Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey is the first major solo exhibition in Southeast Asia showcasing the work of internationally celebrated Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson and takes place till 22 September 2024 at Singapore Art Museum.
The exhibition features 17 artworks that employ diverse media and revisits the major themes of his three-decade-long practice — embodiment, experience, perception, as well as the urgency of climate action and more-than-human perspectives.
Included in the Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey exhibition at Singapore Art Museum are never-before-seen works and Singapore-exclusive installations only available at this leg of the travelling show.
Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey exhibition at Singapore Art Museum
Internationally renowned for his wide-ranging, genre-crossing works, Eliasson has exhibited his works in major museums and public spaces around the globe since 1997. His works explores the relevance of art in the world at large and within his studio in Berlin, Germany, he has a large team of craftspeople, architects, archivists, researchers, administrators, cooks, art historians, and specialized technicians.
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His captivating installations make the ungraspable tangible — heightening our awareness of our senses and playfully challenging our experience and perception of the world around us.
It has also been especially meaningful with audiences as it reflects environmental concerns and issues.
Highlights of the exhibition Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey
Here are some highlights of Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey.
Yellow corridor
Visitors will be immediately greeted by Yellow corridor (1997) at Level 1 of SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark.
A row of mono-frequency yellow lights illuminates the passageway of Galleries 1 and 2, inviting an uncanny somatic experience of the space where one’s visual spectrum of colours is desaturated and washed in shades of grey.
The work is representative of Eliasson’s interest in co-creation with his audiences, where their unique first-person perspective completes the experience of the work.
Beauty
One of Eliasson’s most iconic works is Beauty (1993).
In the work, a fine sheet of mist is illuminated by a singular spotlight in a darkened space.
When viewed at just the right angle, a luminous rainbow is revealed.
As light is refracted and reflected on the water droplets differently, no two viewers see the same rainbow.
This work brings into focus the role of the viewer and the very act of perception and experience of seeing and begs the question: Does the rainbow exist independently, or does it exist because we perceive it?
The cubic structural evolution project
The cubic structural evolution project (2004) is one of two Singapore-only exclusive works
The work invites active participation in the envisioning and transformation of a LEGO cityscape and is only made complete with the audience’s spirited engagement.
Comprising heaps of white Lego bricks amongst imaginative complexes, Eliasson creates space for play and creativity, encouraging visitors to build shared worlds with others.
Symbiotic seeing
Symbiotic seeing (2020) is the other Singapore-exclusive work.
Here, coloured laser lights come into contact with periodically released fog to create a captivating marvel that appears to occupy a liminal space between physical states.
The ripples and currents of fog are reminiscent of the aurora borealis and draws the viewer in to become directly involved with the art installation.
Object defined by activity (then)
Object defined by activity (then) (2009) features strobe lights that flicker in rapid succession. This illuminates a water feature in a pitch-dark space for a mere fraction of a second at a time, creating the illusion of water being frozen in time in a series of still, fleeting frames.
Multiple shadow house
Multiple shadow house (2010) comprises a series of free-standing rooms that are lit in multiple shades of colours such as blue, purple, yellow and green.
As visitors enter the rooms, shapes are cast as an array of glitched shadows onto translucent projection screens. This effect encourages visitors to try out various dramatic movements to produce a range of effects: walking back and forth, moving closer to the screen or interacting with fellow visitors.
As the silhouettes are visible from both inside and outside these rooms, the work can be thought of as a life-sized stage for shadow play, on which every person performs alone but also together with others.
Moss wall
Moss wall (1994) sees reindeer cup lichen (Cladonia rangiferina) woven into a wire mesh that blankets an entire gallery wall.
Also known colloquially as “reindeer moss,” it covers immense areas in northern tundra and taiga ecosystems. This living and breathing wall brings the exterior indoors and a piece of the tundra to the tropics.
The last seven days of glacial ice
In The last seven days of glacial ice (2024), Eliasson also prompts visitors to reflect on pertinent environmental concerns and the ongoing climate crisis. It features a fragment of ice from a nearby glacier at Diamond Beach in the south of Iceland was visualised in its various stages of melting.
The seismographic testimony of distance (Berlin–Singapore, no. 1 to no. 6)
The seismographic testimony of distance (Berlin–Singapore, no. 1 to no. 6) is a series of unique seismographic sketches created by Eliasson’s drawing machines installed in the shipping crates that carried most of the artworks shown in this exhibition.
This provides a unique perspective of their journey from Berlin to Singapore by sea instead of air.
The work thus not only necessitates sea travel but also demonstrates a mindfulness of the exhibition’s carbon footprint in both his content and process of creating his artworks and exhibitions.
The seismographic testimony of distance will continue to develop as the exhibition travels over a three-year timeframe and unite each distinct iteration of the exhibition as part of a larger, global story.
Continuing its Journey
After the exhibition completes its run in Singapore, Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey will be moving on to four other venues in the Asia-Pacific.
These venues are Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, New Zealand (Dec 2024 – Mar 2025); Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan (May – Aug 2025); Museum MACAN, Jakarta, Indonesia (Nov 2025 – Apr 2026); and Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila, the Philippines (Jun – Oct 2026).
Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey runs in Singapore till 22 September 2024 at SAM at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. Exhibition tickets are available at $20 ($15 for Singapore Residents and Permanent Residents). Admission is free for local and locally-based students and teachers.
Get more details about Olafur Eliasson: Your curious journey.
