Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between these terms overlap.

History[link]

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917. Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz

Installation art can be either temporary or permanent. Installation artworks have been constructed in exhibition spaces such as museums and galleries, as well as public and private spaces. The genre incorporates a broad range of everyday and natural materials, which are often chosen for their "evocative" qualities, as well as new media such as video, sound, performance, immersive virtual reality and the internet. Many installations are site-specific in that they are designed to exist only in the space for which they were created. A number of institutions focusing on Installation art were created from the 1980s onwards, suggesting the need for Installation to be seen as a separate discipline. These included the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, the Museum of Installation in London, and the Fairy Doors of Ann Arbor, MI, among others.

Installation art came to prominence in the 1970s but its roots can be identified in earlier artists such as Marcel Duchamp and his use of the readymade and Kurt Schwitters' Merz art objects, rather than more traditional craft based sculpture. The "intention" of the artist is paramount in much later installation art whose roots lie in the conceptual art of the 1960s. This again is a departure from traditional sculpture which places its focus on form. Early non-Western installation art includes events staged by the Gutai group in Japan starting in 1954, which influenced American installation pioneers like Allan Kaprow. Wolf Vostell shows his installation „6 TV De-coll/age“ in 1963 ^[1] at the at the Smolin Gallery in New York.

Rachel Whitread. Embankment at Tate Modern.

Carsten Höller. Test Site, 2006, Tate Modern. Members of the public slid down as much as five stories inside tubular slides.

Allan McCollum.The Shapes Project, 2005/06

Jacek Tylicki. Give if you can - Take if you have to in the jungle Arambol, Goa, India.

Installation[link]

Installation as nomenclature for a specific form of art came into use fairly recently; its first use as documented by the OED was in 1969. It was coined in this context in reference to a form of art that had arguably existed since prehistory but was not regarded as a discrete category until the mid-twentieth century. Allan Kaprow used the term “Environment” in 1958 (Kaprow 6) to describe his transformed indoor spaces; this later joined such terms as “project art” and “temporary art.”

Essentially, installation/environmental art takes into account a broader sensory experience, rather than floating framed points of focus on a “neutral” wall or displaying isolated objects (literally) on a pedestal. This may leave space and time as its only dimensional constants, implying dissolution of the line between "art" and "life"; Kaprow noted that “if we bypass ‘art’ and take nature itself as a model or point of departure, we may be able to devise a different kind of art… out of the sensory stuff of ordinary life” (Kaprow 12).

Gesamtkunstwerk[link]

The conscious act of artistically addressing all the senses with regard to a total experience made a resounding debut in 1849 when Richard Wagner conceived of a Gesamtkunstwerk, or an operatic work for the stage that drew inspiration from ancient Greek theater in its inclusion of all the major art forms: painting, writing, music, etc. (Britannica) In devising operatic works to commandeer the audience’s senses, Wagner left nothing unobserved: architecture, ambience, and even the audience itself were considered and manipulated in order to achieve a state of total artistic immersion. In the book "Themes in Contemporary Art”, it is suggested that “installations in the 1980s and 1990s were increasingly characterized by networks of operations involving the interaction among complex architectural settings, environmental sites and extensive use of everyday objects in ordinary contexts. With the advent of video in 1965, a concurrent strand of installation evolved through the use of new and ever-changing technologies, and what had been simple video installations expanded to include complex interactive, multimedia and virtual reality environments”.(Themes, 199)

Art and Objecthood[link]

In “Art and Objecthood,” Michael Fried derisively labels art that acknowledges the viewer as “theatrical” (Fried 45). There is a strong parallel between installation and theater: both play to a viewer who is expected to be at once immersed in the sensory/narrative experience that surrounds him and maintain a degree of self-identity as a viewer. The traditional theater-goer does not forget that he has come in from outside to sit and take in a created experience; a trademark of installation art has been the curious and eager viewer, still aware that he is in an exhibition setting and tentatively exploring the novel universe of the installation.

The artist and critic Ilya Kabakov mentions this essential phenomenon in the introduction to his lectures “On the “Total” Installation:” “[One] is simultaneously both a ‘victim’ and a viewer, who on the one hand surveys and evaluates the installation, and on the other, follows those associations, recollections which arise in him[;] he is overcome by the intense atmosphere of the total illusion” (Kabakov 256). Here installation art bestows an unprecedented importance on the observer’s inclusion in that which he observes. The expectations and social habits that the viewer takes with him into the space of the installation will remain with him as he enters, to be either applied or negated once he has taken in the new environment. What is common to nearly all installation art is a consideration of the experience in toto and the problems it may present, namely the constant conflict between disinterested criticism and sympathetic involvement. Television and video offer somewhat immersive experiences, but their unrelenting control over the rhythm of passing time and the arrangement of images precludes an intimately personal viewing experience (Kabakov 257). Ultimately, the only things a viewer can be assured of when experiencing the work are his own thoughts and preconceptions and the basic rules of space and time. All else may be molded by the artist’s hands.

