GOMA Gallery of Modern Art

Olafur Eliasson

Presence

06 Dec 2025 - 12 Jul 2026

Olafur Eliasson, Beauty (installation view, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane) 1993 / Spotlight, water, nozzles, wood, hose, pump / Spotlight, water, nozzles, wood, hose, pump / Installed dimensions variable / Purchased 2025. The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust / Collection: The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Charitable Trust, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © 1993 Olafur Eliasson / Photograph: N Umek © QAGOMA
Olafur Eliasson, Your truths (installation view, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane) 2025 / Polarisation filters, steel, wood, LEDs, motors, electrical ballast, polyhedron (PVC, resin, motor, control unit) / Dimensions variable / Courtesy: The artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / © 2025 Olafur Eliasson / Photograph: N Umek © QAGOMA
Olafur Eliasson, Your truths (installation view, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane) 2025 / Polarisation filters, steel, wood, LEDs, motors, electrical ballast, polyhedron (PVC, resin, motor, control unit) / Dimensions variable / Courtesy: The artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / © 2025 Olafur Eliasson / Photograph: J Ruckli © QAGOMA
Olafur Eliasson, Your truths (installation view, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane) 2025 / Polarisation filters, steel, wood, LEDs, motors, electrical ballast, polyhedron (PVC, resin, motor, control unit) / Dimensions variable / Courtesy: The artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / © 2025 Olafur Eliasson / Photograph: C Callistemon © QAGOMA
Olafur Eliasson, The Hekla twilight series (installation view, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane) 2006 / 20 C-prints / 31.5 x 41.5cm (each); 141 x 226.5cm (overall) / Courtesy: The artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / © 2006 Olafur Eliasson / Photograph: C Callistemon © QAGOMA
Olafur Eliasson, Your negotiable vulnerability seen from two perspectives (installation view, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane) 2025 / Polarisation filters, steel, wood, LEDs, motors, electrical ballast, Polyhedron: PVC, resin, motor, control unit / Dimensions variable / Courtesy: The artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / © 2025 Olafur Eliasson / Photograph: C Callistemon © 2025
Olafur Eliasson, Your negotiable vulnerability seen from two perspectives (installation view, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane) 2025 / Polarisation filters, steel, wood, LEDs, motors, electrical ballast, Polyhedron: PVC, resin, motor, control unit / Dimensions variable / Courtesy: The artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / © 2025 Olafur Eliasson / Photograph: C Callistemon © 2025
Olafur Eliasson, Pluriverse assembly (installation view, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane) 2021 / Projection screen, LED projectors, motors, electrical ballasts, control units, aluminium, brass, steel, stainless steel, plastics, lenses, optical components, glass, wood, dichroic filters, wire, fabric, paraffin oil, plants / 360 x 1000 x 383cm / Courtesy: The artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / © 2021 Olafur Eliasson / Photograph: N Umek © QAGOMA
Olafur Eliasson, Presence (installation view, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane) 2025 / Stainless steel, aluminium, monofrequency lights, printed textile wedges, aluminium perforated sheets, mirror foil, glass mirror, wood / Dimensions variable / Courtesy: The artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / © 2025 Olafur Eliasson / Photograph: C Callistemon © QAGOMA
Olafur Eliasson, Your time keeping window (installation view, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane) 2022 / 24 glass spheres / 230 x 200 x 160cm / Courtesy: The artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / © 2022 Olafur Eliasson / Photograph: C Callistemon © QAGOMA
Olafur Eliasson: Presence'.

Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson invites us on an expansive, multi-sensory journey that engages our sense of perception. Choose your path through a primordial landscape, encounter moments that heighten awareness and envision the future form of our city.

This Brisbane-exclusive exhibition draws from the three‑decade career of one of the world’s most influential living artists. Spanning GOMA’s ground floor galleries, it includes important early works and expansive site-specific installations, many developed especially for ‘Presence’.

From the early work Beauty 1993, which suspends a rainbow in a veil of mist, to Pluriverse assembly 2021, a spatial installation that unfurls ever-changing reflections of light, Eliasson's creations come to life as they meet the viewer's senses and body.

Two much-loved QAGOMA works feature: the rocky landscape and running water of the immense and immersive Riverbed 2014 (wear comfortable shoes); and The cubic structural evolution project 2004, a huge all-white LEGO city perpetually built and rebuilt by visitors throughout the exhibition.

Eliasson's artistic practice is grounded in the distinctive forms of his familial home Iceland, which will be reflected in a selection of photographs of the landscape, light and human experience of the country.
 

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