I can't believe it's already December, I am looking forward to all the Christmas parties I have been invited to, something to look forward to. At the same time the election is just around the corner and frankly I and many others are sick and tired of it already; the politicians making promises to get votes and than switching as soon as they get in power and the uncertainty of Brexit, but I am not sure the election will bring any clarity, we might get a hang Parliament instead. I went to my first Christmas party yesterday in a swanky hotel and I received my first Christmas present, that cheered me up.
Before completing the photography project at Photofusion. I went to to see the exhibition by Olafur Eliasson (Danish-Icelandic artist) at Tate Modern. The exhibition has 40 + of his works of art dating from the 1990's till nowadays, including installations, sculptures, photography, paintings. These included materials such as: reflective metals, colour gels, moss, water, light and air temperature. The works I liked best are the installations where you have to use your senses to engage with the work. His installations bring nature, and the elements inside the gallery space, but at the same time he challenges your perspective and how you relate to the environment, by artificially changing things, for example in the room titled 'Beauty 1993'; here droplets of water come down from the ceiling, and depending on the angle you might see a rainbow; the floor was not hard but was made of soft material, also with the use of light, in a darkened room it played with your vision. I was unnerved by the soft floor as it was slightly affecting my balance, in a gentle way ( having vertigo obviously does not help), while walking around and at the same time watching the rain falling; but this was actually relaxing and peaceful. I really enjoyed this exhibit and it expanded my field of vision.
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| Beauty 1993 By Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori |
Next to it was a work consisting of a mirror hanging from the ceiling and another convex glass mirror; you looked into it and it distorted you and gave multiple images see pic. below.
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| Works by Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori |
In the following room unfortunately the work called 'No nights in summer no days in winter 1994' see pic. below, was not functioning, which was disappointing. I think they should have given a discount because there was another work in another room that also was not working that day...
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| Work by Olafur Eliasson courtesy of olafureliasson.net |
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| Your Blind Passenger by Olafur Eliasson photo courtesy of the Guardian |
So I moved forward to 'Your Blind Passenger' above, where I had to wait in a queue before entering the room and I was warned that there would be thick fog and if I felt uncomfortable I should keep going and exit. The passage is 39 metres long and filled with fog, fully experiential and unsettling. The passage is one way only but I turned it int a two way as I stood inside the room and felt I had totally lost my bearings, and I didn't know how long or wide it was before entering it, I didn't walk through it like everybody else. There weren't many people, so I just stood inside of it for a while, absorbing the atmosphere. I enjoyed the peacefulness, the subdued colour, but I completely hated the fog, I felt I could not breathe and was losing my sense of direction; this was made worse by my vertigo. It was also the only room where I could not see anybody using their phones which was great. Than instead of going forward, I went back to the entrance, to the surprise of the attendant! I was just glad I did not bump into anybody.
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| Moss Wall by Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori |
Thus I found myself back in the second room, where despite the moss on the wall I could not smell anything, called 'Moss Wall'. I was not sure if the moss on the wall was dried moss or preserved moss, it didn't really specify. The difference is that dried moss can be rehydrated and can come back to life while preserved moss is chemically treated and is no longer live. I am making this point because it made me think of his other work 'Ice Watch' which I thought was pretentious, where he brought ice blocks to melt in front of the Tate. How about as a joke we use all the ice in our freezers and drop it outside his house in Berlin just to make a point about climate change.
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| Ice Watch by Olafur Eliasson courtesy of olafureliasson.net |
Than I found myself in the middle room which includes most of the photographs he took of the glaciers, his sculptures, watercolours all to do with glaciers. It felt cluttered, it didn't really flow with the rest of the experiential installations in the previous rooms which were really good. Where was the curating in this room? The display of the photographs, close together, all with the same coloured frames didn't make me want to look at them any further.
So I went back to the room with the 'Moss Wall 1994' and I saw lying on the floor the work 'Wavemachines 1995', four long squared tubes filled with a yellow liquid fitted with a mini motor that produces tiny waves.
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| Wavemachines 1995 by Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori |
Than someone from my group told me I had missed the candle burning against a circular mirror?? Work called I 'Grew Up in Solitude and Silence 1991'.
Where was it? By than I had moved to 'The Spiral Room 2002' see pic. below, an 8 metre kaleidoscopic long tunnel that plays again with your perception and senses by the way it is constructed, and the reflecting metal distorts your image when you enter it. It's fun like the rest of his kaleidoscopic work. There was controversy with this work because it is accessed by steps with no wheelchair access! I was also surprised that neither the Tate nor the artist thought to put a VR headset to make the work accessible to disabled people so they could at least experience it in that way.
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| The Spiral Room 2002 by Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori |
Anyway when I entered the work someone behind me lost their footing while taking the endless
selfies and she landed on the external wall and the whole work shook inside to the concern of all of us and of the attendant outside!... I was glad to get out of there in one piece.
The last room contained the work 'Your Uncertain Shadow', by then actually I was not sure anymore in which room I was as I felt so disorientated and over stimulated by the previous works. In Your Uncertain Shadow consists of five different colours of light streams projected onto the wall; the viewer steps in front of these beams to create shadows.
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| Your Uncertain Shadow by Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori |
Following this is the expanded studio that gives an example of activities and the atmosphere of the artist's studio in Berlin. I was interested by the project 'Little Sun', a solar light planned by Eliasson for remote communities.
I would say overall the exhibition was an Instagram paradise, people all round me were taking loads of pictures of themselves inside the installations, even to the point of being annoying. His strongest works are the experiential installations, the playfulness side of them, where he brings outdoor nature inside the gallery space; while I found his climate change work less effective. The juxtaposition of the artificial man-made installations that use energy, doesn't sit well with the climate change works to do with global heating.
