Olafur Eliasson

Perhaps the era in which New York was the center of cultural mechanisms of art has come to an end. Even MoMA, the center of all centers, is no longer the host of historical marks of the globes experiences. It has become, on the other hand, one of many places that deals with recording events. This time is different for MoMA, this time around they decided to celebrate one of those artists in their fourties that our children will some day study in school (if schools will have any worth at all), perhaps without having to first go through the attics of Soho.

The first thing that one thinks of is that Olafur Eliasson is from Island. It’s that island situated between ice and nothingness that keeps throwing out talents, as though the absence of cultural roots, in that cold desert, in that nothingness, is the right heavylessness needed, for flying high.

Eliasson is one of the very few artists that we can define avantguard, in a world that fills its mouth with stories of the end of the avantguardists. His language does not recall, nor does it evoke, his language burns its own fuel. His work simply is, before it is even born, before it becomes anyone’s son, before it becomes anyone’s father.

He mirrors portionts of spectators, infinitely different from themselves. He illuminates with a spotlight, hiding its shadows. He creates waterfalls above the sea, from the sea, under bridges, he recreates the sun inside a museum, he reproposes lit policromatic sunsets in empty rooms, he takes photographs of 50 glaciers, 50 volcanos, 50 deserts. He generates epiphanic realities, like an experienced goldsmith.

He manages to let out, every time, with every gesture, an immense quantity of intensity.

In every one of his works, a force of expression and power is coagulated, yet it is put toghether with almost nothing. Some water, two lights, two pieces of glass. With nothing, yet its power is equivalent to the power of cinema, or the power of sports. No soundtrack, no editing, no players, no yelling, no stage, no ornaments, no crap, straight to the stomach. Art always fails at this. It always requires incredible sensibility and a glance that is cultured, precise, and careful. And mature. It is difficult to attend exhibitions. Not Eliasson, he puts on a spectacle in the very first act.

He uses the grammar of a consumer sensitivity (the sun, the waterfall, the horizon), he pops them out like on TV, no silence, no modesty, while holding back the bearing structure, an equilibrium of language, a touch, a glance, an outstanding artist.

At the end, what our children will learn in school, is that you can emit sense, quality, nobility by striking the eye. One can be cultured, without being difficult. You can be spectacular, like a set designer, like a whore, like at the circus, and still be intellectually refined.