The central importance of the subjective point of view when experiencing installation art, points toward a disregard for traditional Platonic image theory. In effect, the entire installation adopts the character of the simulacrum or flawed statue: it neglects any ideal form in favor of optimizing its direct appearance to the observer. Installation art operates fully within the realm of sensory perception, in a sense “installing” the viewer into an artificial system with an appeal to his subjective perception as its ultimate goal.

Interactive installations[link]

Neorizon, Maurice Benayoun, urban interactive art installation (eArts Festival Shanghai 2008)

Interactive installation is a sub-category of installation art. An interactive installation frequently involves the audience acting on the work of art or the piece responding to users' activity. There are several kinds of interactive installations that artists produce, these include web-based installations (e.g., Telegarden), gallery-based installations, digital-based installations, electronic-based installations, mobile-based installations, etc. Interactive installations were most frequently created and exhibited in the 1990s, when artists were particularly interested in using the participation of the audiences to co-author the meaning of the installation.

Immersive virtual reality[link]

Irrationnal Geometrics, Pascal Dombis,2008

With the improvement of technology over the years, artists are more able to explore outside of the boundaries that were never able to be explored by artists in the past.^[2] The media used are more experimental and bold; they are also usually cross media and may involve sensors, which plays on the reaction to the audiences’ movement when looking at the installations. By using virtual reality as a medium, immersive virtual reality art is probably the most deeply interactive form of art.^[3] At the turn of a new century, there is a trend of interactive installations using digital, video, film, sound and sculpture.

See also[link]

• Appropriation (art)
• Art intervention
• Burning Man
• Classificatory disputes about art
• Conceptual art
• Environmental sculpture
• Found art
• Interactive art
• Modern art
• Neo-conceptual art
• Performance art
• Sound art
• Sound installation
• Street installations
• Video installation

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Bishop, Claire. Installation Art a Critical History. London: Tate, 2005.
• Coulter-Smith, Graham. Deconstructing Installation Art. Online resource
• Fried, Michael. Art and Objecthood. In Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
• “Installation [Environment].Grove Art Encyclopedia. 2006. Grove Art Online. 30 January 2006 [1].
• “Installation.” Oxford English Dictionary. 2006. Oxford English Dictionary Online. 30 January 2006 [2].
• “Install, v.” Oxford English Dictionary. 2006. Oxford English Dictionary Online. 30 January 2006 [3].
• Kabakov, Ilya. On the “Total” Installation. Ostfildern, Germany: Cantz, 1995, 243-260.
• Kaprow, Allan. “Notes on the Creation of a Total Art.” In Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, ed. Jeff Kelley. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. ISBN 0-520-24079-0
• Mondloch, Kate. Screens: Viewing Media Installation Art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8166-6522-8
• Joseph Nechvatal, Immersive Ideals / Critical Distances. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. 2009.
• Oliver Grau Virtual Art, from Illusion to Immersion, MIT Press 2004, ISBN 0-262-57223-0
• "opera." Britannica Student Encyclopedia. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 15 February 2006 [4].
• Reiss, Julie H. From Margin to Center: The Spaces of Installation Art. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. ISBN 0-262-68134-X
• Rosenthal, Mark. Understanding Installation Art: From Duchamp to Holzer. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2003. ISBN 3-7913-2984-7
• Suderburg, Erika. Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art. Minneapolis London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8166-3159-X

External links[link]

• Dossier: Site-specific Installations in Germany
• Installation artists and art...the-artists.org
• Installation artists at the Open Directory Project
• Museum of Installation (London): Interview with directors Nico de Oliveira & Nicola Oxley (2008). Sculpture / artdesigncafe.
• Sculpture Installations at the Open Directory Project

Contemporary installation organizations and museums

• Dia-Beacon Riggio Galleries
• The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
• The Mattress Factory Art Museum
• Medicine Factory
• MuseumZeitraum Leipzig

Installation art

• Electronic Language International Festival Interactive art installations and New media art.
• Media art center, Karlsruhe Germany one of the biggest center with a permanent collection of interactive installations.

