Personally, I don’t enjoy going to exhibitions or museums all that much – somehow, fine art rarely touches or inspires me the way good music, a good film or book will do (or a good interview, for that matter…). And yet, every year there will be one piece or series that has the same effect on me, reminding me of what great art is capable of. Today, I saw three of those – all at Olafur Eliasson’s retrospective Innen Stadt Aussen at the Gropius-Bau in Berlin.
Now, it’s easy to dismiss Eliasson, the ole crowdpleaser, the heavyweight of art superstars with his army of assistants churning out work after work, exhibition after exhibition, the bigger the better, with the ever same ole tricks, etc (but mind you, isn’t that what retrospectives do: look back?). Anyway, I’d heard a lot of bickering about the immensely popular exhibition and almost didn’t go out of some pseudo-intellectual snobbery. What convinced me in the end was that my five-year-old nephew loved it – and so did I.
There’s something very simple and almost childish about Eliasson’s work, and I’m glad I was able to switch off my mind and just allow myself to be delighted by his games with natural phenomena and visual trickery. There are no captions throughout the entire show, which pretty much says it all – Eliasson’s art doesn’t really require any explanation, it works on an entirely different level. Not that his work is shallow, you can go deeper if you want, it’s just easy to relate to, even for a five-year-old. Your Blind Movement is both visually and physically stunning, and Mikroskop instantly achieves this giddy wow effect, but what will really stay with me is Water Pendulum – it’s utterly mesmerizing and one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a long, long time.
Innen Stadt Aussen is showing for only 4 more days, until Sunday, August 08, 2010.
The exhibition is open until 22h every day.
Martin-Gropius-Bau
Niederkirchnerstrasse 7
10963 Berlin
Photography: Water Pendulum by Olafur Eliasson
