surroundings and imports a different and rough beauty"; they described the view of the stony landscape as "meticulously framed". However, they also speculated that Olafur aimed to make viewers see Louisiana differently and failed, creating a work that differs little from Louisiana: "The question about ..how it really made us see things in new ways is still unanswered."

Iceland photographs

In regular intervals, Olafur presents grids of various color photographs, all taken in Iceland. Each group of images focuses on a single subject: volcanoes, hot springs and huts isolated in the wilderness.

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times. Education and early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawre ...

(November 15, 2012)
Art in Review; Olafur Eliasson: ‘Volcanoes and shelters’
''

''. In his very first series he attempted to shoot all of Iceland's bridges. A later series from 1996 documented the aftermath of a volcanic eruption under the

Vatnajökull Vatnajökull ( Icelandic pronunciation: , literally "Glacier of Lakes"; sometimes translated as Vatna Glacier in English) is the largest and most voluminous ice cap in Iceland, and the second largest in area in Europe after the Severny Island i ...

. Often these photographs are shot from the air, in a small rented plane traditionally used by mapmakers. Arranged in a grid, the photographs recall the repetitive images of the German photographers

Bernd and Hilla Becher Bernhard "Bernd" Becher (; 20 August 1931 – 22 June 2007), and Hilla Becher, née Wobeser (2 September 1934 – 10 October 2015), were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their e ...

''Your black horizon''

This project, a light installation commissioned for the

by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in collaboration with British architect

David Adjaye Sir David Frank Adjaye (born 22 September 1966) is a Ghanaian-British architect who has designed many notable buildings around the world, including the National Museum of African American History, National Museum of African American History and ...

, was shown from 1 August to 31 October 2005 on the island of San Lazzaro in the lagoon near Venice, Italy. A temporary pavilion was constructed on the grounds of the monastery to house the exhibit, consisting of a square room painted black with one source of illumination–a thin, continuous line of light set into all four walls of the room at the viewers eye-level, serving as a horizontal division between above and below. In 2007, the pavilion was relocated to the island of Lopud, Croatia near the city of

Dubrovnik Dubrovnik, historically known as Ragusa, is a city in southern Dalmatia, Croatia, by the Adriatic Sea. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, a Port, seaport and the centre of the Dubrovni ...

. Since then, it has on several occasions reopened to the public.

''Your mobile expectations: BMW H2R project''

Olafur was commissioned by

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

in 2007 to create the sixteenth art car for the BMW Art Car Project. Based on the hydrogen-powered BMW H2R concept vehicle, Olafur and his team removed the automobile's alloy body and instead replaced it with a new interlocking framework of reflective steel bars and mesh. Layers of ice were created by spraying approximately 530 gallons of water during a period of several days upon the structure. On display, the frozen sculpture is glowing from within. ''Your mobile expectations: BMW H2R project'' was on special display in a temperature controlled room at the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

from 2007 to 2008 and at the

Pinakothek der Moderne The Pinakothek der Moderne (, '' Pinakothek of the Modern'') is a modern art museum, situated in central Munich's '' Kunstareal''. The building Designed by German architect Stephan Braunfels, the Pinakothek der Moderne was inaugurated in Se ...

, Munich, in 2008.

''The New York City Waterfalls''

Olafur was commissioned by The Public Art Fund to create four man-made waterfalls, called ''The New York City Waterfalls'', ranging in a height from 90 to 120 ft., in

New York Harbor New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of the Hudson River near the East River tidal estuary on the East Coast of the United States. New York Harbor is generally synonymous with Upper New York Bay, ...

. The installation ran from 26 June through 13 October 2008. At $15.5 million, it was the most expensive

public art Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...

s project since

Christo and Jeanne-Claude Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks a ...

's installation of ''

The Gates ''The Gates'' was a site-specific work of art by Bulgarian artist Christo Yavacheff and French artist Jeanne-Claude, known jointly as Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The artists installed 7,503 steel " gates" along of pathways in Central Park in N ...

