Olafur Eliasson

OLAFUR ELIASSON

BETWEEN ART AND SCIENCE

Eliasson creates art that questions our perceptions of reality. His works are a compound of scientific inquiries and artistic aspiration for beauty.

Quadrible light ventilator mobile, 2002-07

Description
The work is a rotating electrically powered mobile comprising a searchlight and four fans blowing air around the exhibition room and scanning it with the light cone.

About the work
The large electric mobile artificially recreates two natural phenomena: wind and light. Our attention is soon drawn to the sweeping light, and as we approach we also feel the wafts of air intermittently produced by the mobile's fans. Usually mobiles are associated with natural breezes setting off the mobile's rotations. Here the wind and the movement are created artificially with electricity. Just like the light, which mimics that found in nature, is produced artificially. Thus the mobile both presents and represents two fickle phenomena: light and wind, captured in time and space.
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Eliasson's art in general
Eliasson's art possesses the nature of inquiries founded on thorough research in a scientific tradition. This affords certain similarities with conceptual art which also emphasised the exploratory and analysing aspects of art. In addition his works reveal a fascination with art's aesthetic aspects so that each work typically manifests a balance between the beautiful, nature romanticism and scientific inquiry.
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Litterature
”The Conversation Series; Vol. 13” (Olafur Eliasson & Hans Ulrich Obrist, Edited by Matthew Gaskins), Verlag der Buchhandlung Walter König, Köln, 2008
“Olafur Eliasson: Det indre af det ydre” (ed. by Malene Ratcliffe), Politikens Forlag, 2008
"Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson", San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art, Thames & Hudson, 2007 
”Olafur Eliasson: Your Engagement has Consequences; On the Relativity of Your Reality” (ed. Olafur Eliasson and Caroline Eggel / Studio Olafur Eliasson), Baden: Lars Müller Publishers, 2006
"Olafur Eliasson: Your Lighthouse. Works with Light 1991-2004", Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2004
"At se sig selv sanse. Samtaler med Olafur Eliasson", Informations Forlag, 2004
"Olafur Eliasson" (Madelain Grynsztejn, Daniel Birnbaum og Michael Speaks), Phaidon, London, 2002
"Olafur Eliasson: Surroundings surrounded. Essays on Space and Science", MIT Press, 2001
"Olafur Eliasson. Your only real thing is time", Hatje Cantz Publishers, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2001