Chicago - MCA

Olafur Eliasson
'Take Your Time'

http://www.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/exh_detail.php?id=201
“Take your time: Olafur Eliasson is the first comprehensive survey in the United States of works by Olafur Eliasson, whose immersive environments, sculptures, and photographs elegantly recreate the extremes of landscape and atmosphere in his native Scandinavia. Drawn from collections worldwide, the presentation spans over fifteen years of Eliasson's career. His constructions, at once eccentric and highly geometric, use multicolored washes, focused projections of light, mirrors, and natural elements such as water, stone, and moss to shift the viewer's perception of place and self, foregrounding the sensory experience of each work. By transforming the gallery into a hybrid space of nature and culture, Eliasson prompts an intense engagement with the world and offers a fresh consideration of everyday life.” -- (MCA website)






"Moss Wall"

Most of Olafur Lliasson’s pieces on display play with subtleties of light, reflection and refraction, but some pieces have a stronger physical presence which engages the use of more senses than sight alone. Each room is enormous and the presence of the body within the space becomes part of the work as it is surrounded by his light and reflected in various surfaces of installations bouncing light off each other. In this way the entire body is engaged as it is enveloped by the space and caught within the work.

In one large room one wall is covered in what at first appears to be some kind of spongy organic matter. As one enters the room the dewy, musty smell first serves to indicate that this is in fact real plant life – possibly still alive. When closer to the moss covered surface, many people feel the spongy plant – one girl even pressed her whole body into it as though considering it as a potential material for bedding. The smell and the feel of the plant inform visitors that it is a living plant – a detail that cannot be confirmed solely through visual observation.

Though this plant was in a completely different context than the exhibit of plants on display at the Field Museum, it made me consider the differences between the experience of this moss in an art exhibit, as opposed to the experience of artificial and sealed off plants at the Field Museum. The difference was that this exhibit had life – in every sense – whereas the Field Museum’s exhibits of plants was lifeless and out of reach. This is somewhat unusual for artwork that is generally visual, for here it is environmental, and impresses upon all of the senses.

"Beauty"

Mist and light
Walking through the exhibit I heard something that sounded almost like a light rain shower, and following the noise I was led into a dark room where I found Beauty.

A spotlight shines through a curtain of fine mist. The play of light and water shifts as one moves around it and through it. When walking through the mist a halo of rainbow appears overhead refracted in the fine droplets of water that settle on the skin like a veneer of cool sweat. The mist is vaporous enough not to truly wet a person but to merely cover one in a dew. The sound of the water spraying is reminiscent of a hot water spring and fills the dark room that is empty but for the water and light in the middle. The quality of the air in the entire room is moist – which seems to complement the moss wall in another room of the exhibit.

Beauty provides a tactile experience that not everyone was eager to explore. After observing for some time, it was clear that the children were more readily willing to interact with the piece with their entire bodies by running through it or reaching out their hands to feel it. Some of the adults would try this also if another had, but often if the room was full only of hesitant adults, and none of them dared to stand in the mist, then all followed suit and followed the standard museum dictum of look but don’t touch. This behavior reflects the way in which people expect to observe work in a museum setting – primarily – and usually solely – using their vision. People are conditioned to observe from a distance and discouraged since a very early age not to do otherwise, most especially in an art museum.

Interestingly, it is very common for children’s museums (such as the Crown Family Play Lab in the Field Museum) to involve the entire body in the exploration of the exhibits. Children are expected to learn by exploring with their entire body – it is curious that this should this be so discouraged in adults.
Sight is generally considered in the Western world as the intellectual sense that is best suited for analysis and learning. As children are still in a state of cognitive development, it is expected that they will still depend upon the ‘lower’ senses such as touch and taste, while adults are supposed to evolve to depend solely on sight in order to intellectual explore and understand something. But what is lost as a result of this viewpoint? As we become adults we are cultivated (conditioned) to resist any temptation to explore with senses other than the distant sense of vision.