Olafur Eliasson

The deep interest in the combination of art and science, with a focus on urgent climate action, has always been part of Olafur Eliasson's work. The scientific artworks are strikingly simple and idiosyncratic at the same time. His works are about making us see, feel and think one step further. There is a weight and beauty to Eliasson that puts art in a special world where aesthetics and science form a marvelous alliance. The ideas are sophisticated, but the result is simple and playful. Olafur Eliasson is one of the most significant artists of our time, he is both innovative, provocatively simple while sophisticatedly addressing the most basic existence of man - in his body and in his world.
Born in 1967 in Copenhagen to Icelandic parents, now working in his large studio in Berlin with a dedicated team. Eliasson's art explores light and colour, geometry and environmental awareness. The issue of climate change is close to his heart and with the artistic expression he has made his own, he allows us to experience and question concepts such as nature and naturalness.
Few artists have had as much public success as Olafur Eliasson. In his art, Eliasson mimics natural phenomena such as fog and sunlight, as in his artificial sunset in the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, where audiences flocked in 2003-2004. Eliasson's works are both intuitively simple, both in terms of materials and the experience itself. The experience of the works is immediate, but behind the apparent simplicity they can also be very technically advanced. In what is probably the most spectacular outdoor artwork ever, he had four waterfalls made and placed around New York City along the East River. The work, which was on view for a few summer months in 2008, is the world's most expensive public art project of all time. The year before, he organised his major exhibition ‘Riverbed’ at Louisiana in Denmark, where he literally moved Icelandic nature into the museum space.
Olafur Eliasson is constantly relevant worldwide with several parallel exhibitions and is today one of the most sought-after artists around the world with previous exhibitions at: Tate Modern in London, Guggenheim in New York, Fondation Beyler in Basel and at the Venice Biennale to name a few. This year he has several museum exhibitions, including at MOCA in Los Angeles and at Auckland Art Gallery where a major travelling exhibition has just ended.