ART CITIES: Istanbul-Olafur Eliasson

Moving seamlessly from his early photographs to sculpture, immersive environments, large-scale public interventions, and architectural projects, Olafur Eliasson uses simple natural elements (light, color, water, and movement) to alter viewers’ sensory perceptions. His works reflect on nature and also demonstrate a lively, interested engagement in daily experience, he possesses an astonishing ability to activate space.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Istanbul Modern Archive

Olafur Eliasson’s comprehensive exhibition “Your unexpected encounter”, includes nearly 40 artworks, including new productions. The exhibition explores subjects that Eliasson has focused on throughout his 30 years of artistic practice, such as natural ephemera including water, light, color, as well as perception, movement, geometry, and the environment. The exhibition begins with the permanent installation “Your unexpected journey,” designed by the artist specifically for Istanbul Modern’s new building. Located in the stairway, the work’s reflective circular surfaces, juxtaposed against the building’s right angles, create the possibility of continuously evolving encounters as viewers move up and down the stairs. Eliasson’s works in the Temporary Exhibition Gallery on the second floor of the Istanbul Modern Museum showcase the artist’s deep and longstanding interest in perception, color, light, and geometry, as well as his ongoing engagement with environmental topics. Although the artworks, which include installations, sculptures, and photographs, are grouped thematically in the exhibition, the artist engages with multiple subjects and concepts, elucidating the relationships and permeabilities between different disciplines. Created specifically for the exhibition, “Dusk to dawn, Bosporus,” connects viewers to the museum site, bringing the changing colors of the Bosphorus into the gallery space. The work, which includes hand-blown glass panels stacked on driftwood, combines Eliasson’s interest in the natural properties of color, light, and water. It provides a preview of other color experiments that arrive later in the exhibit. The site-specific work “Sunset kaleidoscope” continues to traverse the boundaries between inside and outside. Looking out to the Bosphorus, the view is transformed by movement, bringing a unique narrative of the history of the city and the contemporary space within the exhibition. Light and its ephemeral properties stand out as prominent subjects in the exhibition. Lenses, reflective surfaces, projections, colored glass, and kaleidoscopes featured in Eliasson’s works allow the artist to conduct experiments with perception, space, and geometry. Forming part of the artist’s ongoing “Colour experiments” series, the artist’s watercolor works are formed around the basis of developing a new color theory and reflect his productions on the axis of water, environment, and color. Eliasson’s career-long investigation into how we perceive and co-create our environments is further explored with a number of artworks that address the climate crisis. The photo series “The glacier melt series 1999/2019” demonstrates the striking rate at which Iceland’s glaciers are retreating, while also connecting Istanbul with Iceland—a country which is formative to Eliasson’s practice.

Photo: Olafur Eliasson, Your unexpected encounter, Exhibition view, Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, 2024-2025, Courtesy Olafur Eliasson Studio and Istanbul Museum of Modern Art

Info: Curators: Öykü Özsoy Sağnak, Nilay Dursun, and Ümit Mesci, Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Kılıç Ali Paşa Mahallesi, Tophane İskele Caddesi No:1/1 34433 Beyoğlu-İstanbul, Istanbul, Turkey, Duration: 7/6/2024-7/2/2025, Tue-Thu & Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, Fri 10:00-20:00, www.istanbulmodern.org/