Olafur Eliasson, Whose Installations Leave People Staring at the Ceiling
Olafur Eliasson doesn’t make work that sits quietly on a gallery wall. He builds suns inside museums, melts glaciers in public squares, and turns city rooftops into rainbow tunnels. If you’ve seen his installations, you probably remember them—if not by name, then by the feeling of stepping into something strange, deliberate, and alive.
Born in 1967 in Copenhagen to Icelandic and Danish parents, Eliasson grew up between two geographies. Denmark gave him structure; Iceland gave him drama. The stark landscapes, shifting light, and raw natural forces of Iceland became raw material for his work. And while his early years included a brief run as a breakdancer, it was visual art that held his focus. He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where he started testing how space, movement, and perception could be manipulated, looked at, and felt.
By 1995, he had moved to Berlin and founded Studio Olafur Eliasson, a production engine that now includes over 90 architects, engineers, technicians, and designers. The studio doesn’t function like a typical artist’s workshop. It’s more like a cross between a think tank and a laboratory—fitting for someone whose practice consistently merges art and science. That blend has led to some of the most striking and ambitious public artworks of the last few decades.
Installation Art That Invites Experience
The turning point came in 2003 with The Weather Project, installed in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern. A massive glowing sun, mist, and a mirrored ceiling transformed the space into a dreamlike atmosphere. More than two million visitors passed through. Many lay on the floor and stared up in silence. Eliasson filled the hall and changed the weather inside it. The work didn’t offer answers. It asked people to think about perception, scale, and collective experience. And they did.
This was Eliasson at his most effective: large-scale, sensorial, public. The same applies to Your Rainbow Panorama, a 150-meter-long circular walkway atop the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum. Opened in 2011, it’s built of colored glass, wrapping viewers in a shifting spectrum as they walk and look out over Aarhus. It’s architecture, it’s optics, and it’s a loop of changing perspective, both literally and figuratively.
But Eliasson doesn’t stop at museums or sculpture parks. In 2012, he co-founded Little Sun, a project that distributes small solar-powered lamps to communities without reliable electricity. It’s a practical tool but it’s also an artwork, an act of design and communication. By 2023, more than 1.2 million lamps had been distributed in over 100 countries. The initiative proved his belief that art doesn’t need to be separate from utility. It can, and should engage with the world’s most pressing issues.
Site-specific Architecture and Natural Phenomena
Eliasson has also stepped directly into the world of architecture, co-founding Studio Other Spaces with architect Sebastian Behmann. One of their most ambitious results is Fjordenhus in Vejle, Denmark—a cylindrical building rising directly from the harbor, combining light, water, and structure into a lived experience of form and reflection. It’s part office space, part public artwork, and all Eliasson.
The environment, especially climate change, is both a theme in his work and a call to action. In Ice Watch, he transported blocks of ice from Greenland to public squares in Paris, London, and Copenhagen. Left to melt in real time, they offered a chilling (and literal) reminder of environmental collapse.
From MOCA to Reykjavik: Exhibitions that Cross Borders
Eliasson’s exhibitions have appeared at the Museum of Modern Art, the Palace of Versailles, and the Venice Biennale. His installations have filled the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, and he’s been featured at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. He’s been a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts and received awards ranging from the McDermott Award in the Arts to the title of UN Goodwill Ambassador for Climate Action.
And yet, despite this global presence, Eliasson’s work rarely detaches from the physical. It’s tactile. Whether it’s geometry, optical devices, or chunks of ice, the materials matter. He has collaborated with figures like the late Einar Thorsteinn, whose background in spatial mathematics helped formalize some of Eliasson’s more geometric installations. Their work together often questioned how we see and understand the physical world and how fragile that understanding might be.
Conclusion and FAQs About Olafur Eliasson
Conclusion
If there’s a thread running through Eliasson’s career-long exploration of light, space, and perception, it’s his insistence that the viewer matters. His installations aren’t finished until someone steps inside. Whether it’s a mist-filled room, a tunnel of color, or a courtyard filled with melting ice, the point is not just to look. It’s to experience.
And this is where his influence lands: in site-specific projects, in public spaces, in the tension between spectacle and intimacy. He builds environments that people remember, not for what they were told, but for what they felt. That’s a rare thing in contemporary art.
Olafur Eliasson lives and works in Berlin, but his work stretches far beyond its walls. Across museums, plazas, and power grids, he’s made a career out of asking questions on a scale you can’t ignore.
Summary
- Early life: Born in Copenhagen in 1967 to Icelandic-Danish parents, Olafur Eliasson grew up between two landscapes.
- Career launch: He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and moved to Berlin, where he founded Studio Olafur Eliasson in 1995, bringing together artists, architects, and technicians.
- Breakout work: The Weather Project (2003) at Tate Modern created a glowing sun inside a fog-filled Turbine Hall, drawing millions and redefining how people engage with art.
