Olafur Eliasson

The Dan­ish-Ice­landic artist Ola­fur Elias­son’s work focus­es intense­ly on nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na and tech­no­log­i­cal process­es. Ele­ments such as water, light, fog, and ice char­ac­ter­ize his sculp­tures and spa­tial instal­la­tions. He makes the ori­gin, ener­gy, and beau­ty of nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na sen­su­al­ly per­cep­ti­ble — their impact unfolds only through the view­er’s perception.

With the instal­la­tion ​“Your mobile expec­ta­tions: BMW H2R Project,” Elias­son presents a work at the Pinakothek der Mod­erne cre­at­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with archi­tects and sci­en­tists. As part of the BMW Art Car series, he designed the hydro­gen-pow­ered BMW H2R race car in 2005, which was devel­oped for speed records while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly focus­ing on envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Elias­son removed the vehi­cle’s out­er body and replaced it with a frag­ile struc­ture of mir­rored met­al lay­ers cov­ered in ice. This trans­forms the high-tech car into a work of art that reflects on themes such as mobil­i­ty, tem­po­ral­i­ty, renew­able ener­gies, and the rela­tion­ship between car pro­duc­tion and glob­al warm­ing. The vehi­cle is pre­sent­ed in a walk-in cold stor­age room where approx­i­mate­ly 2,000 liters of water freeze into a lay­er of ice. The illu­mi­nat­ed ice struc­ture lends the art­work an impres­sive, atmos­pher­ic effect.

Elias­son’s trans­for­ma­tion of the H2R is con­ceived as a crit­i­cal design provo­ca­tion, intend­ed to stim­u­late reflec­tion on the soci­etal sig­nif­i­cance of art, design, tech­nol­o­gy, and the environment.