I recently watched an episode of Netflix’s Abstract: The Art of Design about Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. The episode, and the series itself, are well worth seeing.
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ABOVE: Olafur Eliasson’s ‘The Weather Project’ in Tate Modern. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons (author: Michael Reeve)
Best known for his large scale installations, Olafur Eliasson often uses water, light and air to play with the viewers sense of perception. Here some of his most interesting quotes:
“I see the artist as a participant, a co-producer of reality. I do not see the artist as a person who sits at a distance and evaluates.”
“I want to expose and evaluate the fact that the seeing and sensing process is a system that should not be taken for granted as natural – it’s a cultivated means of reality production that, as a system, can be negotiated and changed.”
“Artists are valuable to public discussion: They show the correlation between doing and thinking.”
“For the sake of sanity, the brain and the eyes keep things simple. But take away the sense of sight and suddenly things are not so simple.”
“The viewer brings something individual to the experience of any artwork.”
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