Artist Olafur Eliasson – of recent PS1 and “Waterfalls” fame in New York City — has his first museum solo exhibition in Berlin on view now at Martin-Gropius-Bau. (Interesting, as he’s kept a studio in Germany’s creative capital since 1995.) Innen Stadt Außen, or Inside City Outside, pairs Eliasson’s signature architectural interventions with experiential installations that evoke feeling without form.

In a word, it’s transcendent.

Mirrors, stone, and grass are all used to achieve a heightened sense of the surroundings, in this case, a Renaissance-style arts and crafts museum built in 1881. The last leg of the exhibition, an installation called the Blind Pavilion, envelops the visitor in fog of colored light, reducing visibility while heightening physical sensation. Moving through the space, colors emitted from T5 fluorescent bulbs behind a gridded screen shift from pale green to blue to purple to a deep red.

Pictures and video after the break.

Architectural Record notes of the collaboration between the Danish-Icelandic artist and Chinese architect Ma Yansong:

Rather than considering their respective disciplines separately, Ma and Eliasson focused on the creative process as a whole, blurring the boundaries between art and architecture. In the dematerialized environment the two have created, viewers experience a heightened awareness. “Space has never existed,” says Ma, “but rather exists only in the specific feelings it induces.”

The Blind Pavilion at Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin (video by High Snobiety).

Architizers Ryan Quinlan and Benjamin Prosky inside the exhibition.

Footage from of a previous iteration called “Feeling are Facts” at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, China.

Image from the Beijing exhibition of Olafur Eliasson’s “Feelings are Facts.” [Via itrynotothink]

[Via itrynotothink]

by Kelsey Keith

posted in General

tagged architectural installations, berlin, feelings are facts, fine art, martin gropius bau, Olafur Eliasson

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