Sonia Falcone
Sonia Falcone 2011
Birth name	Sonia Montero
Born	(1965-03-27)March 27, 1965 Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Nationality	Bolivian
Field	Painting and Installation

Sonia Falcone, born March 27 1965 in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, is a Bolivian painter and artist.

Early-life[link]

She moved at an early age to the United States where she began to paint. As a child, Sonia Falcone wanted to be a dentist; she attended nursing school but finally chose art as her path in life. Sonia represented her homeland in Japan with the title of Miss Bolivia International 1988. She married Pierre Falcone. In 2007 she was deported from the USA to Beijing otherwise she would have had to face various criminal charges including immigration fraud and perjury.^[1] Sonia is an activist of health for education, a supporter and promoter of children's rights and protector of women who suffered abuse in their lives.

Artistic career[link]

Falcone was invited as a volunteer by the Scottsdale Center for the Arts Museum (Arizona, United States) and devoted her time to community projects related to and in support of art: improvement and maintenance of the Opera, Theatre and the Museum of the city. As a member of the Board, she promoted the involvement of marginalized Latino communities to arts-related tasks. She is the founder of Essanté Corporation, a multinational entity established specifically for people seeking better health and greater opportunities in their lives.

Falcone has exhibited her work in La Paz (Nota Gallery) in July 2010 and Santa Cruz (Lorca Gallery) in September 2010 - Bolivia, in PINTA New York (December 2010), Miami International Art Fair ^[2] (January 2011) and from June 6, in PINTA ^[3]London (June 2011).

In these exhibitions, Falcone manifests another phase of her personality with her most known presentation "Windows of the Soul", revealing the elements that reflect her life experience. The spiritual theme is a central element in her work. Her spiritual ideal can be found in all structures, cosmic or individual, organic or inorganic, but achieves its full expression in the human form, shown in her monumental multicolored pieces, where we find the rainbow, the light snow-capped peaks of the Andes, the shadows that banish the sunrises, the construction of a world with llamas and fish and where, living the art of war, the sun of justice rose and the drops of blood became art and poetry.

Video Art Installation, a major piece of this artist, participated in the XVII Bienal de Arte de Santa Cruz de la Sierra, where Sonia was invited to participate.

At the beginning of the third millennium, after receiving an honorary doctorate from Trinity College of Graduate Studies ^[4] in “Spirituality and Psychology”, she joined her social and artistic labor, thinking of art as a tool that could be used not only to understand thoroughly people’s problems, but also to help them think.

“Passions of the Soul”, one of her most recent Works, achieves a rapport between art and game, trying to reach the adult and the child within by creating metaphors that express a philosophy of life.

So far Sonia has appeared in several collectives, mainly in Phoenix City Government Convention Center– Civic Plaza, invited by the National Hispanic Woman Corporation. She has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Phoenix, Calvin Charles Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, and “The Gallery” in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Selected works[link]

• Passions of the Soul (2010)
• Creation (2010)
• Llama (2010)
• Video art Installation (2010)
• Drops of Blood Installation (2010)
• Live Soul Installation (2010)
• Blue Water (2008)
• Dawn (2008)
• Sun of Righteousness (2008)

References[link]

External links[link]

Reviews[link]

• "Sonia Falcone opened her Windows of the Soul". 2010-07-26. http://www.eldeber.com.bo/2010/2010-07-26/vernotasociales.php?id=100725192559. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
• "Windows of the Soul". 2010-07-22. http://www.cash24horas.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1572:ventanas-del-alma&catid=35:cultural. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
• "Sonia Falcone". 2010-08-01. http://www.la-razon.com/version_es.php?ArticleId=146&EditionId=91&ids=29. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
• "Sensitivity and Color". 2010-08-07. http://www.socialesvip.com/index.php?cat=272&pla=3&id_articulo=1431. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
• "Sonia Falcone and Windows of the Soul". 2010-09-10. http://www.com.bo/index/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1643:sonia-falcone-y-sus-ventanas-del-alma&catid=68:inicio&Itemid=83. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
• "Sonia celebrated the closure of her exhibition". 2010-07. http://www.eldeber.com.bo/2010/2010-06-13/vernotasociales.php?id=100612180930. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
• "Beauty is everywhere". 2010-09-13. http://www.eldeber.com.bo/2010/2010-09-13/vernotaahora.php?id=100912191431. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
• "Sonia Falcone’s exhibit is going to the United States". 2010-10-02. http://www.laprensa.com.bo/noticias/2-11-2010/noticias/02-11-2010_6585.php. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
• "Sonia Falcone presents her work Windows of the Soul". 2010-10-02. http://www.eldiario.net/noticias/2010/2010_11/nt101102/6_01clt.php. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
• "Windows of the Soul of Falcone in New York". 2011-06-07. http://www.elmundo.com.bo/socialesII.asp?codsol=21756&edicion=10/11/2010. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 
• "Sonia Falcone Art surprises in New York". 2011-01-08. http://www.eldeber.com.bo/2011/2011-01-16/vernotaescenas.php?id=110115185353. Retrieved 8 June 2011. 

websites[link]

• Soniafalcone.com
• Soniafalcone.net

Marie Sester is an artist working primarily with digital technologies to create works in a variety of media and formats.

