Life

"Increasingly I have grown interested in efforts to consider life not from a human-centric perspective but from a broad, biocentric perspective. I've found myself turning nouns into verbs -- when I go through my exhibition, I try to tree, for instance -- in order to become aware of perspectives that go beyond what we humans can properly imagine." -- Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson's work explores perception, movement, embodied experience, and feelings of self and community. For him, art is a crucial means of moving from thought to action. Eliasson's broad practice -- encompassing sculpture, painting, photography, film, and installations -- has been the subject of numerous exhibitions worldwide. Not limited to the confines of the museum and gallery, his practice engages the public through architectural projects, interventions in civic space, arts education, policymaking, and climate action.

Among the works featured here, the photo essay -- a retrospective of sorts -- includes images of Eliasson's most recent installation Life at Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland. For Life, the artist has removed a broad section of the museum's windows, opening the structure up to its surroundings: plants and animals of the public park, the urban landscape, the weather, and to the fluctuations between light and darkness. The gallery is open day and night, blurring the separation between inside/outside, museum/artwork, institution/visitor -- an effect that extends to Eliasson's wish to keep the gallery open day and night. Life is an immersive, contemplative experience centered on the theme of coexistence.

Internationally renowned for his installations, Eliasson's work challenges the way we perceive and co-create our environments. In 2019, Eliasson was named UNDP Goodwill Ambassador for climate action and Sustainable Development Goals. In 2020, together with kids around the world, Eliasson created Earth Speakr, an artwork inviting kids to speak up for the planet.

Eliasson's Life installation is currently on view at Fondatition Bayler in Basel, Switzerland (through July 11, 2021).

Additional Information:

Climate Change Has Already Transformed Everything About Contemporary Art, Art In America (May 4, 2020)
Olafur Eliasson and climate change, iGuzzini (April 24, 2020)
Olafur Eliasson on Art, the Climate Crisis & Why We Should All Be Activists, Highsnobiety (November 29, 2019)
The best slide deck about climate change comes from a Danish-Icelandic artist, Quartz (September 28, 2019)
Olafur Eliasson on what art can do to fight climate change, CNN (August 29, 2019)
"We Are Living in a Climate Emergency," Olafur Eliasson, Artnet (July 9, 2019)
WePresent - Yes But Why? Olafur Eliasson, WeTransfer (May 2019)
Guardian profile (June 21, 2015)
ArtReview profile (December 2014)
Slow Journalism interview (July 9, 2020)
Curator interview (June 2020)
Domus interview (April 2019)
MIT Climate Portal interview (November 5, 2018)
CFA interview (April 2017)
Artnet interview (May 9, 2016)
The Talks interview (July 2015)
Designboom interview (February 16, 2015)
Spiegel interview (April 25, 2008)
BOMB interview (July 2004)
BBC podcast interview (July 24, 2019)
VDB video interview (1998)

All images © Olafur Eliasson Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles.

Life, 2021
Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland
Photo: Mark Niedermann

Colour experiment no. 108, 2020
Studio Olafur Eliasson
Photo: Jens Ziehe

Colour experiment no. 108, 2020 (detail)
Studio Olafur Eliasson
Photo: Jens Ziehe

Our glacial perspectives, 2020
South Tyrol, Italy
Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson

Symbiotic seeing, 2020
Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland
Photo: Franca Candrian

Atmospheric wave wall, 2020
Willis Tower, Chicago
Photo: Darris Lee Harris

The glacier melt series 1999/2019, 2019
Tate Modern, London

The glacier melt series 1999/2019, 2019
Reykjavík Art Museum, Hafnarhús, Iceland

The glacier melt series 1999/2019 (Krossárjökull 1999), 2019

The glacier melt series 1999/2019 (Krossárjökull 2019), 2019

The glacier melt series 1999/2019 (Rótarjökull 1999), 2019

The glacier melt series 1999/2019 (Rótarjökull 2019), 2019

Fjordenhus, 2009-2018
Vejle, Denmark
Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Ice Watch, 2014
Bankside, outside Tate Modern, London, 2018
Photo: Justin Sutcliffe

Ice Watch, 2014
Bankside, outside Tate Modern, London, 2018
Photo: Charlie Forgham-Bailey

