Seeing the light
Visiting Olafur Eliasson’s In Real Life exhibition at Tate Modern
I loved this exhibition. It’s very Instagram friendly and accessible, but I don’t think that should not be held against it in any way. The work there was all about wrapping you up in a series of experiences that make you conscious of the world and how precious it is. At least this is what I took from it. That, and a wonderful sense of generosity — the work was offered up as a gift to the viewer.
I went with my wife and son — a space that had all three of us grinning was filled with mist. This corridor was also saturated with light, white at the start and a deep yellow halfway through. At this point my boy said we should blink, and when we did, instead of seeing nothing we saw purple because our eyes were so full of yellow, it was such a lovely surprise.
I love the approach taken by Eliasson’s studios — their kitchen sums it up. All the food is sustainable, thoughtful and looks delicious — a focus for sharing, conversation and collaboration. The range of ideas, forms and media they have developed is truly inspiring and quite dizzying. The first room of the show is a collection of their exploratory models—it’s absolutely gorgeous — and it sets up another theme, geometry. Those models and much of the work in the exhibition plays with pure form and ways of cutting up space. In a video interview with an architect who partners with Eliasson, he talks about geometry as a way of pacing the world — that walking in itself is a form of geometry because each stride is a measure of experience. I think I follow… and this has proved a rich seam for exploration.
Throughout the show, the viewer is reminded that they are involved. Their individual perceptions and actions effect the work. This is clearest in this light piece where the people in the room cast the shadows that make the work. It’s so simple but also completely magical — I love how this piece makes everyone in the room part of that one moment, each figure dissolving into those around them. The theme of subjective experience is picked up throughout in the use of mirrors, projections and viewers that rely on you and other people being there to make it happen. Another piece that very elegantly explores this area is a water sculpture. You’re in a pitch black room, and water is pumped up in to the air and is captured, frozen by a flash of light into a crystal vase. You never see the same thing twice and it only exists for that moment you are there to witness it.
Ecology is another preoccupation. The exhibition shows ways of looking at and caring about the world. But it’s not done in a heavy blunt didactic way. The Ice Watch project is a great example of this (not part of this show), bringing large chunks of glacial ice and exhibiting them. The message is clear and stark but also subtle and rich. You appreciate its beauty, the shapes and noises it makes as it melts. You get to feel it. That’s the brilliance of this approach — it bypasses logical argument and forces you to emotionally engage and feel.
The last room has another kind of generosity, it’s an invitation to make things yourself. There’s a table full of hubs and spokes that allow you to build all kinds of structures — and it’s great seeing people really get involved. Alongside that there is a recreation of their studio wall. It’s filled with sketches, bits of reference, quotations, articles arranged in board themes. It’s very inspiring and deliberately demystifying. I love the sense of people leaving the exhibition not just being dazzled by a studio’s brilliance but being fired up to contribute things themselves. It’s the difference between passive consumption and active participation.