Biography[link]

Born in France, Sester studied to be an architect, earning a Masters Degree from the Ecole d'Architecture in Strasbourg, France.^[1] After traveling through Europe and Africa, she settled in Paris and established an art practice creating mainly drawings and paintings. After receiving a residency in Japan in 1993, her work shifted toward an exploration of public space, creating installations and experimental interactive works.^[2]

In 2000 she moved to the U.S., living first in San Francisco, then Los Angeles. She currently lives in New York City.^[3]

Work[link]

After school, Sester's interests shifted from designing physical structures to the study of ideological frameworks, specifically how culture and politics affect our sense of place. Her work focuses on notions of privacy and identity, particularly how we navigate through contemporary society's systems of surveillance and security. Her work relies on interaction with the audience, creating encounters where it's not clear if one is experiencing something playful or sinister.^[4]

Shows and Recognition[link]

Sester was a Creative Capital grantee in 2002.^[5]

Her work has earned recognition in the art and technology worlds, including an Honorary Mention in Interactive Art from Ars Electronica (2003),^[6] a Webby Award for Net Art (2004)^[7] and a spot on the "50 Coolest Websites" list on Time Magazine Online (2004).^[8]

Recently, her works have been included in the Seoul and Singapore Biennales (2008),^[9] Glow Eindhoven (2009),^[10] SFMOMA (2010–2011)^[11] and EMPAC in Troy, New York (2010–2011).^[12]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Marie Sester
• ACCESS
• Threatbox.us

Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson, still from the movie The Future of Art.
Born	1967 Copenhagen
Nationality	Icelandic-Danish
Field	Installation art

Olafur Eliasson (born 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is a Danish-Icelandic artist known for sculptures and large-scale installation art employing elemental materials such as light, water, and air temperature to enhance the viewer’s experience. In 1995 he established Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research. Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and later that year installed The Weather Project in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, London.

Eliasson has engaged in a number of projects in public space, including the intervention Green river, carried out in various cities between 1998 and 2001; the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007, London, a temporary pavilion designed with the Norwegian architect Kjetil Thorsen; and The New York City Waterfalls, commissioned by Public Art Fund in 2008.

Life[link]

Olafur Eliasson speaking about his exhibition The New York City Waterfalls.

"5-Dimensionel Pavillon", an early work of Olafur Eliasson, created 1998-2000 in Holbæk, Denmark, where he grew up

Olafur Eliasson, born in Copenhagen in 1967 to Icelandic parents, studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts between 1989 and 1995.

In 2004 Eliasson told Berlin magazine 032c that his father was also an artist; in the same interview he also said that at one time he considered his "break-dancing" during the mid-1980s to be his first artworks.^[1] In 1990, when he was awarded a travel budget by the Royal Danish Academy of Arts, Eliasson went to New York where he started working as a studio assistant. He received his degree from the academy in 1995, after having moved in 1993 to Cologne for a year, and then to Berlin, where he has since maintained a studio.^[2] First located in a warehouse right next door to the Hamburger Bahnhof, the studio moved to a former brewery in Prenzlauer Berg in 2008.

In 1996, Eliasson started working with Einar Thorsteinn, an architect and geometry expert 25 years his senior as well as a former friend of Buckminster Fuller's.^[3] The first piece they created called 8900054, was a stainless-steel dome 30 feet (9.1 m) wide and 7 feet (2.1 m) high, designed to be seen as if it were growing from the ground. Though the effect is an illusion, the mind has a hard time believing that the structure is not part of a much grander one developing from deep below the surface. Thorsteinn's knowledge of geometry and space has been integrated into Eliasson's artistic production, often seen in his geometric lamp works as well as his pavilions, tunnels and camera obscura projects.^[4] For many projects, the artist works collaboratively with specialists in various fields, among them the architects Thorsteinn and Sebastian Behmann (both of whom have been frequent collaborators), author Svend Åge Madsen (The Blind Pavilion), landscape architect Gunther Vogt (The Mediated Motion), architecture theorist Cedric Price (Chaque matin je me sens différent, chaque soir je me sens le même), and architect Kjetil Thorsen (Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, 2007). Today, Studio Olafur Eliasson is a laboratory for spatial research that employs a team of c. 30 architects, engineers, craftsmen, and assistants who work together to conceptualize, test, engineer, and construct installations, sculptures, large-scale projects, and commissions.^[5]

As professor at Universität der Künste Berlin, Olafur Eliasson founded the Institute for Spatial Experiments (Institut für Raumexperimente, IfREX), which opened within his studio building in April 2009.

