Tag: olafur eliasson

Regine just posted about some artists in the Hungarian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale who made portable chairs available to visitors, [correction: turns out the chairs were sponsor-driven, not artist-driven.] and it got me thinking about the customer service side of artviewing, especially in a setting like Venice.
So much art is about the White Cube, the experience of seeing it, a “critique” of the institution/process, but yet so little of that actual process is actually addressed. A curator friend once told me of escorting her trustees around Venice (the last one, when it was August-hot at the June opening), and they actually had to debate going to see some art based on whether or not the venue was air-conditioned.
An artist like Francesco Vezzolli makes his art movie-trailer-short, sex-filled, and full of fashion and celebrity in order to stand out from the blur of Venice’s gossip-saturated, art-overloaded opening festivities. But that’s just a shrewd reading and anticipation of the setting.
I just came back from Tokyo with a hoard of Takashi Murakami fans, which they were handing out to people as they got off the Roppongi subway stop. It’s not art, I know, but it’s an artist’s move, based on a retailer/developer’s understanding of the viewer experience.
Then there’s Rirkrit Tiravanija’s meals, or last Venice’s Utopia Station, to an extent. Or 2001’s Venice cafe collaboration between Olafur Eliasson and Tobias Rehburger and ___ [I forget, but it doesn’t matter, because apparently it was altered so badly the artists removed their name from it. Somewhere in there, it lost the sanctity that non-artists grant to artwork.]
So what I’d love to see, I guess, is some kind of art-as-customer-service, someone who toys with or explores or highlights the fact that viewing and encountering and contemplating art is often –not exclusively, or even mostly, but often, and especially in the event-centered cases of fairs, biennials, and openings where much of the “art world” places itself– a cultural experience, an activity that its viewers choose over shopping, movies, other forms of travel or tourism, reading, what have you.
Anyway, just rambling when I should be heading out. It’s so hot, I think I’ll take one of these fans.

Finally hearing more reports and reviews of Venice. So Francesco Vezzoli’s trailer for an imaginary remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula is the favorite of Artforum-istes and the Guardian alike? How amazingly uncritical of these critics to not notice that a star-filled, 5-minute trailer filled with S&M orgies–a contrived and condensed meta-work for a film that won’t exist, a series of shorthanded, empty, titillating referents–is perfectly and cynically designed for ADD-addled art worlders at a sprawling Biennale? Don’t these people know when they’re being targeted?
Also in Artforum: “I’m still bored.” and “Math is hard! Let’s go shopping!”
The Times is pleasantly relieved, if not surprised.
And WPS1, well who knows what WPS1 thinks, since their live-via-FM programs from Venice are still not online?
[update from Our Man In Venice:

Subject: Hands off my boy Vezzoli.
> Sorry my friend — Vezzoli’s work was one of the highlights of an absolutely
> terrible Biennale. Ignore (as usual) Kimmelman’s review; Claire Bishop at
> artforum.com had it about right. The arsenale was the worst p.o.s. I have
> ever seen — so terrible that I have issued a fatwa against Rosa Martinez.
> The national pavillions were passable; the italian pavillion was perfectly
> respectable. Offsite, Pippilotti Rist, Karen Kilimnik and Olafur Eliasson
> looked great. The Lucian Freud show at Museo Correr was perhaps the best
> thing in all of Venice (other than Paul Allen’s yacht — any relation?).

On the list of somewhat dubious accomplishments, then, “Highlight of the Biennale” ranks slightly below “better than Phantom Menace,” but still miles ahead of “well-known blogger.”

