The third Eliasson’s exhibition at Castello di Rivoli stems from the desire to intercept the Scandinavian interest in ecology and environmental sustainability by creating an ongoing dialogue with nature
Lampoon introduces Trembling Horizons
Olafur Eliasson returns at Castello di Rivoli with an immersive exhibition transforming the space of the Manica Lunga wing into a dark gallery where art and technology merge and intertwine. Trembling Horizons takes up some of the fundamental principles of Eliasson’s research, such as the relationship between artwork and audience, as well as his ability to rely on the subjectivity of each viewer to find what can be called the ultimate meaning of the work.
Since the beginning of his career, another core aspect of his practice – which this exhibition takes to new extremes – has been the interest in an art form which is capable of making us perceive what we call reality for what it essentially is: a series of constructions and mediations, from architecture to technology, from geography to the invention of perspective.
«These are things which apparently most of us take for granted, obvious. There are multiple cultural conventions which our brain follows as if it was an automatism. Olafur’s work acts on a profound level as it manages to undermine some of these fundamental certainties. The fact that we are now in a room with the walls and floor meeting and forming a 90 degree angle is not a fact, but something which someone has decided for us at a given time in history. The way we see the world through the digital screen is the result of the work of a group of engineers and programmers who have decided that reality can be rearranged in this way. The art of Olafur acts in this direction», explains Marcella Beccaria, curator of the exhibition.
Eliasson’s new series: Kaleidoramas
Until 26 March 2023 visitors will have the opportunity to discover six new installations conceived specifically for the Turin museum. Each work is mounted on the gallery wall and oriented at a different angle. Visitors are invited to engage with the installations by entering from below the constructions or simply facing straight on to view projections of colorful lines, lights and geometrical forms generated in real time through a spotlight beam. «In the space, the public comes across various chapters one after the other. Olafur worked with reflective surfaces and projections, resulting from the contact between beams of light and pools of water acting as a coagent, sometimes rippled, sometimes quiet», Beccaria claims.
Eliasson calls these works kaleidoramas, combining the words kaleidoscope and panorama. Invented in the nineteenth century by a Scotsman, the kaleidoscope is an optical instrument which uses mirrors and colored glass or plastic fragments to create a variety of symmetrical structures. The name derives from the Greek words “kalós” (beautiful), “eidos” (shape) and “skopéo” (to observe).
The second part of the word, on the other hand, alludes to the 19th century concept of panorama, a landscape figuration painted on the inner face of a cylindrical surface which gives the observer, placed at the center of it, and in a slightly raised position, the illusion of being surrounded by a real landscape.
The relationship with space
«I think Kaleidormas and kaleidoscopes have two things in common: firstly, the size of what you are looking at is actually wider than the room in which you are standing. You have a sort of machine, you enter it and see something that otherwise would be invisible, like with telescopes, which allowed us to see things we had never seen before. You know, make the invisible visible. Secondly, the angles must always work with 360 degrees. I want to suggest that it happens also in the architecture in which we are. In fact the works are not standing on the floor, they come out of the wall, exist in the space», Eliasson explains.
According to the artist, our perception of space is closely connected with society and the values it is built on and are represented in the way we plan the public space: institutions, schools, correction facilities and so on. Though over the years society has evolved, the western world is still based on the arrogant assumption that our old values and set of rules – regulating architecture, gender, economy – are the most honorable.
Eliasson’s Kaleidoramas are an invitation to reconsider and renegotiate our relationship with space and the surroundings through our senses. As one enters the Kaleidoramas, you have a perception of space which differs completely from the orthogonal one of Euclidean space as we know it.
Through the walk, visitors are invited to give up for a moment the use of smartphones, whose screen would act as a barrier, and “feel their senses sense”. «It is all part of a profound thought which Olafur has elaborated drawing on scientific and philosophical research – such as the work of Chilean scientist Francisco Varela – which shows that people perceive space primarily through the body, unlike what we usually think, that it is the mind the center of our senses», the curator explains.