Works and Projects[link]

The weather project at Tate Modern, London, 2003.

Ventilator pieces[link]

Early works by Eliasson consist of oscillating electric fans hanging from the ceiling. Ventilator (1997) swings back and forth and around, rotating on its axis.^[6] Quadrible light ventilator mobile (2002–2007) is a rotating electrically powered mobile comprising a searchlight and four fans blowing air around the exhibition room and scanning it with the light cone.^[7]

[edit] The weather project

The weather project was installed at the London's Tate Modern in 2003 as part of the popular Unilever series. The installation filled the open space of the gallery's Turbine Hall.

Eliasson used humidifiers to create a fine mist in the air via a mixture of sugar and water, as well as a semi-circular disc made up of hundreds of monochromatic lamps which radiated single frequency yellow light. The ceiling of the hall was covered with a huge mirrors, in which visitors could see themselves as tiny black shadows against a mass of orange light. Many visitors responded to this exhibition by lying on their backs and waving their hands and legs. Open for six months, the work reportedly attracted two million visitors, many of whom were repeat visitors.^[8]

Light installations[link]

Eliasson has been developing various experiments with atmospheric density in exhibition spaces. In Room For One Colour (1998), a corridor lit by yellow monofrequency tubes, the participant finds herself in a room filled with light that affects the perception of all other colours. Another installation, 360 degrees Room For All Colours (2002), is a round light-sculpture where participants loose their sense of space and perspective, and experience being subsumed by an intense light.^[9] Eliasson's later installation Din blinde passager (Your blind passenger) (2010), commissioned by the Arken Museum of Modern Art, is a 90-metre-long tunnel. Entering the tunnel, the visitor is surrounded by dense fog. With visibility at just 1.5 metres, museumgoers have to use senses other than sight to orient themselves in relation to their surroundings.^[10] For Feelings are facts, the first time Eliasson has worked with Chinese architect Yansong Ma as well as his first exhibition in China, Eliasson introduces condensed banks of artificially produced fog into the gallery of Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing. Hundreds of fluorescent lights are installed in the ceiling as a grid of red, green, and blue zones.

[edit] Your black horizon

This project, a light installation commissioned for the Venice Biennale by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in collaboration with British architect David Adjaye, was shown from 1 August to 31 October 2005 on the island of San Lazzaro in the lagoon near Venice, Italy. A temporary pavilion was constructed on the grounds of the monastery to house the exhibit, consisting of a square room painted black with one source of illumination – a thin, continuous line of light set into all four walls of the room at the viewers eye-level, serving as a horizontal division between above and below. From June 2007 through October 2008, the pavilion was reopened on the island of Lopud, Croatia near the city of Dubrovnik.

[edit] Your mobile expectations: BMW H2R project

Eliasson was commissioned by BMW in 2007 to create the sixteenth art car for the BMW Art Car Project. Based on the BMW H2R concept vehicle, Eliasson and his team removed the automobile's alloy body and instead replaced it with a new interlocking framework of reflective steel bars and mesh. Layers of ice were created by spraying approximately 530 gallons of water during a period of several days upon the structure. On display, the frozen sculpture is glowing from within. Your mobile expectations: BMW H2R project was on special display in a temperature controlled room at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 2007–08^[11] and at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, in 2008.

[edit] The New York City Waterfalls

Waterfall under the Brooklyn Bridge. The bridge in the background is the Manhattan Bridge.