- Notable installations: Your Rainbow Panorama in Aarhus and Ice Watch in Copenhagen, London, and Paris show his focus on perception, climate, and civic experience.
- Architecture projects: He co-founded Studio Other Spaces and helped design Fjordenhus, a striking structure blending light, water, and public space in Vejle, Denmark.
- Global reach: Exhibited at MoMA, the Venice Biennale, and museums from Reykjavik to Auckland, Eliasson’s work challenges how we see and interact with the world.
- Core themes: Light, space, and participation. Eliasson’s installations demand presence.
- Legacy: Still based in Berlin, Eliasson continues to communicate this message: that art can be a physical experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Where can I see installations by artist Olafur Eliasson?
You can find installations by Olafur Eliasson in major institutions around the world, including the museum of contemporary art in Los Angeles, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul.
2. What was the role of curator Mark Godfrey in Eliasson’s career?
Mark Godfrey, a respected art historian and curator, has written about Olafur Eliasson’s work, highlighting its engagement with perception, nature, and social issues.
3. What was included in the exhibition ‘Olafur Eliasson: Reality Machines’?
The exhibition ‘Olafur Eliasson: Reality Machines’ offered a survey of his immersive installations, reflecting on the connection between viewers and natural elements like light and movement.
4. How does museum architecture affect the experience of Eliasson’s art?
The museum’s architecture often plays a critical role in how Eliasson’s work is experienced, especially in large-scale, site-specific installations that interact with light and space.
5. What does an installation view of Eliasson’s work typically look like?
An installation view of Eliasson’s work often features carefully arranged light, mirrors, or natural elements, designed to immerse the viewer and alter their perception of the environment.
6. Who is the Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson?
The Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson is known for creating installations and public artworks that explore perception, movement, and environmental issues using materials like water, light, and ice.
7. What is Harpa, and how was Eliasson involved in it?
Harpa, the Reykjavik concert hall and conference centre, features a striking glass facade designed in collaboration with Eliasson, inspired by Iceland’s basalt landscapes and light refraction.
8. What’s the significance of Eliasson’s Riverbed installation?
In Riverbed, installed at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Eliasson recreated a rocky landscape indoors, forcing visitors to navigate uneven terrain and rethink their relationship to nature and art spaces.
9. Does Olafur Eliasson do public art?
Yes, Eliasson has created public art across the globe, including the New York City Waterfalls, a temporary project that placed massive man-made waterfalls along the East River.
10. What was shown at MOCA Geffen?
At the MOCA Geffen in Los Angeles, Eliasson’s work explored how artificial and natural light shape spatial experience, continuing his interest in sensory environments.
11. Has Eliasson exhibited in Reykjavik?
Yes, Eliasson has exhibited in Reykjavik, where his work often draws on Iceland’s unique geography and weather systems to explore natural phenomena in a museum setting.
12. Has Eliasson exhibited at the Auckland Art Gallery?
Yes, the Auckland Art Gallery in New Zealand has hosted Eliasson’s work, presenting it in the context of Pacific light and landscape.
13. Does Olafur Eliasson curate exhibitions himself?
While primarily an artist, Eliasson has occasionally curated or co-curated exhibitions, often through his Institute for Spatial Experiments, where he explores education, architecture, and interaction.
14. What is PST ART, and how is Eliasson involved?
PST Art and Science Collide featured artists like Eliasson whose work bridges disciplines. His installations for the program highlighted the connections between art, science, and perception.
15. Who is Henning Larsen and how did he collaborate with Eliasson?
Henning Larsen was a Danish architect who worked with Eliasson on projects like Harpa, blending architectural form with Eliasson’s artistic sensibility in a unique collaboration with Henning Larsen.
16. What are the facades of Harpa made of?
The facades of Harpa are composed of geometric glass panels inspired by crystalline basalt, designed to reflect light and color dynamically throughout the day.
17. What is Eliasson’s connection to the Venice Biennale?
Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale, where his work focused on immersive environments that engaged visitors’ senses and physical awareness.
18. What kind of work does the Institute for Spatial Experiments do?
The Institute for Spatial Experiments is Eliasson’s educational platform, examining how spatial awareness, collaboration, and experience shape creativity.
19. Has Olafur Eliasson exhibited at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art?
Yes, Eliasson’s installations have been shown at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, expanding his international reach.
20. Has he received architectural awards?
Eliasson has been honored with the Mies van der Rohe Award for his contributions to projects that blend artistic innovation with architectural design.
21. Has the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art featured Eliasson’s work?
Yes, the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo has presented Eliasson’s installations as part of its commitment to contemporary international art.
22. Where can I find a summary of Eliasson’s works and projects?
You can explore a full catalog of Eliasson’s works and projects through his official website, selected galleries, or major art institutions like MoMA and Tate.
23. Has the Carnegie Museum of Art exhibited Eliasson’s installations?
Yes, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has included Eliasson in exhibitions focused on installation art and contemporary practice.
