Waterfall from Heaven: Olafur Eliasson Takes Over the Palace of Versailles
“With Olafur Eliasson, stars collide, the horizon slips away, and our perception blurs. The man who plays with light will make the contours of the Sun-King’s palace dance” says Catherine Pegard, President of the Château de Versailles.
Since 2008 the Palace of Versailles has put on a number of exhibitions dedicated to French or foreign artists, each one lasting a few months. Jeff Koons in 2008, Xavier Veilhan in 2009, Takashi Murakami in 2010, Bernar Venet in 2011, Joana Vasconcelos in 2012, Giuseppe Penone in 2013, Lee Ufan in 2014 and Anish Kapoor in 2015: these artists have all created a special dialogue between their works and the Palace and Gardens of Versailles. Since 2013 Alfred Pacquement is the curator of these exhibitions.
Now, Olafur Eliasson is the Palace of Versailles’ guest artist for the summer of 2016. The work of the internationally acclaimed visual artist investigates perception, movement, embodied experience, and feelings of self - the latest installation channels the artist's hope to stimulate reflection on climate change through a triptych of site-specific, water-related projects in the palace gardens. “It is not just about decorating the world… but about taking responsibility,” Olafur Eliasson one said of his practice, a testament to his most famous piece 'The Weather Project' (2003). The striking installation which was homed in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, London explored how the weather can shape the mood of a city and, in turn, how the city itself becomes a filter through which to experience the weather, it was seen by more than two million people.
Eliasson’s has created a series of carefully considered, compassionate and immersive works that coalesce sleekly into the architecture of Versailles. A monument of beauty as well as a statement of intent, Eliasson's main waterfall appears to be suspended in midair, the sheer sublimity of the piece is said to serve the question of whether viewers are “consuming or producing the experience,” as he says.
Steering away from the tradition of Kapoor, Murakami and Jeff Koons in previous years, Eliasson's presentation aligns the waterfall from heaven politically with a subtle contemporary angle to it. His presentation, which is curated by former Centre Pompidou director Alfred Pacquement, prides the waterfall as the central work in a triptych of water installations in the garden, constructed using a crane, water, stainless steel, pump system, hose, and ballast, the artist said, declining at a press unveiling to confirm its actual height.
The gardens will host the artist's works until Oct. 30