Eliasson was commissioned by The Public Art Fund to create four man-made waterfalls, called the New York City Waterfalls, ranging in a height from 90–120 ft., in New York Harbor. The installation ran from June 26 through October 13, 2008. At $15.5 million, it was the most expensive public arts project since Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installation of The Gates in Central Park.^[12]

[edit] The Parliament of Reality

Dedicated on May 15, 2009, this permanent sculpture stands at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. The installation is based on the original Icelandic parliament, Althingi [1], one of the world's earliest democratic forums. The artist envisions the project as a place where students and visitors can gather to relax, discuss ideas, or have an argument. The parliament of reality emphasizes that negotiation should be the core of any educational scheme. The man-made island is surrounded by a 30-foot circular lake, 24 trees, and wild grasses. The 100-foot-diameter (30 m) island is composed of a cut-bluestone, compass-like floor pattern (based upon meridian lines and navigational charts), on top of which 30 river-washed boulders create an outdoor seating area for students and the public to gather. The island is reached by a 20-foot-long stainless steel lattice-canopied bridge, creating the effect that visitors are entering a stage or outdoor forum. Frogs gather in this wiry mesh at night, creating an enjoyable symphony.

[edit] Harpa

The facade of Harpa as seen from the inside

Eliasson designed the facade of Harpa, Reykjavík's new concert hall and conference centre which was completed in 2011. In close collaboration with his studio team and Henning Larsen Architects, the designers of the building, Eliasson has designed a unique facade consisting of large quasi bricks, a stackable twelve sided module in steel and glass. The facade will reflect the city life and the different light composed by the movements of the sun and varying weather. During night the glass bricks are lid up by different colored LED lights. The building was opened on 13 May 2011.

Your rainbow panorama[link]

Your rainbow panorama at ARoS in Aarhus

In 2007 Eliasson's idea to an art work which could complete ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum in Aarhus got chosen among five other proposals in a bidding process by a panel of judges. Eliasson's artwork called “Your rainbow panorama” consists of circular, 150 feet long and three feet wide circular corridor made of glass in every color imaginable. The colorful masterpiece has a diameter of 52 meters and is mounted on slender pillars 3.5 meters above the museum's roof. The artwork is at night lighted up from inside by spotlights in the floor. The artwork cost 60 million Danish kroner to build. Construction of the artwork began in May 2009 and was completed in May 2011.^[13]

Other projects[link]

Commissioned by Louis Vuitton in 2006, lamps titled Eye See You were installed in the Christmas windows of Louis Vuitton stores; a lamp titled 'You See Me' went on permanent display at Louis Vuitton Fifth Avenue, New York.^[14] All fees from the project were donated to 121Ethiopia.org, a charitable foundation established by Eliasson and his wife.

In 2007, Eliasson developed the stage design for Phaedra, an opera production at the Berlin State Opera.

Along with James Corner's landscape architecture firm Field Operations and architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Eliasson was part of the design team for New York's High Line park.^[15] Eliasson was originally supposed to create a outdoor-based artwork for the 2012 Summer Olympics; however, his proposed £1m project Take A Deep Breath was rejected due to funding problems.^[16]

Exhibitions[link]

Eliasson had his first solo show with Nicolaus Schafhausen in Cologne in 1993, before moving to Berlin in 1994.^[8] In 1996, Eliasson had his first show in the United States at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) organized Eliasson's first major survey in the United States Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson, on view from September 8, 2007 to February 24, 2008. Curated by the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Madeleine Grynsztejn (then Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at SFMOMA), in close collaboration with the artist, the major survey spanned the artist's career from 1993 and 2007. The exhibit included site-specific installations, large-scale immersive environments, freestanding sculpture, photography, and special commissions seen through a succession of interconnected rooms and corridors. The museum's skylight bridge was turned into an installation titled One-way colour tunnel.^[17] Following its San Francisco debut, the exhibit embarked on an international tour to the Museum of Modern Art, and P.S.1. Contemporary Art Center, New York, 2008; the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas, 2008–09; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2009; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2009–2010. He has also had major solo exhibitions at, among others, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, and ZKM (Center for Art and Media), Karlsruhe (2001); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2004); Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2006); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Ishikawa (2009); and Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2010). Eliasson has also appeared in numerous group exhibitions, including the São Paulo Biennial and the Istanbul Biennial (1997), Venice Biennale (1999, 2001 and 2005), and the Carnegie International (1999).

The artist is represented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York, Gallery Koyanagi in Tokyo, PKM Gallery in Seoul/Beijing, and Neugerriemschneider in Berlin.

