From Observer to Co-worker: In Olafur Eliasson's Studio
By Philip Ursprung. Excerpt from the book 'Studio Olafur Eliasson'
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I had heard how, at Olafur Eliasson's studio in Berlin, a whole group of artists, architects, and technicians work and experiment together as they would in a laboratory, so I arranged a visit as part of my research for an essay on the modern-day artist's studio. On an icy-cold day in January 2006 I stood in front of the studio, located in a warehouse right next door to the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art. This part of the city had always fascinated me. For decades it lay on the edge of West Berlin, close to the Wall, but has now once again regained its position at the heart of the German capital, a place where the "East-meets-West" feeling still pervades. On one side are construction sites, warehouses, small industrial companies, and haulage contractors. On the other, the main railway station, the Federal Chancellery and Reichstag building - an ideal neighborhood for the studio of an experimental artist like Eliasson.
At the heart of the studio is a large, well-lit space where finished and half-finished works of art stand around and materials for various projects are spread out on large tables. Scattered about the place are instruments for measuring spatial and chronological phenomena, along with refractors, mirrors, and prisms of every shape and color. Here, installations are tested, built and dismantled, geometric shapes are explored and adjusted, parts of façades erected, prototypes hung on walls and scrutinized, and reflections of light studied. I visited the studio several times and each time it looked different.
The first time I was there, I noticed the chassis of a BMW on which Eliasson was working, having been commissioned to turn it into an art car. Another time, small-format prints of photos of his most recent trip to Iceland were spread out on large tables. From among them he was choosing suitable shots to be enlarged and assembled in a series. The hall has a fitted kitchen and a long table at which everyone can eat lunch or take a break.
Above the large central area is a gallery. There, a group of about eight architects was working under the supervision of Sebastian Behmann. (More of this later.) In the basement is the work space of Einar Thorsteinn, an Icelandic architect, theoretician, and artist with whom Eliasson has worked for a good ten years - their first joint project was a pavilion built in 1996 - and whose geometric models in cardboard, paper, and plastic are among Eliasson's many sources of inspiration. From 1969 to 1971 Thorsteinn worked with the architect Frei Otto. Nearby is the workshop where various colleagues assemble artworks, saw wood, solder wires, and weld metal. A specially designed white room is used to test optical effects and find out how our perception of objects changes when they are lit with varying shades of white light. Everywhere there are wooden crates for transporting artworks to galleries and museum spaces all over the world.
The atmosphere in the studio is relaxed, professional, and productive - a mixture of architect's practice and laboratory - and usually as busy as a small city. Eliasson has a staff of around thirty. On my first visit, architect Kerstin Schmidt was gathering information on the history of the camera obscura and building models of different sizes in order to combine several camerae obscurae in a single work - for example fifteen are used in Dreamhouse (2007). Eliasson has long been interested in this piece of equipment, which links photography and architecture and enables several people to observe visual phenomena at the same time. Between 1999 and 2006 he created five such works: Camera Obscura (1999), 360° Camera Obscura (1999), Camera Obscura for the Sky (2003), Camera Obscura für die Donau [Camera Obscura for the Danube] (2004), and Kaleidoscope With Camera Obscura (2006).
Page [1] [2]
Page [1] [2]
I had heard how, at Olafur Eliasson's studio in Berlin, a whole group of artists, architects, and technicians work and experiment together as they would in a laboratory, so I arranged a visit as part of my research for an essay on the modern-day artist's studio. On an icy-cold day in January 2006 I stood in front of the studio, located in a warehouse right next door to the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art. This part of the city had always fascinated me. For decades it lay on the edge of West Berlin, close to the Wall, but has now once again regained its position at the heart of the German capital, a place where the "East-meets-West" feeling still pervades. On one side are construction sites, warehouses, small industrial companies, and haulage contractors. On the other, the main railway station, the Federal Chancellery and Reichstag building - an ideal neighborhood for the studio of an experimental artist like Eliasson.
At the heart of the studio is a large, well-lit space where finished and half-finished works of art stand around and materials for various projects are spread out on large tables. Scattered about the place are instruments for measuring spatial and chronological phenomena, along with refractors, mirrors, and prisms of every shape and color. Here, installations are tested, built and dismantled, geometric shapes are explored and adjusted, parts of façades erected, prototypes hung on walls and scrutinized, and reflections of light studied. I visited the studio several times and each time it looked different.
The first time I was there, I noticed the chassis of a BMW on which Eliasson was working, having been commissioned to turn it into an art car. Another time, small-format prints of photos of his most recent trip to Iceland were spread out on large tables. From among them he was choosing suitable shots to be enlarged and assembled in a series. The hall has a fitted kitchen and a long table at which everyone can eat lunch or take a break.
Above the large central area is a gallery. There, a group of about eight architects was working under the supervision of Sebastian Behmann. (More of this later.) In the basement is the work space of Einar Thorsteinn, an Icelandic architect, theoretician, and artist with whom Eliasson has worked for a good ten years - their first joint project was a pavilion built in 1996 - and whose geometric models in cardboard, paper, and plastic are among Eliasson's many sources of inspiration. From 1969 to 1971 Thorsteinn worked with the architect Frei Otto. Nearby is the workshop where various colleagues assemble artworks, saw wood, solder wires, and weld metal. A specially designed white room is used to test optical effects and find out how our perception of objects changes when they are lit with varying shades of white light. Everywhere there are wooden crates for transporting artworks to galleries and museum spaces all over the world.
The atmosphere in the studio is relaxed, professional, and productive - a mixture of architect's practice and laboratory - and usually as busy as a small city. Eliasson has a staff of around thirty. On my first visit, architect Kerstin Schmidt was gathering information on the history of the camera obscura and building models of different sizes in order to combine several camerae obscurae in a single work - for example fifteen are used in Dreamhouse (2007). Eliasson has long been interested in this piece of equipment, which links photography and architecture and enables several people to observe visual phenomena at the same time. Between 1999 and 2006 he created five such works: Camera Obscura (1999), 360° Camera Obscura (1999), Camera Obscura for the Sky (2003), Camera Obscura für die Donau [Camera Obscura for the Danube] (2004), and Kaleidoscope With Camera Obscura (2006).
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Studio Olafur Eliasson. An Encyclopedia
Hardcover, 30.8 x 39 cm (12.1 x 15.4 in.), 528 pages
$ 150.00
$ 150.00
Iceland's finest - an encyclopedic vision on Olafur Eliasson's art and architecture in xl-format
The Weather Project (2003), London.
Photo (c) Jens Ziehe
Dufttunnel (2004), Wolfsburg
Photo (c) Studio Olafur Eliasson