Becoming Olafur eliasson
The starting point for Becoming is research of an artist. From a “lucky dip” draw, we were given an artist to go and research in groups of three. After drawing, we set to Google the name of Olafur Eliasson, an artist of Icelandic origin who deals with very large installations. With the information, we delivered a presentation to the class, which has been adapted to display better in this booklet.
Presentation growing up
personality
Eliasson was born to Icelandic parents and grew up on a farm in Denmark. The unique terrain in Denmark, and Iceland even more so, informed his interest in nature as artistic material. During the mid 1980’s, he took great pride in break-dancing, becoming the champion of Scandinavia and now considers it his first artworks.
These phrases best describe what we found out about Eliasson as a person. For a high profile artist, he’s the opposite of egotistical, caring only about taking part in exciting experimentations and showing people something new.
He went on to study at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art in Copenhagen between 1989 and 1995, and now teaches there in-between projects.
- Christopher bagley “Mild-mannered” “Finds even success, let alone Celebrity, embarrassing” “He keeps his biography private. He finds writers overemphasise writings on artist’s work”
-Madeleine Grynsztejn “In this increasingly technological era, art often separates us from our bodies and senses. Here is somebody who constantly refuses that, and who constantly returns us to a visceral, present-tense experience.”
WORK
THE WEATHER PROJECT
The Weather project is Eliasson’s most wellknown installation, held in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Museum in London during the summer in 2003. It’s comprised of a semi-circle of 200 micro-filament bulbs, like the ones used in street lamps, reflected in a mirrored ceiling to look like a sun. Fog was also used to make the space feel more “tangible” and human scale. When the exhibition was opened to the public, Eliasson found “the way that people usually interact socially was challenged under these new conditions.” As you can see in these images, people interacted in this space, coming together and making shapes on the floor and watching their movements in the mirrored ceiling above. This is the kind of different social interaction Eliasson is talking about, “People were in the same space, with a feeling of connectivity and community.” After attracting over 1 million visitors, The Tate asked Eliasson if they could extend the exhibition. Surprisingly, he said no as he didn’t want the work to serve as a “horrible” advert for the museum or himself, letting it retain its dignity.
People interacted with each other differently because of the space they were in, removing the “stranger barrier” for a lot of people.