The embodiment of eternity and the trembling horizons of our planet
Trembling Horizons was conceived as a journey through space and time, unfolding in the succession of the artworks positioned across the Manica Lunga. «The time you take to walk through the exhibition, the sequence, the distance between the works like paintings on a wall. Remembering the first artwork and waiting for the next one: in that journey the unfolding of time takes place. I hope to offer visitors the embodiment of the sense of eternity», Eliasson claims.
Time should not be understood as a blind tension to the future, to the horizon. On the contrary, the artist encourages the viewers to remain present in their time and take in account and experience collectively the current challenges and problems of our unstable world and environment.
«What we need to do is re-see, re-world, and re-do what we thought we were doing right. We are borrowing from the future, but our children and grandchildren will have to pay. Do not look ahead, but look down and around. Looking around has nothing to do with the modernist utopia, it means understanding things and systems. In kaleidoscopes beauty is used as a tool to make you look for something inside yourself which feels strong but has not been taken out yet: subconscious, oppressed feelings, things that we have put away. If you feel that connection, Kaleidoramas almost speak to you. They encourage visitors to offer their own view on certain matters».
Driftwoods and compasses: losing and finding yourself
The journey through Kaleidoramas is opened and closed by two brand-new installations which work both as bushings and brackets. In this experimental exhibition, the artist wanted to draw on his numerous interests, including his fascination with scientific and measuring instruments, and the ambivalent ways in which we have exploited them. These tools have been used not only to discover the world but also to conquer it, colonize it and develop the extractive policies which so deeply condition the north and south of the planet.
After entering the room, visitors are welcomed by Navigation star for utopia (2022). Suspended from the ceiling and shining across the first part of the room with its beam of colored light, it looks like a three-dimensional rose wind guiding us towards the future. Similarly, at the end of the room visitors will find Your non-human friend and navigator (2022) two huge parts of driftwood, one set up on the floor and the other suspended in the air and pointing to the magnetic north thanks to the presence of a magnet.
Eliasson: the charm lies in history
These works belong to a long research phase that began in 2008, when he started collecting driftwood on the coasts of Iceland. Coming from Siberia, they are logs cut from the forests and destined for the manufacturing industry.
Depending on whether they land on the north or south coasts of Iceland, it is possible to trace their path and origin. According to Eliasson, their charm lies in their history: uprooted from their natural environment, introduced into the artificial world and then back into the natural one, they floated for decades to reach the Icelandic coasts and eventually became artworks exhibited today in front of an international audience.
«I am interested in getting lost and found, finding a way. The wood is pointing at a window, it is looking out the window, as if the exhibition continues outside. They traveled a lot before meeting us here. They are still traveling. Castello di Rivoli is not still in time, it is evolving too. In the 70s they fell in to the ocean and ended up here today, it is a journey, we are all still navigating».
Trembling Horizons
From 3 November 2022 to 26 March 2023 Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea presents the exhibition Olafur Eliasson: Orizzonti tremanti / Trembling horizons. On the occasion of Orizzonti tremanti / Trembling horizons, a special reading room dedicated to Olafur Eliasson is open to the public in the spaces of Castello di Rivoli Library and Research Center. The project is the winner of the PAC2021 – Piano per l’Arte Contemporanea promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture and is also made possible thanks to the additional contribution of the Fondazione CRT and Lavazza.
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson (Copenhagen, 1967, lives and works in Berlin) has, since the mid-1990s, carried out numerous exhibitions and projects all over the world. In 2003 he represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale with The blind pavilion. He has exhibited in numerous international institutions such as MOMA, SFMOMA, Lousiana Museum of Modern Art. Olafur Eliasson exhibited at Castello di Rivoli in 1999 for his first museum exhibition outside Scandinavia, and again in 2008 during the second Turin Triennale, when he created The sun has no money. Works from both exhibitions are part of the Collections of the Castello di Rivoli.
