January 23, 2001
Issue No.12
archive

Olafur Eliasson
Your Only Real Thing is Time

The first American Museum exhibition for the Danish artist on view at Boston’s ICA through April 1

As we mount the stairs to the second floor galleries of Boston’s Institute of Contermporary Art there is an immediate awareness of elements of large commercial scaffolding. This is a new variation of an all too familiar experience. There is an intensive sensation of curiosity and expectation.

At the end of the permanent set of stairs, where we would normally be emerging into the large upper gallery, we encounter another set of stairs of seemingly similar dimension and material that gives the feeling that they have always been there. That this is a natural progression to another level of space. Close observation reveals all the complex construction of beams and material that comprise this complex addition or alteration.

This curious ascent takes us to a deck or platform that is now rather close to the ceiling. Being a tall man, I instinctively check the clearance to assure that I will not hit my head. There is also an adjustment to be made to the reduced light level. The entire area of what is usually the gallery including an odd, precise fit into the nooks and crannies of a strangely configured floor plan (the design of the original architect of the remodeled neo Romanesque former police headquarters by Graham Gund) comprising, Neonripple, is flooded with water.

Later, like a doubting Thomas with a finger in the side of an apparition of the risen Christ, I take a random measure of the watery surface and determine that it is at a depth of say, three inches.

Looking out at the watery expanse from the edge of the pressure treated platform the water looks oddly dark and deep, although apparently quite shallow. Just a skim of water. This comes from the information that the pool has been carefully lined with a membrane of water proof material that has been caulked. Spring a leak, after all, and we are talking major damage to an ICA that gets by on a slim budget. And, related to that, one wonders aloud what this labor and material intensive structure might have cost.

It was a good decision not to hide or mask the structure, which might have been done quite easily. We are invited to contemplate and wonder at the extravagance and outrageousness of the project. Once again, the will of the artist seemingly triumphing against all logical restraints or limitations. The equivalent of climbing the mountain because it is there.

So then, what is the why of all this? For the illusion a ripple of something tossed into the still water creating an effect of rapidly expanding, concentric rings. But, in this case, nothing has been cast into the water. The sensation has been produced by the sequential lighting of several neon rings, suspended over the water, at some distance from the viewer. It takes just a couple of minutes for this to happen. Then, fade to black, and start over and over and over and over. Or, until you decide to move on to the next gallery. So, there is a sense of time and patience and meditation and meaning and being and nothingness and fear and loathing and trembling and calm. And stuff.

The next gallery invites us into a large circle surrounded by a blank wall. Playing over it is, 360-Degree Expectation, an undulating ring of light with a floating horizon line. The source of this is a rotating halogen light within a commercial lighthouse lens. The connection is to nature, the horizon, orientation, and disorientation. Again, the primary decision is time and how long you choose to remain. It doesn’t take long to get it but maybe it takes time to feel it. I tend to keep my meditations brief but to remember them forever which is long. Maybe too long.

On the back wall is a reference to a large eye, Fivefold Eye, constructed as a hemisphere of lattice welded metal with an oculus. Positioned looking into the oculus there is an illusion of a sphere, or round eye, created by a mirror on the wall behind fitted precisely to the circumference of the object.

Mirrors, apparently, have been an important elements in the work. On another level of the exhibition is a mounted, large, round mirror that slowly morphs from concave to convex.

Circles and rings are a major component of the artist’s thinking and process. The entire, darkened, main floor gallery is devoted to, "No nights in summer, no days in winter," 1994. It consists of an approximately three foot ring of iron with spouts for jets of ignited natural gas. In short a ring of fire that both lights and heats the space.

Completing the exhibition is a grid, The Aerial River Series, that includes a series of details of a river that makes its way to the sea, and a similar grid of earthy photograveures, Cartographic Series.

Rounding out the afternoon we spent at the ICA we viewed a superb video on the artist including vignettes of his other works including pouring brightly colored, non toxic dye into rivers and getting a clunky, funky waterfall to flow uphill.

Leaving the ICA and reentering the cacophony of the city the artist made me long for the direct experience of nature and the coming of spring.

-30-

Y’All Come Back