'' in

Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...

''The Parliament of Reality''

Dedicated on 15 May 2009, this permanent sculpture stands at

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...

, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. The installation is based on the original Icelandic parliament,

Althing The (; ), anglicised as Althingi or Althing, is the Parliamentary sovereignty, supreme Parliament, national parliament of Iceland. It is the oldest surviving parliament in the world. The Althing was founded in 930 at ('Thing (assembly), thing ...

i, one of the world's earliest democratic forums. The artist envisions the project as a place where students and visitors can gather to relax, discuss ideas, or have an argument. The parliament of reality emphasizes that negotiation should be the core of any educational scheme. The man-made island is surrounded by a 30-foot circular lake, 24 trees, and wild grasses. The island is composed of a cut-bluestone,

compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with No ...

-like floor pattern (based upon meridian lines and navigational charts), on top of which 30 river-washed boulders create an outdoor seating area for students and the public to gather. The island is reached by a 20-foot-long stainless steel lattice-canopied bridge, creating the effect that visitors are entering a stage or outdoor forum. Frogs gather in this wiry mesh at night, creating an enjoyable symphony.

''Colour experiment paintings'' (2009–)

For his ongoing series of ''Colour experiment paintings'' – which began in 2009 – Olafur started analyzing pigments, paint production and application of colour in order to mix paint in the exact colour for each nanometre of the visible light spectrum. This body of work features color wheels that are created in a variety of spectrums. He also explores the work of

Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (; 5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a German Romanticism, German Romantic Landscape painting, landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation, whose often symbolic, and anti ...

. In 2014, Olafur analyzed seven paintings by

J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbu ...

to create ''Turner colour experiments'', which isolate and record Turner's use of light and colour. In April 2023, his artwork ''Colour experiment no. 114'' was used as the artwork for the Peter Gabriel song " i/o", from the forthcoming album of the same name.

''Harpa''

Olafur designed the facade of Harpa,

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

's new concert hall and conference centre which was completed in 2011. In close collaboration with his studio team and Henning Larsen Architects, the designers of the building, Olafur has designed a unique facade consisting of large quasi bricks, a stackable twelve sided module in steel and glass. The facade will reflect the city life and the different light composed by the movements of the sun and varying weather. During the night the glass bricks are lit up by different colored LED lights. The building was opened on 13 May 2011, and garnered acclaim.

''Your rainbow panorama''

Olafur's artwork ''Your rainbow panorama'' consists of a circular, long and wide corridor made of glass in every color of the spectrum. It has a diameter of and is mounted on high columns on top of the roof of the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum in

Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus municipality, Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and app ...

. It opened in May 2011. Visitors can walk through the corridor and have a panoramic view of the city. Construction cost 60 million

Danish kroner The krone (; plural: ''kroner''; currency sign, sign: kr.; ISO 4217, code: DKK) is the official currency of Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands, introduced on 1 January 1875. Both the ISO code "DKK" and currency sign "kr." are in common ...

and was funded by the Realdania foundation. Olafur's idea was chosen in 2007 among five other proposals in a bidding process by a panel of judges. At night the artwork is lit from the inside by spotlights in the floor.

''Moon''

In November 2013, at the Falling Walls Conference, Olafur presented with

Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei ( ; , IPA: ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been ...

their collaboration ''Moon'', an open digital platform that allows users to draw on a replica of the moon via their web browser. Eliasson presented the platform as "a sphere on which you can make a mark. Not just to make a mark, but make a mark that matters to you. Make your wish, make your dream. Do something." Accessible to anyone, it attracted over 35,000 participants within the first six weeks.

''Contact''

From December 17, 2014, to February 23, 2015, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. The artworks appear as a sequence of events along a journey. Moving through passageways and expansive installations, visitors become part of a choreography of darkness, light, geometry, and reflections. Along the way, optical devices, models, and a meteorite reflect Olafur's on-going investigations into the mechanisms of perception and the construction of space.

