Olafur Eliasson

Ryan C. Barbera
12/9/2018
 There are a lot of artists out there, but none of them quite come close to Olafur

Eliasson's style and his use of light. He is best known for his large-scale sculptures and

installations using natural elements. But even for someone who does things so grandiose, his

beginnings were as mundane as the could be. Eliasson was born 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

His parents separated while he was the age of eight, and he spent most of his time with his

mother. This is when he started to dabble into art. He spent summers and holidays with his father

back in Iceland, where his parents were originally from. At the age of fifteen, he entered his first

solo art show, showing off landscape drawings and gouaches at a small alternative gallery in

Denmark. In the mid-1980s, he formed a group with two school friends which they named “The

Harlem Gun Crew” and they performed at clubs and dance halls for years, eventually winning

the Scandinavian Championship. Eliasson studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts for

six years. The school is one of the oldest standing academies of the arts, being inaugurated on

March 31, 1754 as a gift for King Fredrik V on his 31st birthday. The school offers classes in the

realms of painting, sculpting, architecture, graphics, photography, and today, video.

Eliasson has a few messages and key ideals he has with all his works. His mission,

hidden under the beautiful artwork, is to make the world a better place by informing people
 about their role in globalism and environmentalism. Through this, he takes the thoughts from

something that could be fixed in our time and more toward things that need to be contemplated

for a more humanitarian future. He also strives to shake up the status quo by creating work that

creates uncertainty in someone’s mind. This transforms the role of art from something merely

nice to look at or to go see for the experience of simply seeing it into a tool for battling

complacency in art. He forces a connection to the self, using mirrors and other reflective parts in

his works to make the individual connect with the piece directly, and to put themselves directly

into the piece. His work with mediums such as air, water, light, and the environment has quickly

dissolved the boundaries for what is thought of as an artistic medium.

The first work of his I looked into detail on was ​Contact is Content at Seljalandsfoss,

which was published in 2014. There is currently a copy in the Tate Museum of Modern Art, but

others were bought by private collectors and the like. The piece consists of two reversed

C-Prints put end to end. They are actually the same image, just one is flipped upside down. This

was a limited edition work, only one hundred copies of the piece was created. Most were bought

by collectors and are being sold for about four and a half thousand dollars. It depicts an image of

a waterfall in iceland, somewhere off in the countryside. This incorporates a lot of the things he

tries to work into his pieces, especially his work with the environment. Clearly, as this is an
image from the countryside somewhere, it is a large focus of this. The continuous waterfall could

also have a factor in the fact he’s trying to make people think. It seems that nature is reflecting

itself, and a perfect copy is almost unheard of in a natural setting. This piece caught my attention

for a number of reasons. The primary being the waterfall featured in the piece. I have always

been one for the outdoors, and waterfalls have always been my favorite things to see in out in

nature. They bring peace to me and have a deep connection to events in my childhood. After

looking at the piece for a while, the general look of it appealed to me. The way the waterfall

seems to end on both ends made me calm for reasons I can’t really explain.

The second piece I looked into was ​Your reversed Berlin Sphere​, done in 2015. The piece

is a C-Print with a color-effect filter made of blue glass. The C-print is that of the Berlin skyline,

with the distorting glass in the middle. The glass flips the image and adds a dark blue tint to the

entire middle circle portion of the piece. The piece is also held in the Tate Museum of Modern
 Art. This adds an interesting juxtaposition between the seemingly morning skyline of the city

and the skyline that is flipped and seems to look like it is taken at night-time. This should make

you ponder why the city is flipped on its head per say, and what caused that to happen. This is

Eliasson’s style coming through again, although much more geared toward making you think

about what could happen if humanity keeps along the path it is currently on and what impact that

could have on our world and the cities we live in. I was mostly drawn to this piece because of the

skyline. I have lived in big cities all of my life and seeing a similar skyline was a sight for sore

eyes. This, coupled with the fact that the color blue has always been able to catch my eye played

into the fact of the piece catching my eye. Nothing about the deeper meaning of the piece really

caught me at all, but that thing has never really had a connection with me.

The last piece that caught my eye, that I will be going over at least, is ​Eye See You,​ 2006.

This is a series of lights under visual distortion glass that has been colored blue and yellow.

There are sheets of aluminium under the glass that make the lights change direction and form

into strange curving lines. It seems that the piece has made its way around, with several

showings in different exhibitions over the years. Currently a model rests at Tate Museum of
 Modern Art, while others are either still being made or have been sold to collectors. The thing

that caught my eye with this piece is the vibrant colors and use of light. This uses one of his

biggest signature elements, the light, really well. With the glass and metal reflecting the light, it

gets really intense on the eyes almost making you look around the piece because it almost hurts

to look at one part for to long. This brings up one question I would love to ask Eliasson, and that

is simply, “How do you get ideas for your pieces?” I know, like writing, that coming up with the

idea and the theory behind it is much harder then actually putting it together. And he seems to

have a pretty set way of doing things, so I would love to know his method.

In conclusion, Olafur Eliasson is an amazing artist. He started from humble beginnings in

the middle of nowhere. He started his career at a young age, and continues to impress. His use of

elements such as water, light, and air have opened up doors for lots of artists to come. His work

will make people question what they can do to improve the world as long as they have the ability

to see and ponder.

Works Cited

Beauman, Ned. “Olafur Eliasson on How to Do Good Art.” ​The New York Times​, The New
York Times, 21 Dec. 2017,
www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/t-magazine/olafur-eliasson-interview-fondation-louis-vuitt
on.html.

“Olafur Eliasson.” ​Designboom | Architecture & Design Magazine,​

www.designboom.com/tag/olafur-eliasson/.

“Olafur Eliasson.” ​Wikipedia,​ Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Nov. 2018,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olafur_Eliasson.

“Olafur Eliasson - 126 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy.” ​11 Artworks, Bio & Shows on
Artsy​, Artsy, www.artsy.net/artist/olafur-eliasson.

“Olafur Eliasson Overview and Analysis.” ​The Art Story​,

www.theartstory.org/artist-eliasson-olafur.htm.

“Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.” ​Wikipedia​, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Nov. 2018,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Danish_Academy_of_Fine_Arts.

“Studio Olafur Eliasson.” ​Studio Olafur Eliasson​, www.olafureliasson.net/.