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Art: Olafur Eliasson

I’m often in awe of museum art; how or when it was created, how it’s presented. It’s a quiet, passive pleasure.

Delight, joy: at a museum? That’s rare.

Olafur Eliasson is the Danish-Icelandic artist whose installations can be seen and experienced at the Museum of Contemporary Art (220 E. Chicago Ave.) through Sept. 13.

Go. If you have children or can borrow one, take them.

dscn10431Eliasson — whose “Waterfalls” captivated New York City last summer — creates spaces that turn art inside out, and sometimes bodily involve the viewer.

One of my favorite pieces, “360 degrees room for all coulors” (2002), allows you to step into the color spectrum. You’re inside the work of art.

Another one we liked is a long wide hall lit by monochromatic bulbs, which emit light in a narrow frequency, “Room for one colour” (1997). It looks inviting, a warm bright yellow. Step inside, all color is washed out of your clothes, your skin. You become shades of black and white! You are the art!

That was a favorite of Alex, my 10-year-old daughter, who likes art but dreads museums. We walked through that hall several times, and at a passage, she divided herself: “Okay, where am I black and white? Where am I color?”

Alex didn’t but I loved “Moss Wall” (1994) a room-size installation of slowly growing moss. It looked like a bumpy field of yellow-green cauliflower heads, and gave off a pleasing scent.

Our shared favorite, “Beauty” (1993), is a pitch black room that holds a mounted spotlight shining through a constant falling mist. Depending on where you stand, you see rainbows, gentle waves, ghostly images. You can walk into the mist — most kids do — which creates yet another image, and view.

The show is called “Take your TIme.” I’d promised Alex it wouldn’t be a lengthy visit; we were through the show in 30 minutes. And she was the one who asked to go back to certain installations.

This show will make anyone rethink the term “museum art.” And it will put a smile on your face, with kids or without. www.mcachicago.org

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One thought on "Art: Olafur Eliasson"

  • lisa hazen says:

    I can’t wait to take Finn and check this out! It will be our next rainy day activity. (And it looks like we won’t have to wait long for that.) Thanks, Anne!


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