Olafur Eliasson

Eliasson’s ecologically centered installations reckon with the inhospitable desert landscape

This volume chronicles Danish artist Olafur Eliasson’s (born 1967) recent multifaceted site-specific installation in the desert in northern Qatar. The outdoor installation consists of 12 temporary pavilions that serve as an “artistic laboratory.” The experiments conducted inside the pavilions use natural phenomena, such as wind, water and sunlight, to create artworks that emerge over the course of the day or as the seasons change. At the National Museum of Qatar, a parallel exhibition features artworks from different periods of Eliasson’s career including light installations, geometric models, watercolors and optical devices. The themes that run throughout the two-part exhibition relate to the broader interests expressed in Eliasson’s wider practice. In the artist’s words: “The Curious Desert asks how we use vision and movement to make sense of our worlds; to make invisible phenomena visible and palpable.”