Ice Watch Series

The relation between bodily reaction and art as well as the raising of awareness of climate change is explored in ''Ice Watch'' (2014-2018). With the installation of enormous ice blocks in various places of the world (Copenhagen in 2014, Paris in 2015 and London in 2018), Olafur responds to major Climate Change conferences and reports. With his project beginning in 2014, he transports twelve ice-blocks from the Nuup Kangerlua fjord in Greenland to the streets of Copenhagen. The ice-blocks are placed in the shape of a circle. Each ice block weighs between 1.5 and 5 tonnes. In November 2015, Olafur together with geologist Minik Rosing again transported twelve enormous blocks of ice from Greenland to Place du Panthéon in Paris. The installation was timed with the UN Climate Change Conference that was held in Paris. The installation was once again repeated in 2018, when Olafur divided a total of thirty ice-blocks between two locations in London: 24 blocks at the banks of the Tate Modern museum, and 6 blocks before the Bloomberg headquarters. Timothy Morton lists ''Ice Watch'' as an example of how art can help humans understand their relationship with nonhumans amidst ecological crisis, arguing that it "seriously stretched or went beyond prefabricated concepts, in a friendly and simple, yet deep way". Louise Hornby argued that ''Ice Watch'' has "poignancy" but also “funnels time and melting ice through the spectator’s own experience ..The imperative to watch asserts the central agency of the experiencing subject", which is unfitting because the "glaciers will melt, whether or not we see them”.

''Vertical Panorama Pavilion'' (2022)

Commissioned by Mei and Allan Warburg for the Donum Estate winery in Sonoma, California, in 2019, the ''Vertical Panorama Pavilion'' is built to accommodate up to 12 guests and inspired by the history of circular calendars. The pavilion's roof features 832 laminated panels of recycled glass in 24 colors and is supported by 12 stainless-steel columns. From afar, only the translucent rainbow glass tiled canopy can be seen.

Other projects

In 2005–2007, Olafur and classical violin maker Hans Jóhannsson completed work on the development of a new instrument, with the objective to reinterpret the traditions of 17th- and 18th-century violin making using today's technology and a contemporary visual aesthetic. Commissioned by

Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton Malletier SAS, commonly known as Louis Vuitton (, ), is a French Luxury goods, luxury fashion house and company founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton (designer), Louis Vuitton. The label's LV monogram appears on most of its products, ...

in 2006, lamps titled ''Eye See You'' were installed in the Christmas windows of Louis Vuitton stores; a lamp titled ''You See Me'' went on permanent display at

Fifth Avenue, New York. Each deliberately low-tech apparatus, of which there are about 400, is composed of a monofrequency light source and a parabolic mirror.Alix Browne (November 5, 2006)
An I for an Eye
''

New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. The magazin ...

''. All fees from the project were donated to 121Ethiopia.org, a charitable foundation initially established by Olafur and his wife to renovate an orphanage. Cynthia Zarin of ''

'' described ''Your wave is'' (2006) as a "major work". In 2007, Olafur developed the stage design for ''

Phaedra Phaedra may refer to: Mythology * Phaedra (mythology), Cretan princess, daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, wife of Theseus Arts and entertainment * Phaedra (Cabanel), ''Phaedra'' (Cabanel), an 1880 painting by Alexandre Cabanel *House of Phaedra ...

'', an opera production at the

Berlin State Opera The Staatsoper Unter den Linden ( State Opera under the Lime Trees), also known as the Berlin State Opera (), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of P ...

. In a 2008 review of the ''Take Your Time'' retrospective (at the

), Peter Schjeldahl described Olafur as far superior to other "crowd-pleasing installational artists" of his generation; he wrote that the retrospective has some filler but also "lovely, subtly disorienting effects". He praised the artist as avoiding excessive political activism and

Matthew Barney Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well ...

