In this touring retrospective, at the Museum of Contemporary Art through September 13, Danish artist Olafur Eliasson often seems more scientist than artist—and we’re the guinea pigs. His “uniquely participatory works,” says the PR, “examine the intersection of nature and science.” And his imposing sculptures and installations even look like scientific experiments, in true postmodern fashion exposing whatever projectors, cords, and electronic control units are needed to make them function.
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Eliasson claims that viewers’ varying perceptions of his works complete them. But isn’t that true of all art? And by aggressively defining the experience he limits the range of responses. Room for One Colour (1997) assaults the eye with its radioactive orange-yellow glow, jaundicing the flesh of everyone within reach of its mono-frequency lights. Harsh and coercive, this encompassing environment produced just one response in me—the wish to escape.
Eliasson embraces it. Interviewed by MCA director Madeleine Grynsztejn, who curated the original version of this show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, he said, “You ‘see’ and you ‘see yourself seeing.’ Or in other words: you immerse yourself in something . . . while being aware of that immersion.”
Last summer, as part of his ongoing research on the intersection of nature and science, Eliasson installed four ten-story waterfalls at New York City waterfront locations. On exhibit from June to October 2008, the project reportedly cost $15.5 million, most of it donated by Mayor Bloomberg’s closely held company, Bloomberg LP. The investment supposedly paid off in $69 million worth of tourist spending. This wasn’t the first instance of corporate/civic interest in Eliasson’s work; he said in a 2007 ARTINFO interview online that he gets offered “all sorts of commissions.” One of the few he’s accepted came from Louis Vuitton: in 2006, during the winter holidays, the luxury leather goods company installed Eliasson’s Eye See You—a light that looks like an eye—in 350 shop windows.
Through 9/13: Tue 10 AM-8 PM, Wed-Sun 10 AM-5 PM, 220 E. Chicago, 312-280-2660, mcachiacgo.org, $7-$12, Tue free.
