Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson, of Danish-Icelandic origin, grew up in Iceland. His first experiences of art were action projects. Now just turned forty, he can console himself with his status as one of the most influential artists of the present day. Staying faithful to his belief that creativity makes reality, his works are highly complex but always technically transparent experiments, staging natural phenomena in an impressive manner to facilitate experiencing nature in the artificial space of art. At the same time they are also collective experiential environments which delight thousands worldwide, whether in London in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern where he installed a sun under a reflective roof (The Weather-Project), or in New York, where he created giant artificial waterfalls in the Hudson (The New York City Waterfalls), or in Berlin, where his studio, where he employs a large staff, is open to the public. Eliasson’s art stands squarely within a strong tradition of Western art and confronts us with the old question of the relation between art and nature in a fresh and stimulating new way. His latest project, The Parliament of Reality, will be realised in New York: in the middle of a small lake lies an island, a place modelled on the ancient Icelandic »Althing«. Here the world is the subject in a series of thematically focused discourses.

Olafur Eliasson has been awarded many distinguished art prizes. He teaches at the UdK Berlin, where he founded the »Institute for Spatial Experiments«.