ART-PRESENTATION:Olafur Eliasson
Encompassing some 40 works by Olafur Eliasson, the Boros Collection in Berlin has one of the most comprehensive collections of works by the Danish-Icelandic artist in the world. The Langen Foundation presents a selection of these installations, photographs, and objects, which are arranged in a dialogue with the architecture of Tadao Ando. Spanning the period from 1994 to 2015, it also provides a representative overview of the artist’s oeuvre from the beginning of his practice to the present day.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Langen Foundation Archive
Olafur Eliasson is known for his diverse and often experimental installations. Using reflective materials, colored glass, and artificially generated natural phenomena such as wind, water, light, and fog, he enthralls his viewers, actively drawing them into works that recall experiments. The exhibition in the Langen Foundation shows the work of Eliasson from multiple perspectives and reveals its fundamental principles, demonstrating both the simplicity and precision characteristic of his working process-qualities that were already manifested in early works and that continue to underlie his approach. Through the interplay with the minimalistic architecture of Tadao Ando, which also represents a unique synthesis of art and nature, results an exciting dialogue between the architecture and the exhibited works. The corridors running along outer limits of the building were consciously integrated into the route through the exhibition. In these corridors only a glass sheath separates the museum interior from the surrounding landscape. Several of the works on view here address this interplay between the interior and the exterior. Visible from a distance, the three-meter “Colour spiral” (2005) in the glassed-in entry area of the foundation forms the starting point of the exhibition. At the other end of the corridor, the high-polished steel elements constituting “Negative quasi brick wall” (2003) reflect the shifting daylight, while outside in front of the building is the over eight-meter high sculpture “Crystal growth 4” (2011). Made out of four steel components, this work is on view to the public for the first time in the exhibition. Inside the building, the installation Room for all colours, dating from 1999, transforms the unique elongated ramp of the Langen Foundation into a space that conveys both an emotional and physical experience. A large backlit projection screen bathes the eight-meter high object in the light of alternating colors, through which the viewers move as they pass through different levels of the space. The work “Drawing machine for all ellipses” (2008) similarly enables the direct participation of the viewer, although on a much smaller scale. With the help of the installation, which fits into a ten-centimeter long box when packed up, viewers can draw ellipses on the wall of the museum and thus become part of the exhibition.
Info: “Works from the Boros Collection1994-2015”, Curating: Christiane Maria Schneider & Christian Boros, Langen Foundation, Raketenstation Hombroich 1, Neuss, Duration: 18/4-18/10/15, Days & Hours: Daily: 10:00-18:00, http://langenfoundation.de
