Olafur Eliasson, Straight Back (2018), via Art Observed

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is currently presenting Olafur Eliasson: The speed of your attention, the first solo exhibition dedicated to Eliasson at the gallery’s recently inaugurated Los Angeles location. The phrase “the speed of your attention” was introduced to Eliasson by Joe Dumit, an anthropologist at UC Davis who conducted a movement experiment during a workshop at Eliasson’s Berlin studio this summer. Dumit learned the phrase from Nita Little—one of the pioneers of contact improvisation, a contemporary dance technique in which movements arise through contact between two or more dancers—in the form of the instruction to “move at the speed of your attention.” (more…)

The Central Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, via Art Observed

Spread between above the green lawns and trees of Venice’s Giardini, and the winding streets and canals of the Arsenale nearby, the Venice Biennale’s Central Pavilion has opened its doors for its Vernissage event, kicking off the 57th annual edition of the exhibition, and welcoming visitors to its first open viewings before it opens to the public this coming Saturday.   (more…)

Olafur Eliasson is planning a giant water fountain for his Versailles commission this summer, playing on one originally designed for the palace grounds during its construction, which was abandoned due to the logistics concerned with pumping water for its operation.   “Of course I could tell you how many meters it is, but I am not going to because we need to leave it to the audience to make up their minds how high is high,” he said. (more…)

Olafur Eliasson is currently negotiating with French officials to install his massive work Ice Watch at the Climate Change summit in Paris.  The work showcases over 120 tons of ice harvested from Greenland as it melts, a comment on the scale and urgency of climate change.  “It makes global warming manifest and raises awareness of the urgency. It is better than a speech,” says French ambassador to Denmark François Zimeray. (more…)

Olafur Eliasson has successfully crowdsourced a new installment of his Little Sun project, an affordable, solar-powered mobile phone charger that will be available in several African nations.  “Every time we were in sub-Saharan Africa people would say the Little Sun is amazing but a mobile phone charger would be much better,” Eliasson said. (more…)

Artist Olafur Eliasson is designing a special waterfall installation for “an art pool,” where viewers can dive underwater to see works by a group of artists.  “I have wanted to construct a waterfall in Copenhagen for a while,” he says.  “I’m keen to participate in this project as it’s a work of art.” (more…)

Commissioned works by Thomas Demand, Olafur Eliasson, Teresita Fernandez and Susan Philipsz, among others, will go on view at the October 9th opening of Grace Farms, a 75-acre public space in New Canaan that also features a new multi-use building design by the SANAA architecture firm in collaboration with OLIN.  “Collaborating with Grace Farms Foundation and SANAA on this project has been highly rewarding,” says Yuko Hasegawa, Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and Grace Farms’ Consultant for Art Installations. “The concept of Grace Farms is unique. I believe it will serve as a great example of how art, architecture, nature and meaningful programs can all come together to inspire people.”  (more…)

Olafur Eliasson, The volcano series, (2012), via neugerriemschneider

Olafur Eliasson, in his sixth solo show at neugerriemschneider Berlin, exhibits new work portraying Iceland, his familial homeland. His new photographic series captures the country’s infamous natural features, and through these stunning images transports the viewer into the scale and physicality of the Icelandic landscape. (more…)

Simon de Pury and collector Robert Tomei discuss their obsession with design as a harbinger of the contemporary market: “Collecting design is quite a new phenomenon,” he says. “In the past, collectors rarely attempted to buy great design as well as great art. Robert, though, is passionate about both, but he doesn’t take himself seriously. His collecting is all done in a spirit of fun, with a genuine interest and curiosity”, says de Pury. Tomei began by collecting video installations form the 90s and owns work by Maarten Baas, Piet Hein Eek, Sebastian Brajkovic, Rolf Sachs, Olafur Eliasson and Elmgreen & Dragset, among others. (more…)

Olafur Eliasson, The Volcano Series (2012). All images courtesy Tanya Bonakdar.

Currently on view through December 22 at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is Volcanoes and Shelters, an exhibition of new photographs and installations by Olafur Eliasson, who is best known for work that merges art, science, and natural phenomena to create multisensory experiences. The exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar, however, focuses on Eliasson’s straightforward collection of photographs of the Icelandic landscape.

