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Danish-Icelandic artist Eliasson recreates nature at London’s Tate Modern

With light, mist and rain, Olafur Eliasson brings nature into the Tate Modern for a new London exhibition that appeals to visitors' senses while, at points, disorientating them.

Danish-Icelandic artist Eliasson recreates nature at London's Tate Modern
Olafur Eliasson poses for a photograph beside his art installation 'Your Spiral View'. Photo: Niklas Halle'n / AFP / Ritzau Scanpix

About 40 works of art dating back over three decades are on display inside and outside the Thames-side gallery of contemporary art, including an extraordinary 11-metre high waterfall.

Eliasson won acclaim in the British capital in 2003 when he filled the Tate's vast Turbine Hall with a giant blazing sun for “The Weather Project”, an installation that
drew more than two million visitors.

In December, the 52-year-old left 24 blocks of glacier ice to melt outside to raise awareness of the impact of global warming.

His best-known work in Denmark is perhaps the Your Rainbow Panorama walkway on the roof of the Aros art museum in Aarhus, while he also designed Copenhagen Opera House’s distinctive chandeliers and the Circle Bridge on the city's harbour.

This latest exhibition, “In Real Life”, explores the Berlin-based artist's favourite themes, including nature, geometry and the nature of perception.

The installation uses mono-frequency lights — which suppress all colours — “to transform your perception of space”, said curator Mark Godfrey.

A giant kaleidoscopic sculpture “Your Spiral View”, through which visitors can walk as if in a tunnel, is aimed at encouraging them to perceive things from a different viewpoint.

But the experience that is most disconcerting, even frightening, is a long corridor filled with thick mist in which the visitor loses their bearings, unable to see further than a couple of metres.

Other works illustrate the impact humans have on nature, including a series of photographs taken by the artist of Iceland's glaciers in 1999.

They will be replaced in the autumn with a new collection incorporating pictures taken 20 years on, revealing how much they have changed.

Nature is omnipresent in the exhibition, from a huge wall covered in moss to a rainbow formed as if by magic in a dark room where a soft rain falls.

“Olafur spent a lot of time as (a) child in Iceland and the environment, the landscape, have affected him greatly,” said Godfrey.

“He was always interested in the idea of bringing the landscape into the gallery.”

The final part of the exhibition, dubbed “The Expanded Studio”, addresses Eliasson's social and environmental concerns, including an artistic workshop he conducted with asylum-seekers and refugees.

The exhibition opens on Thursday and runs until January 5th, 2020.

SEE ALSO: PHOTOS: Copenhagen's Circle Bridge opens

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ART

Not ok to chop up painting: Danish court puts stop to watch wind-up

A Danish artist has won an injunction against Faroese watch makers who wanted to repurpose one of his canvases as a range of designer timepieces.

Not ok to chop up painting: Danish court puts stop to watch wind-up
Arne Leivsgard takes in 'Paris Chic'. Photo: Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix

The artist, Tal R, successfully appealed to courts to prevent Faroese pair Dann Thorleifsson and Arne Leivsgard from destroying one of his paintings and using the pieces to make watches – which would then be sold off at a profit.

The Maritime and Commercial Court (Sø- og Handelsretten) in Copenhagen ruled on Monday in favour of Tal R.

As a result, Thorleifsson and Leivsgard have been forbidden from going ahead with their art-repurposing project and must also pay pay 31,550 kroner in legal costs, news agency Ritzau as well as British newspaper the Guardian reported on Monday.

The court found that, by altering rather than destroying the art, Thorleifsson and Leivsgard’s plan was in breach of copyright laws.

‘Paris Chic’, part of Tal R’s ‘Sexshops’ series, was purchased in London for £70,000 (610,000 kroner) earlier this year by the Faroese pair.

Thorleifsson and Leivsgard founded a watch company, Kanske, five years ago but are also known as art provocateurs.

They planned to cut up Tal R’s painting and use the pieces as the faces in a line of designer wristwatches made for their new brand, Letho.

Between 200 and 300 watches would have been made and sold on for at least 10,000 kroner a piece, resulting in a profit of up to 4 million kroner.

But they have asserted that art, rather than profit, is their primary motive for making the watches.

“This is a modification. Not plagiarism and not a copy. It is an original that has been worked on to create something new. That's the storytelling we're working on,” Thorleifsson told newspaper Berlingske.

Tal R has said the matter makes him “sad”.

“I see it as someone trying to make money and get attention by making a product out of my art, and that frankly makes me sad,” the artist wrote in comments given to newspaper Politiken last week.

“He acknowledges that whoever purchases one of his works would be at liberty to sell it on or even destroy the work,” the artist’s lawyer, Jørgen Permin, said in October.

“But what he is not obliged to accept is for someone to alter the work and then reintroduce it to the public domain, and particularly not for commercial reasons,” Permin added.

Last week, the parties presented their views to the Maritime and Commercial Court. Judge Mads Bundgaard Larsen has subsequently concluded that a temporary ban should be imposed on cutting up the work for the Letho pair’s intended purposes.

They are “prohibited from cutting, shredding or otherwise changing the painting ‘Paris Chic’ “for use in the manufacture, marketing and supply of watches in Denmark”, the court order states.

Tal R can make the temporary ban permanent by bringing a legal case within the next two weeks, while Thorleifsson and Leivsgard can appeal such a decision, Ritzau reports.

Their lawyer, Heidi Højmark Helveg, told the news agency that they were yet to make a decision in this regard.

READ ALSO: Danish painting sells for record-breaking 31.5 million kroner

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