Art & Exhibitions
Olafur Eliasson Floods Danish Museum with River Installation
After conquering waterfalls, the artist built a stream.
Christie Chu
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A river runs through Olafur Eliasson‘s first solo exhibition at Denmark’s Lousiana Museum of Modern Art. The show’s titular work and centerpiece, Riverbed, is a gargantuan site-specific installation that unfolds throughout the entire south wing of the museum, engaging with the institution’s unique blueprint, reports Designboom.
A carefully curated surface of rocks canvasses the museum floor, creating a man-made yet deceptively natural-looking terrain complete with a river of running water. The installation provides visitors with distinctly alternative paths to the conventional walk stroll around a museum. Instead of the institution’s familiar tiled floor, visitors will encounter an uneven dirt and rock territory. Eliasson’s indoor land art intervention is a reference to the historic ground on which the museum lays—Louisiana’s south wing was built in 1982 on a slope that was once a sculpture garden.
Accompanying Riverbed is Model Room, an immersive installation that offers a glimpse into the artist’s studio. The workshop space will evolve throughout the run of the exhibition, housing new projects and a collection of geometric models that Eliasson made in close collaboration with fellow Icelandic artist Einar Thorsteinn. In addition to the large-scale installations, the exhibition includes three video works screening in the Museum’s large hall. Movement Horoscope follows a group of dancers in Eliasson’s studio; Your Embodied Garden explores a Chinese field in Suzhou through the lens of choreographer Steen Koerner; and Innen Stadt Außen (Inner City Out) offers an idiosyncratic portrait of Berlin.
Olafur Eliasson’s “Riverbed” runs August 20, 2014 through January 4, 2015.
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