Olafur Eliasson
21 Jun - 09 Oct 2017
Olafur Eliasson, Big Bang Fountain, 2014
Installation view at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2015
Photo: Anders Sune Berg © 2014 Olafur Eliasson
Installation view at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2015
Photo: Anders Sune Berg © 2014 Olafur Eliasson
OLAFUR ELIASSON
Multiple shadow house
21 June – 9 October 2017
Curator(s): Mark Lanctôt
The MAC is presenting the first solo exhibition in Canada by internationally acclaimed artist Olafur Eliasson, who applies scientific principles in order to explore our relationship to time and space. Since the mid-1990s, Eliasson has produced devices that call upon the mechanisms we use to perceive light and natural phenomena. These truly multidisciplinary works offer immersive experiences that investigate body, movement and perception of self and the environment. Many of his installations thus guide our attention not only to what we see, but also to the way in which we look, creating what the artist calls situations of “seeing yourself seeing.”
Following the same lines that underlie Eliasson’s practice, the exhibition will feature a selection of important works that will allow visitors to appreciate the exceptional process of this unique artist. At once spare and ambitious, the pieces on view will propose an experience in which the viewer is immersed in a rarefied, fundamental universe consisting essentially of space, light and movement.
Biography
Born in 1967, Olafur Eliasson grew up in Denmark and Iceland. After studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, in 1995 he moved to Berlin, where he founded Studio Olafur Eliasson, which today comprises about ninety craftsmen, artists, specialized technicians, computer specialists, architects, archivists, administrators, graphic designers, filmmakers and cooks. In 2003, Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale and presented The weather project at the Tate Modern in London. Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson, a survey show organized in 2007 by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), travelled until 2010 to various venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2014, Contact was the inaugural exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. In 2016 Eliasson created a series of interventions for the palace and gardens of Versailles, including an enormous artificial waterfall that cascaded into the Grand Canal.
Eliasson’s projects in public space include the crystalline facades for Harpa Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre (2011); Cirkelbroen (The circle bridge), Copenhagen, Denmark, 2015; and Ice Watch for which Eliasson brought melting icebergs from Greenland to Paris on the occasion of the COP21 Climate Conference in 2015.
Together with engineer Frederik Ottesen, Eliasson founded the social business Little Sun in 2012. The global project produces solar lamps and mobile chargers for use in off-grid communities and spreads awareness about the need to expand access to sustainable energy to all. In 2014, Eliasson and long-time collaborator Sebastian Behmann founded an international office for art and architecture, Studio Other Spaces, to focus on interdisciplinary and experimental building projects and works in public space.
Multiple shadow house
21 June – 9 October 2017
Curator(s): Mark Lanctôt
The MAC is presenting the first solo exhibition in Canada by internationally acclaimed artist Olafur Eliasson, who applies scientific principles in order to explore our relationship to time and space. Since the mid-1990s, Eliasson has produced devices that call upon the mechanisms we use to perceive light and natural phenomena. These truly multidisciplinary works offer immersive experiences that investigate body, movement and perception of self and the environment. Many of his installations thus guide our attention not only to what we see, but also to the way in which we look, creating what the artist calls situations of “seeing yourself seeing.”
Following the same lines that underlie Eliasson’s practice, the exhibition will feature a selection of important works that will allow visitors to appreciate the exceptional process of this unique artist. At once spare and ambitious, the pieces on view will propose an experience in which the viewer is immersed in a rarefied, fundamental universe consisting essentially of space, light and movement.
Biography
Born in 1967, Olafur Eliasson grew up in Denmark and Iceland. After studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, in 1995 he moved to Berlin, where he founded Studio Olafur Eliasson, which today comprises about ninety craftsmen, artists, specialized technicians, computer specialists, architects, archivists, administrators, graphic designers, filmmakers and cooks. In 2003, Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale and presented The weather project at the Tate Modern in London. Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson, a survey show organized in 2007 by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), travelled until 2010 to various venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2014, Contact was the inaugural exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. In 2016 Eliasson created a series of interventions for the palace and gardens of Versailles, including an enormous artificial waterfall that cascaded into the Grand Canal.
Eliasson’s projects in public space include the crystalline facades for Harpa Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre (2011); Cirkelbroen (The circle bridge), Copenhagen, Denmark, 2015; and Ice Watch for which Eliasson brought melting icebergs from Greenland to Paris on the occasion of the COP21 Climate Conference in 2015.
Together with engineer Frederik Ottesen, Eliasson founded the social business Little Sun in 2012. The global project produces solar lamps and mobile chargers for use in off-grid communities and spreads awareness about the need to expand access to sustainable energy to all. In 2014, Eliasson and long-time collaborator Sebastian Behmann founded an international office for art and architecture, Studio Other Spaces, to focus on interdisciplinary and experimental building projects and works in public space.