's "implications of mystical portent". Schjeldahl interpreted the artist as raising awareness "of the neurological susceptibilities that condition all of what we see and may think we know.” Reviewing the same retrospective, Lauren Weinberg of ''Time Out'' praised ''Beauty'' (1993); the "discomfiting" works like 1997's ''Room for one colour'' and ''Ventilator''; and the works involving the sense of smell, such as ''Moss wall'' (1994) and ''Soil quasi bricks'' (2003). She argued that ''Moss wall'' "evokes Scandinavia more powerfully than Eliasson’s dozens of photographs of rivers, caves and other natural features of Iceland, which fill one room of the show." His seventh solo exhibition, ''Volcanos and shelters'' at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, is about nature and specifically Iceland. In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', Roberta Smith praised it as his "most gimmick-free xhibitionin a while. The refreshing back-to-basics mood is a welcome break from the immersive complexities of his recent perception-altering environments.” Along with James Corner's landscape architecture firm Field Operations and architecture firm

Diller Scofidio + Renfro Diller has several uses including: People with the surname *Barry Diller (born 1942), American businessman *Burgoyne Diller (1906–1965), American abstract painter * Dwight Diller (1946–2023), American musician * Karl Diller (born 1941), Germ ...

, Olafur was part of the design team for New York's

High Line The High Line is a elevated linear park, greenway, and rail trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The High Line's design is a collaboration between James Corner Field Op ...

park. Olafur was originally supposed to create an outdoor-based artwork for the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012, were an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

; however, his proposed £1 million ($1.6 million) project ''Take A Deep Breath'' – which involved recording people breathing – was rejected due to funding problems. In 2012 Olafur and engineer Frederik Ottesen founded Little Sun, a company that produces solar powered LED lamps. In 2014 it was announced that his work ''Kissing Earth'', representing two globes, was to be placed in front of the newly built Rotterdam Centraal train station in the Netherlands. After protests by Rotterdam residents and concerns over the expected costs the impopular project was cancelled in 2016. The square in front of the station remained empty. It was reported in October 2019 that Olafur was commissioned by the German government to create a "pan-European work of art" for the German

European Council The European Council (informally EUCO) is a collegiate body (directorial system) and a symbolic collective head of state, that defines the overall political direction and general priorities of the European Union (EU). It is composed of the he ...

presidency A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified b ...

in the second half of 2020. Laura Cumming awarded the ''In real life'' survey four out of five stars, especially praising ''Your blind passenger''. She found some of the art (like the ice boulders from Greenland) didactic but still wrote, "Each piece conveys the strange extremes of Iceland with all the condensed power of a sonnet". Anna Souter, however, expressed a lukewarm view of the ''In real life'' exhibition in '' Hyperallergic'', writing that ''Room for one colour'' was more powerful at London's National Gallery than at Tate Modern and that ''Your uncertain shadow (colour)'' (2010) "feels like little more than a clever, visual trick." She also reported that some in the art world find Olafur's work unsettling because " st people like Olafur Eliasson, and many curators and critics don’t like it when most people like the same things they do." Olafur's AR Wunderkammer project, available through an app, is being used to place objects in the user's environment. These objects include burning suns, extraterrestrial rocks, and rare animals. According to ''

'', the works by Olafur that he considers highlights are ''Five Dimensional Pavilion'' (1998), ''Model room'' (2003), ''Sphere'' (2003), ''Your Invisible House'' (2003), ''The Parliament of Reality'' (2006–09), the facades of Harpa (2005–11), ''Your Rainbow Panorama'' (2006-2011), the 2007 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, ''Colour activity house'' (2010), ''The Triangular Sky'' (2013), and ''Cirkelbroen'' (2015). He deemed ''Beauty'' (1993) and ''The presence of absence pavilion'' (2019) the highlights of the 2019–2020 ''In real life'' exhibition.