Ice Watch, 2014
City of London, outside Bloomberg’s European headquarters, 2018
Photo: Charlie Forgham-Bailey

Yellow forest, 2017
Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin, 2017
Photo: David von Becker

Waterfall, 2016
Palace of Versailles, 2016
Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Waterfall, 2016
Palace of Versailles, 2016
Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Fog assembly, 2016
Palace of Versailles, 2016
Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Your sense of unity, 2016
Palace of Versailles, 2016
Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Your unpredictable path, 2016
Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016
Photo: Hyunsoo Kim

Meteorological circles, 2016
Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016
Photo: Hyunsoo Kim

The open pyramid, 2016
Long Museum, Shanghai, 2016
Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Ice Watch, 2014
Place du Panthéon, Paris, 2015
Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Contact, 2014
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris 2014
Photo: Iwan Baan

Map for unthought thoughts, 2014
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris 2014
Photo: Iwan Baan

Riverbed, 2014
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, 2014
Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Riverbed, 2014
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, 2014
Photo: Iwan Baan

Panoramic awareness pavilion, 2013
Photo: Brian Abeling

Wirbelwerk, 2012
Lenbachhaus, Munich, 2013

Little Sun, 2012
Addis Ababa, 2012
Photo: Merklit Mersha

Your glacial expectations, 2012
Kvadrat, Ebeltoft, Denmark, 2012
Photo: Annabel Elston

Your sound galaxy, 2012
Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing 2018
Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Feelings are facts, 2010
Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2010
Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson

Your uncertain shadow (colour), 2010
Tate Modern, London
Photo: Anders Sune Berg

The colour spectrum series, 2005
i8 Gallery, Reykjavik, 2009

The New York City Waterfalls, 2008
Brooklyn Bridge, New York, 2008
Photo: Julienne Schaer / Courtesy Public Art Fund

Yellow fog, 1998/2008
Verbund headquarters, Am Hof, Vienna, 2008
Photo: Rupert Steiner

One-way colour tunnel, 2007
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2009
Photo: Olafur Eliasson

Berlin colour sphere, 2006
neugerriemschneider, Berlin, 2006
Photo: Jens Ziehe

Your waste of time, 2006
neugerriemschneider, Berlin, 2006
Photo: Jens Ziehe

Your black horizon, 2005
TBA21, 51st Biennale di Venezia, Venice, 2005
Photo: Cameraphoto Arte, Venezia / TBA21

The weather project, 2003
Tate Modern, London, 2003
Photo: Olafur Eliasson

The mediated motion, 2001
Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, 2001
Photo: Markus Tretter

Double sunset, 1999
Utrecht, 2000
Photo: Hans Wilschut

QAGOMA: Water | Olafur Eliasson traces his artistic practice over the last 25 years, December 15, 2019.

Columbia University: World Leaders Forum - Olafur Eliasson, October 1, 2019.

Tate: Art in Real Life - Addressing the Sustainability Challenge, August 7, 2019.

Art21: Olafur Eliasson - Become Your Own Navigator, July 10, 2019.

MIT List Visual Arts Center: Olafur Eliasson lecture, March 8, 2019.

Bloomberg: Brilliant Ideas | Designing for Versailles - Olafur Eliasson, July 20, 2016.

Moderna Museet: Olafur Eliasson & Timothy Morton conversation, October 9, 2015.

Zumtobel: Olafur Eliasson about "Light is Life," April 20, 2015

Louisiana Channel: A Riverbed Inside the Museum \ Olafur Eliasson Interview, November 26, 2014.

About Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson (b. 1967) is an Icelandic–Danish artist known for sculptures and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer's experience. He is founder of Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research and co-founder of Studio Other Spaces, an office for architecture and art. Olafur represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and later that year installed The Weather Project in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, London. In 2007 and 2008, his Take your time survey show was exhibited at SFMOMA in San Francisco, MoMA in New York, and the Dallas Museum of Art. Eliasson In real life was exhibited at Tate Modern and then traveled to Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain (2020).

Little Sun, a social business that produces and distributes solar lamps and chargers for use in off-grid communities, was founded in 2012 by Eliasson and engineer Frederik Ottesen. Little Sun also works to spread awareness around the need to expand access to clean, sustainable energy to all.

In 2019, Eliasson was appointed a UNDP Goodwill Ambassador for climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals.