Eliasson represents a generation of artists that has reached maturity in the last ten years, a generation that merges physical art with social aesthetics, while emphasizing the role of the viewer in defining the work.
The Wolff Art Prize committee for the year 2014 - XNUMX unanimously decided to award the prize to Olafur Eliasson from Denmark thanks to a combination of art and science that evokes moments of personal and universal revelation.
Olafur Eliasson (b. 1967), a Danish artist of Nordic heritage, represents a generation of artists that has come of age in the last ten years, a generation that merges physical art with social aesthetics, emphasizing the role of the viewer in defining the work. Olafur Eliasson works at the intersection between art and science, to the extent that many of his works can be likened to experimental setups: physical and perceptual conditions that are revealed to the eyes of the observer dynamically as he moves through the creative space. Furthermore, many of his works have an "environmental" nature in several respects: on the one hand, they envelop the viewers, giving them a collective, even social experience; On the other hand, they raise in their consciousness the forces of nature such as the sun, rain, ice and fog.
Olafur Eliasson set himself the goal of disrupting our understood and fixed habits of seeing, and drawing our attention to the active role we play when we perceive and shape the world from one moment to the next. In his studio, devices are produced that reflect, distort, and complicate our perception in a way that undermines our sense of control over the world and imposes on us a microcosmic bewilderment. At the same time, and despite their spectacular appearance on the outside, they always reveal the mechanics that operate them. The artist is not at all interested in deceiving us, but rather allowing us to experience the causal factor as it is and at the same time the result it generates.
Olafur Eliasson's studio in Berlin embodies the development of the practice of contemporary art: partners in it are creators from all over the world, it functions as an international community in a small Enfin where art, scientific research and design come together. The work in the studio is diverse and produces books, works of art, works commissioned for public spaces, as well as pure research of the kind that can be found in a university laboratory.
Olafur Eliasson's art corresponds with today's world, a world of social and ecological interrelationships. Thanks to the variety of his interests, which weave together individual, society and environment; Thanks to his ability to infuse artistic vision into scientific ideas and alternatively, a spirit of scientific thinking in art; And finally, thanks to his ability to enhance the ability of each viewer to develop an independent perception that only in the light of his work can be understood and appreciated - the Wolf Foundation recognizes the extraordinary artistic achievement of Olafur Eliasson and is proud to award him the Wolf Foundation Award in the Arts for 2014.