Exhibitions

Olafur had his first solo show was with Nicolaus Schafhausen in Cologne in 1993, before moving to Berlin in 1994. In 1996, Olafur had his first show in the United States at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. The

(SFMOMA) organized Olafur's first major survey in the United States ''Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson'', from September 2007 to February 2008. Curated by the director of the

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art art gallery, museum near Water Tower Place in the Near North Side, Chicago, Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is on ...

, Madeleine Grynsztejn (then Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at SFMOMA), in close collaboration with the artist, the major survey spanned the artist's career from 1993 and 2007. The exhibit included site-specific installations, large-scale immersive environments, freestanding sculpture, photography, and special commissions seen through a succession of interconnected rooms and corridors. The museum's skylight bridge was turned into an installation titled ''One-way colour tunnel.'' Following its San Francisco debut, the exhibit embarked on an international tour to the

, and P.S.1. Contemporary Art Center, New York, 2008; the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, 2008–2009; the

, 2009; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2009–2010. He has also had major solo exhibitions at, among others,

Kunsthaus Bregenz The Kunsthaus Bregenz (KUB) presents temporary exhibitions of international contemporary art in Bregenz, Vorarlberg (Austria). History Commissioned by the State of Vorarlberg and designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, the Kunsthaus Br ...

, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, and ZKM (Center for Art and Media), Karlsruhe (2001); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2004); Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2006); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Ishikawa (2009); the

Martin-Gropius-Bau Martin-Gropius-Bau, commonly known as Gropius Bau, is an important exhibition space in Berlin, Germany. Originally a museum of applied arts, the building has been a listed historical monument since 1966. It is located at 7 Niederkirchnerstraße ...

, Berlin (2010) and the Langen Foundation, Museum Insel Hombroich,

Neuss Neuss (; written ''Neuß'' until 1968; ; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is on the west bank of the Rhine opposite Düsseldorf. Neuss is the largest city within the Rhein-Kreis Neuss district. It is primarily known for its ...

(2015). Olafur has also appeared in numerous group exhibitions, including the São Paulo Biennial and the

Istanbul Biennial The Istanbul Biennial is a contemporary art exhibition that has been held biennially in Istanbul, Turkey, since 1987. The Biennial has been organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) since its inception. Istanbul Biennial p ...

(1997),

(1999, 2001 and 2005), and the Carnegie International (1999),OPe

Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...

(2016), The Parliament of Possibilities at Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (2016-2017). From July 2019 to through to January 2020,

showed the exhibition ''In real life''. Until July 2025, ''Open'', held at the MOCA Geffen Contemporary, is Olafur's first major exhibition in Los Angeles which consists of installations of light and geometry including a large mirrored geodesic sphere.

Collections

Olafur's work is held in the following permanent collections: *

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...

, New York * Centre for International Light Art (CILA), Unna, Germany * Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles * Colección Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico *

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of modern art, ...

, Baltimore * SFMOMA, San Francisco

Awards

The ''Spiral Pavilion'', conceived in 1999 for the

and today on display at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, brought Olafur Eliasson the Benesse Prize by the Benesse Corporation. In 2004, Olafur won the Nykredit Architecture Prize and the

Eckersberg Medal The Eckersberg Medal (originally the ''Akademiets Aarsmedaille'' or Annual Academy Medal) is an annual award of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. It is named after Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, known as the father of Danish painting. The ...

for painting. The following year he was awarded the Prince Eugen Medal for sculpture and in 2006, the Crown Prince Couple's Culture Prize. In 2006, he received the Austrian Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts. In 2007, he was awarded the first Joan Miró Prize by the Joan Miró Foundation. In 2010, Olafur was the recipient of a

Quadriga A quadriga is a car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast and favoured for chariot racing in classical antiquity and the Roman Empire. The word derives from the Latin , a contraction of , from ': four, and ': yoke. In Latin the word is almos ...

award. He returned his award one year later after it was revealed that

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

would be recognized in 2011. In October 2013, he was honored with the

Goslarer Kaiserring Since 1975, the Goslarer Kaiserring award has been given, by the city of Goslar, to a distinguished international artist of modern and contemporary art. The award is for artists whose work has given the contemporary art significant impetus. The pr ...