Recognition[link]

The Spiral Pavilion, conceived in 1999 for the Venice Biennial and today on display at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, brought Olafur Eliasson the Benesse Prize by the Benesse Corporation.^[18] In 2007, Eliasson won the first Joan Miró Prize by the Joan Miró Foundation.^[19]

See also[link]

• List of exhibitions by Olafur Eliasson

References[link]

1. ^ Joachim Bessing, "Experiencing Space," 032c issue 8 (Winter 2004/05).
2. ^ Peter Schjeldahl (April 28, 2008), Uncluttered. An Olafur Eliasson retrospective. The New Yorker.
3. ^ Michael Kimmelmann (March 21, 2004), The Sun Sets at the Tate Modern New York Times.
4. ^ Marc Spiegler (September 12, 2007), Let There Be Light, ARTINFO, http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/25581/let-there-be-light/, retrieved 2008-04-23 
5. ^ Olafur Eliasson: The New York City Waterfalls, Public Art Fund, New York.
6. ^ Lauren Weinberg (May 11, 2009), Olafur Eliasson Time Out Chicago.
7. ^ Olafur Eliasson: Quadrible light ventilator mobile (2002–07) Arken Museum of Modern Art.
8. ^ ^{a b} Cynthia Zarin (November 13, 2006), Seeing Things. The art of Olafur Eliasson New Yorker.
9. ^ Ólafur Eliasson: Colour memory and other informal shadows, January 24 – May 2, 2004 Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art.
10. ^ Olafur Eliasson – Din blinde passager at ARKEN Arken Museum of Modern Art.
11. ^ Olafur Eliasson: Your Tempo, September 08, 2007 – January 13, 2008 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
12. ^ Dobnik, Verena (2008-06-22). "NYC getting 'Waterfalls' off shore of Manhattan". Associated Press. http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?tag=3.5721%3Ficx_id=D91EU0TO0. Retrieved 2008-06-25. 
13. ^ http://www.aros.dk/samlingen/your-rainbow-panorama/
14. ^ Jacquelyn Lewis (December 8, 2006), Eliasson's "Eyes" Draw Stares on NY's Fifth Avenue, ARTINFO, http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/24876/eliassons-eyes-draw-stares-on-nys-fifth-avenue/, retrieved 2008-04-23 
15. ^ Design Team High Line.
16. ^ Olafur Eliasson art project rejected by Olympics bosses BBC, 11 April 2012.
17. ^ Glen Helfand (September 7, 2007), Olafur Eliasson, ARTINFO, http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/25573/olafur-eliasson/, retrieved 2008-04-23 
18. ^ Olafur Eliasson: Spiral Pavilion Kunsthalle Bielefeld.
19. ^ Olafur Eliasson: The nature of things, June 20 – September 28, 2008 Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona, and Centre Cultural Caixa Girona-Fontana d'Or, Girona.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Olafur Eliasson

• Olafur Eliasson Official website
• Video of Olafur Eliasson conference : The Sun has no money
• Institut für Raumexperimente
  • Your Black Horizon
• MoMA 2008: Olafur Eliasson: take your time
• 1998 article from frieze
• Tate Modern: The Weather Project
• SFMOMA 2007: Olafur Eliasson Survey
• 'Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson' at SFMOMA
• Olafur Eliasson: Your Mobile Expectations
• Olafur Eliasson on Arttube (Museum Boijmans van Beuningen)
• New York City Waterfalls
• Public Art Fund
• Art Info interview with Olafur Eliasson
• http://www.fundacionnmac.org/english/coleccion.php?id=93 [Olafur Eliasson at the Fundación NMAC]
• Article on Olafur Eliasson in ARTnord 10
• Video of Olafur Eliasson explaining Harpa's glass facade
• "Your Negotiable Panorama" installation (Arken Museum of Modern Art, Denmark)
• TateShots: Olafur Eliasson The artist talks about his recent work, Your Blind Passenger (2010). 30 June 2011

David Byrne
David Byrne speaking at the 2006 Future of Music Policy Summit hosted by the McGill University Schulich School of Music in Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Background information
Born	(1952-05-14) May 14, 1952 (age 60) Dumbarton, Scotland, UK
Genres	New Wave, experimental pop, worldbeat, alternative rock
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, artist, singer, actor, director, film producer, record producer
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, synthesizer, flute, clavinet, slide guitar, harmonica, autoharp, harmonium, violin, accordion buildings[1]
Years active	1974–present
Labels	Luaka Bop, Nonesuch Records, Thrill Jockey
Associated acts	Talking Heads, Brian Eno, X-Press 2, Fatboy Slim, The BPA
Website	www.davidbyrne.com
Notable instruments
Fender Duo-Sonic Fender Stratocaster

David Byrne (born May 14, 1952) is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography, opera, and non-fiction. He has received Grammy, Oscar, and Golden Globe awards and been inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Early life[link]

Byrne was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, to Tom and Emma Byrne. He was the elder of two children. Two years later, his parents moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and then to Arbutus, Maryland, when he was 8 or 9 years old. His father worked as an electronics engineer. Before high school, David Byrne already knew how to play the guitar, accordion, and violin. He was rejected from his middle school’s choir because they claimed he was "off-key and too withdrawn." From a young age, Byrne had a strong interest in music. His parents say that he would constantly play his phonograph from age three and he learned how to play the harmonica at age five.^[2] In his journals he says, "I was a peculiar young man — borderline Asperger's, I would guess."^[3][4] As revealed by Tina Weymouth in the commentary for the concert film Stop Making Sense, Byrne is left handed but plays guitar right handed.

