Olafur Eliasson. Reality Machines - Birnbaum, Daniel

Verlag Der Buchhandlung König Mrz 2016

Neuware - Olafur Eliasson's art is driven by his interests in perception, movement, embodied experience, and feelings of self. Eliasson strives to make the concerns of art relevant to society at large. Art, for him, is a crucial means for turning thinking into doing in the world. Eliasson's diverse works - in sculpture, painting, photography, film, and installations - have been exhibited widely throughout the world. Not limited to the confines of the museum and gallery, his practice engages the broader public sphere through architectural projects and interventions in civic space. Eliasson was born in 1967. He grew up in Iceland and Denmark and studied, from 1989 to 1995, at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In 1995, he moved to Berlin and founded Studio Olafur Eliasson, which today encompasses some ninety craftsmen, specialised technicians, architects, archivists, administrators, programmers, art historians, and cooks. Since the mid-1990s, Eliasson has realised numerous major exhibitions and projects around the world. 300 pp. English
Olafur Eliasson: Reality machines was conceived and designed by Irma Boom, one of the world’s most celebrated graphic designers, to bring to life in book form the artwork and ideas of Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. The exhibition catalogue – published by Moderna Museet and Koenig Books on the occasion of the exhibition Verklighetsmaskiner / Reality machines, at Moderna Museet in Stockholm – takes the form of an artist’s book in which essays and images interact with tactile papers and transparent films. Eliasson’s diverse artworks – in sculpture, painting, photography, film, and installations – have been exhibited widely throughout the world. His art is driven by a deep interest in perception, movement, embodied experience, and feelings of self, and by his conviction that art offers a crucial means for turning thinking into doing in the world. Not limited to the confines of the museum and gallery, his practice engages the broader public sphere through architectural projects and interventions in civic space. This catalogue features illuminating essays by Timothy Morton, philosopher and specialist in ecology and object-oriented ontology, and Matilda Olof-Ors, curator at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, as well as a conversation between Eliasson and Daniel Birnbaum, director of Moderna Museet. Anders Sune Berg’s installation photography presents vivid views of the exhibition Verklighetsmaskiner / Reality machines at Moderna Museet.