. That same year, Olafur and Henning Larsen Architects were recipients of the Mies van der Rohe Award for their Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center in Reykjavik, Iceland. In 2014, Olafur was the recipient of the $100,000 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT (

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

). The prize is considered an investment in the recipient's future creative work, rather than a prize for a particular project or lifetime of achievement. The awardee becomes an artist in residence at MIT, studying and teaching for a period of time. On the occasion of a

state visit A state visit is a formal visit by the head of state, head of a sovereign state, sovereign country (or Governor-general, representative of the head of a sovereign country) to another sovereign country, at the invitation of the head of state (or ...

to Germany in June 2013, the

President of Iceland The president of Iceland () is the head of state of Iceland. The incumbent is Halla Tómasdóttir, who won the 2024 Icelandic presidential election, 2024 presidential election. The president is not involved in the running of the country, bu ...

Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson (; born 14 May 1943) is an Icelandic politician who was the fifth president of Iceland, serving from 1996 to 2016.

, visited Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin. Brazilian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz's documentary piece, ''Domingo'', shot from his encounter with Olafur during the 17th Videobrasil Festival, had its world premiere at Rio International Film Festival] in 2014, and was released on DVD in 2015.

Personal life

In 2003, Olafur married the Danish art historian Marianne Krogh Jensen, whom he met when she curated the Danish Pavilion for the 1997 São Paulo Art Biennial. They adopted both their son (in 2003) and their daughter (in 2006) in

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...

, Ethiopia. The family had lived in a house designed by architect Andreas Lauritz Clemmensen in

Hellerup Hellerup () is a very affluent district of Gentofte Municipality in the suburbs of Copenhagen, Denmark. The most urban part of the district is centred on Strandvejen and is bordered by Østerbro to the south and the Øresund to the east. It compr ...

near Copenhagen, but Olafur and Jensen are no longer married. Olafur currently lives and works in Berlin. Olafur speaks Icelandic, Danish, German, and English. He also has a younger half-sister named Victoria Eliasdottir who is a chef. On 22 September 2019, Olafur was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador by the

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towar ...

"to advocate for urgent action on

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

and

sustainable development goals The ''2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development'', adopted by all United Nations (UN) members in 2015, created 17 world Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim of these global goals is "peace and prosperity for people and the planet" – wh ...

." In the context of his appointment, Olafur emphasized the need to stay positive: "I also think it's important not to lose sight of what is actually going quite well. There is reason for hope. I believe in hope as such and I'm generally a positive person. And when you think about it: it has never been better to be a young African girl, for instance."

References

External links

*
Video of Olafur Eliasson conference: The Sun has no money

MoMA 2008: ''Olafur Eliasson: take your time''
(requires Flash Player)
1998 article from ''frieze''

Tate Modern: ''The Weather Project''

SFMOMA 2007: Olafur Eliasson Survey

(requires Flash Player)
Olafur Eliasson: Your Mobile Expectations

Olafur Eliasson at the Fundación NMAC

''A Riverbed Inside The Museum''. An interview with Olafur Eliasson, 2014
Video by Louisiana Channel * *
Olafur Eliasson: Playing with space and light (TED2009)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eliasson, Olafur Danish contemporary artists Artists from Copenhagen Danish installation artists

Olafur Eliasson Olafur Eliasson (; born 5 February 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptured and large-scaled installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's experience. In 1995, ...

Danish people of Icelandic descent Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts alumni Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin 20th-century Danish male artists 21st-century Danish sculptors 21st-century Danish male artists 20th-century Danish sculptors Male sculptors

Recipients of the Eckersberg Medal Recipients of the Prince Eugen Medal Recipients of the Crown Prince Couple's Culture Prize Danish expatriates in Germany 1967 births Living people Honorary members of the Royal Academy Wolf Prize in Arts laureates Academic staff of the Berlin University of the Arts