Olafur Eliasson Floods Danish Museum with River Installation

After conquering waterfalls, the artist built a stream.

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Olafur Eliasson, Riverbed (2014)
Photo: Courtesy Anders Sune Berg, courtesy of The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
Copenhagen, Denmark.
Olafur Eliasson, Riverbed (2014). Photo by Anders Sune Berg, courtesy of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
Olafur Eliasson, Riverbed (2014). Photo by Anders Sune Berg, courtesy of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
Olafur Eliasson, Riverbed (2014). Photo by Anders Sune Berg, courtesy of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
Olafur Eliasson, Riverbed (2014). Photo by Anders Sune Berg, courtesy of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
Olafur Eliasson, Riverbed (2014). Photo by Anders Sune Berg, courtesy of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
Olafur Eliasson, Riverbed (2014). Photo by Anders Sune Berg, courtesy of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
Olafur Eliasson, Model Room (2003). Photo by Anders Sune Berg, courtesy of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
Olafur Eliasson, Model Room (2003). Photo by Anders Sune Berg, courtesy of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

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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