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MoMA has just published a new book called “What Is Contemporary Art? A Guide for Kids,” ($19.95), featuring the work of over 70 artists, such as Gillian Wearing, Louise Bourgeois, Bruce Nauman, Olafur Eliasson, Andreas Gursky and Jeff Koons. It is written to make contemporary art more understandable and accessible. (more…)

Ukranian billionaire steel magnate and art collector Victor Pinchuk has commissioned a permanent installation by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson in the city where Pinchuk was raised.  The work will be installed in his Interpipe Steel Mill in Dnepropetrovsk, and will include a 60 meter high artificial sun, which will dominate the skyline of the city.  Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, was previously a manufacturing center for ballistic missiles and only in 1991 opened to foreign visitors. (more…)

Olafur Eliasson – Little Sun (2012), The Tate Modern

As part of the London 2012 Festival, the Tate Modern is hosting a special exhibition in collaboration with artist Olafur Eliasson and engineer Frederik Ottesen.  Spotlighting the duo’s new creation, Little Sun aims to bring solar-powered lighting to parts of the world with no electricity.

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Tino Sehgal via The Independent

Anglo-German artist Tino Sehgal opened ‘These Associations’ in the Tate Modern‘s Turbine Hall yesterday. As the 13th Unilever Commission, the performance art installation is the museum’s first live commission. ‘These Associations’ features shifts of around 50 participants at a time, partaking in different games, dances, and social interactions designed by Sehgal.

Turbine Hall, the venue for ‘These Associations’ via BBC News

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Olafur Eliasson‘s ‘Little Sun’ newly installed at the Tate Modern uses solar powered, sunflower-shaped lamps and blackouts, and additionally address the social issues of energy use and expense. “Little Sun is a small work of art with a large reach,” says the Danish artist about his vision.

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‪‬Olafur Eliasson exhibition to inaugurate the Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation museum designed by Frank Gehry in Paris late 2013 [AO Newslink]

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Yves Klein all photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed

This year marked the 2nd iteration of the House of the Nobleman, a privately sponsored exhibition which took place at the Boswall House, 15,000sqft  mansion at 2 Cornwall Terrace, overlooking Regent’s Park and the Frieze 2011 Art Fair.  Art Observed was on site for the private viewing.  On view were works by Claude Monet, Auguste Rodin, Peter Paul Rubens, Edgar Degas, Max Ernst,  Damien Hirst, Marlene Dumas, Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Sigmar Polke, Christian Boltanski, Anish Kapoor, Nick Hornby, Matthew Day Jackson, Cecily Brown, Lucian Freud, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Yayoi Kusama, Robert Longo, Alexander Calder, Eugenia Emets, Francesco Clemente, Salvador Dali,  Peter Doig,  Olafur Eliasson, George Condo, Takashi Murakami,  Hiroshi Sugimoto and Gerhard Richter.

Monet, Claude “ Chemin dans le brouillard”, (1879)

more images after the jump…

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Postcard from RCA Secret 2010 at the Royal College of Art, all photos via The Guardian

Twenty-eight hundred postcards are on view at the Royal College of Art in London through 6 pm this Friday, November 19. Until November 20th, the artists who created them will remain anonymous, their names (signed on the back of each card) revealed to buyers only after purchase during a one-day sale. The collection constitutes RCA Secret 2010: an annual exhibition and sale of postcard-sized art benefiting the Royal College of Art Fine Art Student Award Fund. To add to the allure of the unknown, a few household names are among the 1,000+ participating artists, including Tracey Emin, Grayson Perry, Yoko Ono, Jake Chapman, Olafur Eliasson, Yinka Shonibare, Sir Peter Blake, John Baldessari, fashion designers Manolo Blahnik, Mary Quant and Sir Paul Smith, animator Nick Park, photographer David Bailey, film maker Mike Leigh and designers Ron Arad and James Dyson. Students and graduates from the Royal College of Art comprise the majority of the participants.

More details and postcards after the jump…
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Untitled 1, Julie Mehretu. Estimated: $600,000—800,000. Price Realized: 1,022,500.

118 artworks that once hung in the corporate offices of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. sold to bidders at Sotheby’s auction house in New York today for $12.3 million, exceeding the high-end estimate of $12 million. The sale comes almost exactly two years after the investment bank filed the largest bankruptcy in the history of the United States and its proceeds will be used to pay off the $613 billion owed to creditors. Today, Kimberly Macleod, spokesperson for Lehman Brothers commented: “We are delighted that Sotheby’s delivered the value we sought on behalf of the creditors and that the result was at the top of the pre-sale estimate.”

