THE ART WORLD MUST CONSIDER ITS OWN ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT
Olafur Eliasson, 'In Real Life' at Guggenheim Bilbao
Olafur Eliasson has been one of my favorite artists for a long time because I am alway simply in awe with the powerful simplicity of his art, and how it so playfully reminds us all about our responsibilities to climate change, energy and migration.
This summer The Bilbao Guggenheim exhibits all the artist’s sensory rich immersive installations by clearly communicating how the art world must consider its own environmental footprint. Some highlights include:
The Studio Expanded which exhibits the interests and activities of Eliasson’s Berlin studio, which range, energetically, from the impact of big data to understanding feelings and the art of fermentation. It is a pin-board wall with post articles, images, and news clippings about different urgent issues: climate change, transhumanism, body, identities, big data, or Anthropocene.
The Model Room Helix, hemisphere, Mobius strip, geodesic dome, pyramid or globe: these fundamental forms support everything he creates, in conjunction with mathematicians and scientists. Here, it easy to see the way his mind has been working for over 30 years: interconnecting descending spirals, and silver kaleidoscopes.
Your Uncertain Shadow (Colour) (2010). The more people, the greater the effect.
Moss and Waves/ Moss Wall (1994) – a pale vanilla colour, delicate and springy – Scandinavian reindeer moss covers an entire gallery wall. The scent of it is sweet and clean and remembers a landscape, it fills the air with serenity. On the floor, waves of golden water flow slowly back and forth in glass channels, this is Wavemachines (1995).
LIGHT ROOM The lamps installed in the ceiling of a white room emit a single wavelength of yellow light, reducing the observer’s perception of colour to yellow, black and grey tones. As a reaction to the yellow environment, when the observer leaves the space, momentarily perceives a bluish reflection.
Geometry is one of Eliasson’s three main interests alongside the natural world and perception/sensorial experiences.