Olafur Eliasson

Kaleidoscopes

Eliasson has been making kaleidoscopes since the mid 1990s. In this room, and all the work, Your spiral view from 2002 and the recent work Your planetary window of 2019 are brought together.

For the artist, the kaleidoscope offers more than just a playful visual experience. Multiple reflections, fracture and reconfigure what you see. You are offered different perspectives at once, and understand your position in new ways. You might let go of the sense of being in command of space, and instead enjoy a kind of uncertainty. Eliasson often uses the Kaleidoscope to bring together the space inside and outside an exhibition. The appearance of both changes as the boundary between the gallery and the world outside is dissolved.

Larsson has made a series of hanging spheres including the two outside the exhibition and the new work, In real life 2019 here. Each is structured by a complex yet regular geometric principle. The artist is particularly interested in spirals, as they create a sense of energy within the object and outside it through the shadow and light play on the surrounding walls.

Glacial works

Eliasson often uses glacial ice in his work. Sometimes, the ice is intended as a call for action against the climate emergency. Warmer climates have caused the Greenland ice sheet to lose around 200 to 300 billion tons of glacial ice each year, a rate that is expected to increase dramatically. Ice watch, which was staged in front of Tate Modern in 2018 is an installation of ice blocks fish from the water off the coast of Greenland. It offers a direct and tangible experience of the reality of melting Arctic ice.

Other works, like those in this room, or a more abstract reference to the changing environment. In Glacial currents 2018, chunks of glacial ice with place on top of washes of coloured pigment. This created swells and fades of colour as they melted into the paper beneath. In the presence of absence Pavilion 2019 a bronze cast makes visible the empty space left by block of glacial ice that melted away. Glacial spherical flare 2019 is constructive the glass made from small rock particles created by glacial erosion.

Iceland

Eliasson visited Iceland regularly in his childhood and still has a strong connection to the country's landscape. Over the years he has created fancy graphics series that document the country. He has described Iceland as a place you need to engage with physically – by climbing, walking, swimming or even water rafting. He took the photographs in the River–raft series 2000 from the raft as it was swept downstream.

Spending time in Iceland means Eliasson has witnessed first-hand how global warming is causing its glaciers to melt. This room includes a series of photographs of ice glaciers photograph by Eliasson in 1999. This will be joined in the autumn by a brand-new series taken in 2019 which shows the changes in this landscape that are happening now.

Eliasson time in Iceland also tuned him to atmospheric conditions. This letter is interesting how artists have captured light throughout history. In colour experiments 2019, Eliasson analysed the colour palettes of two paintings by German artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 – 1840) that depicts the vastness of nature: The monk by the sea 1808 – 10 and The lonely tree 1822. Each posy was abstracted into all the colours it contains. These were then distributed proportionately around each campus to form an alternative colour wheel.

Dividing this room from the next is Suney 1995, an early example of Eliasson’s interest in colour, architecture and perception.