More images, results and related links after the jump….
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Olafur Eliasson, Multiple shadow house, 2010. Installation view. Images via Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.

Olafur Eliasson is currently on show for the sixth time at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, through March 20, in a spectacular exhibition that extends the artist’s study of modes of perception, specifically concerning one’s experience of space and time. In this instance Eliasson’s particular fascination is the phenomena of light, movement and color and the relationship between them.

Multiple shadow house, 2010. Installation view

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Before the star lamp, Olafur Eliasson 2010. All Images Via Galeria Elvira Gonzalez Homepage

“Kepler was Wrong”, the exhibition of the new works by the renowned Danish artist Olafur Eliasson is on view at Galeria Elvira Gonzalez, Madrid from January 19 through March 6, 2010. “Kepler was Wrong” features works created especially for this particular exhibition, the first solo show for Eliasson in this gallery.  The artist takes on a humorous argument with Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, and key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, whose theories provided the foundation for Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation.  Eight works on display at Galeria Elvira Gonzales treat different aspects and elements related to the universe, outer space and extraterrestrial traveling, such as the dark side of the moon, gravitation, meteorites etc.  For this particular exhibition, Eliasson creates his own variant the universe that includes seven installations and a large panel of black – and –white photography Jokla Series(2004).
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Slow-motion shadow in color (2009) by Olafur Eliasson, via Kanazwa Museum

Now on view at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan is “Your Chance Encounter” featuring new works by the Danish/ Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson.  Often employing the use of light, wind, waves, and other elements from nature as material in order to explore the workings of human perception, in these new works the artist once again investigates the nature of human perception by creating works which make use of the design of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art.

for more images, report and relevant links read more….

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The Royal College of Art Secret Postcard fundraiser via The Guardian

-The Royal College of Art’s Secret 2009 event has 2,500 postcards for sale for £40, made by artists including Anish Kapoor, Grayson Perry and Yoko Ono.  Though buyers don’t know who the artist is until after they buy. [Times UK]

-Penelope Curtis has been appointed director of Tate Britain, the first woman to hold a directorship at Tate. [Guardian]

-Tracey Emin opens a new exhibition in New York, that, while popular, comes nowhere near the levels of sales or attendance she normal receives in Britain. [NY Times]

An artist’s rendering of Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Cirkelbroen’ bridge to be built in Copenhagen via Artinfo

-Olafur Eliasson has designed a bridge to be completed by 2012 in Copenhagen’s harbor. Called ‘Brikelbroen,’ the bridge is comprised of five circles that take pedestrians on a winding path rather than straight across. [Artinfo]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week… (more…)

Head of a Muse, Raphael via Guardian UK

-Offered for the first time at public auction as part of Christie’s Old Masters sale, Raphael’s drawing “Head of a Muse”- a study for a figure in one of his Vatican frescoes, if it achieves its estimate £12-16million, will break the auction record for an old master drawing currently held by Michelangelo’s and Leonardo da Vinci’s works [Guardian UK]

-As art collectors become more cautious with their purchases, dealers at Frieze and FIAC fairs put works on reserve, among them $40 million Mondrian allegedly put on hold for Bernard Arnault [Bloomberg]

-Ms. Temkin, the chief curator of painting and sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, introduces unexpected changes, unframing certain paintings and subjecting the almost sacralized permanent collection to frequent renewal [The New York Times]

“Your Mercury Ocean” Skateboard by Olafur Eliasson via aarting

-Another collaboration between Mekanism and Olafur Eliasson results in a 13-ply deck 3d patterned skateboard with a mirror coating [aarting]
-In related, Olafur Eliasson commissions by the mayor of Copenhagen to design a bridge for the Danish capital; the artist shares his plans for a transparent bridge in a close vicinity to the water [The Art Newspaper]

– The survey carried out by the Art Fund, the UK’s independent art charity, shows that despite the substantial drop in public funding and investment income, a figure that proves to grow in the context of economic fall is the number of visits to museums [Art Knowledge News]

-In the midst of economic uncertainty, gallery Matthew Marks, which represents artists such as Jasper Johns, and Peter Fischli and David Weiss, plans on expansion with a new space on the West Coast [The New York Times]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week… (more…)