Who’s the must-have light installation artist in Los Angeles these days? If you answered, “James Turrell,” pack up your Uggs and get out. In Pasadena this week, Olafur Eliasson debuted a modernist hill houseful of installations and interventions, organized by his Italian gallerist, Emi Fontana.
Check out pictures and descriptions at arcspace, or pour yourself a glass of whine at artforum diary, which features largely content-free Olafur soundbites and bitching about the opening’s lack of valet parking. Or go yourself, until May.
Olafur Eliasson: Meant to be lived in [arcspace.com]
LA Residential [artforum diary]

The artist Olafur Eliasson will be speaking at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC about his work, including last year’s The Weather Project at the Tate in London.
Olafur Eliasson, The Demetrion Lecture: Wednesday, Nov. 17 at 7pm. [Hirshhorn.si.edu]

In 1999, I conceived and contrived to make a piece of art. It began as an idea for a commission for the artist Olafur Eliasson, but my idea was so embarassingly specific and complete, there’s no way I could bring myself to ask him to do it. Even though I cannot imagine myself as an artist, or a maker of art, I had to admit that this was not an Eliasson, it was Eliasson-esque, at best.
The piece is a sort of reverse sundial.*
Our apartment in NYC faces north, and so receives no direct sunlight. At various times in the day, the sun would reflect off of windows across the street, creating sharply angled patches of bright light, which would move across the wall or floor, marking a specific moment in the day.
I devised to place a mirror on the roof of the recluse’s townhouse across the street, which would reflect sunlight directly into our apartment. It would have a motor which would track the movement of the sun, thereby maintaining the reflecting angle throughout the day. [Constructing this motorized mirror was a great obstacle. Last year, when I finally told Olafur about this piece, he said a German company made such a mirror, called a heliostat, which was exhibited at the Hanover 2000 Expo.]
Rather than the naturally changing light of a normal day, the apartment would receive constant, consistent, direct light. The light wouldn’t shift, the shadows wouldn’t lengthen, then contract. At first, the brt lt praised by realtors and sought after by apartment hunters would be welcome, but I expected that, after a while, it would become unnerving, even maddening.
[2007 update: soon after posting this, I told this story to a couple of Olafur’s dealers, who, instead of laughing with/at me, said I really should have proposed it to Olafur, because he would have loved doing it. Which is a huge bummer, because then I could have paid 1999 Olafur prices for the piece. Oh well, it’s mine now.]
* Olafur actually made a sundial-like piece in 1997 by cutting a round hole in the roof of the Marc Foxx gallery in Los Angeles. The circle of light tracked beautifully across the empty gallery space. The piece was titled, Your Sun Machine. I never dreamed to call my piece My Sun Machine, though.

This is the last weekend to see Olafur Eliasson’s installation, The Weather Project in the Tate’s turbine hall. The museum’s keeping the hall open until 1AM on Friday and Saturday, apparently because they’re unsatisfied with only 2 million visitors.
For added enjoyment, the Guardian published a diary from the Tate’s manager, the one who had to deal with troupes of Santas, didgeridoo players, a man in a canoe, and people hooking up under the mirrored ceiling.
[3/20 update: Michael Kimmelman interviews Olafur in his Berlin studio about TWP. Re the headline, the Arts & Leisure section closes on Tuesday night. Great minds, etc., etc. “The Sun Sets at the Tate Modern]

The Weather Project, 2003, Olafur Eliasson, at the Tate Modern
The top one’s shot in the mirrored ceiling.
I’m working on it, but right now, I got nothing that’ll top this.

Just got back from the preview and party for The Weather Project, Olafur Eliasson’s absolutely breathtaking installation at the Tate Modern in London. The Turbine Hall is something like 500 feet long, the full length and height of the building.
I can tell you that Olafur created a giant sun out of yellow sodium streetlamps, but that doesn’t begin to describe the experience of seeing it and being in the space. It is this awareness of one’s own perception which is at the heart of his work. Not only does he use and transform this unwieldy cavern, he intensifies the viewer’s sight and sense of being in the space.
And as always, Olafur lays bare the mechanisms that create the unavoidably sublime experience, which in this case include, literally, smoke and mirrors. You can see exactly how you’re being manipulated affected, and you’re fine with it. At least I am.
[update: the Guardian‘s Fiachra Gibbons likes it, too.]