Music career[link]

Talking Heads: 1975–1991[link]

As part of Talking Heads in 1978 Photo: Jean-Luc Ourlin

He graduated from Lansdowne High School in southwest Baltimore County. Byrne started his musical career in a high school duo named Bizadi with Mark Kehoe. Their repertoire consisted mostly of songs such as "April Showers," "96 Tears," "Dancing On The Ceiling," and Frank Sinatra songs. Byrne then attended the Rhode Island School of Design (during the 1970-71 term) and the Maryland Institute College of Art (during the 1971-72 term) before dropping out and forming a band called "The Artistics" with fellow RISD student Chris Frantz.^[5] The band dissolved within a year, and the two moved to New York together with Frantz's girlfriend Tina Weymouth. Unable to find a bass player in New York, Frantz and Byrne persuaded Weymouth to learn to play the bass guitar.

After some practice and playing together they founded the group Talking Heads which had its first gig in 1975.^[6][7] Multi-instrumentalist Jerry Harrison joined the group in 1977. The band released 8 studio albums before going into hiatus in 1988. David Byrne desired to go solo, but it took 3 years to announce that the band were breaking up in 1991. A brief reunion for a single "Sax and Violins" in 1991 occurred before again dissolving. The band were inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, when they reunited to play 4 tracks.

Solo album career: 1979–1981;1989–present[link]

Byrne at London's Royal Festival Hall in April 2009.

During his time in the band, Byrne took on outside projects, collaborating with Brian Eno during 1979 and 1981 on the album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which attracted considerable critical acclaim due to its early use of analogue sampling and found sounds. Following this record, Byrne took his attention on Talking Heads. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was re-released for its 25th anniversary in early 2006, with new bonus tracks. In keeping with the spirit of the original album, two of the songs' component tracks were released under Creative Commons licenses and a remix contest site was launched.

Rei Momo (1989) was the first solo album by Byrne, after leaving Talking Heads, that features mainly Afro-Cuban, Afro-Hispanic, and Brazilian song styles including popular dances including merengue, Cuban Son, samba, mambo, cumbia, cha-cha-chá, bomba, and charanga. His third solo album Uh-Oh (1992) followed that featured a brass-section and was driven by catchy tracks such as "Girls on My Mind" and "The Cowboy Mambo (Hey Lookit Me Now)". His fourth solo album, titled davidenryb (1994), was a more proper rock record, with Byrne playing most of the instruments on it, leaving percussion for session musicians. "Angels" and "Back in the Box" were the two main singles released from the album. The first one entered the US Modern Rock Tracks chart, reaching #24. For his fifth studio effort the emotional Feelings (1997), Byrne employed a brass orchestra called Black Cat Orchestra. His sixth Look into the Eyeball (2001) continued the same musical exploration of Feelings, but was compiled of more upbeat tracks, like those found on Uh-Oh.

Grown Backwards (2004), released by Nonesuch Records, used orchestral string arrangements, and includes two operatic arias as well as a rework of X-Press 2 collaboration "Lazy". He also launched a North American and Australian tour with the Tosca Strings. This tour ended with Los Angeles, San Diego and New York shows in August 2005.

Byrne and Eno reunited for his eighth album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (2008).^[8] He assembled a band to tour worldwide for the album for a six-month period from late 2008 through early 2009 on the Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour.

Work in theatre and film: 1981–present[link]

In 1981, Byrne partnered with choreographer Twyla Tharp, scoring music he wrote that appeared on his album, The Catherine Wheel for a ballet with the same name, prominently featuring unusual rhythms and lyrics. Productions of The Catherine Wheel appeared on Broadway that same year. In Spite of Wishing and Wanting is a soundscape David Byrne produced for the Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus's dance company Ultima Vez.

In 1991, Byrne released a classical instrumental album The Forest, where some of the tracks were already featured as a score for 1988 Robert Wilson theatre piece of the same name.

His work has been extensively used in movie soundtracks, most notably in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su on Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. In 2004, Lead Us Not Into Temptation (music from the film "Young Adam") included tracks and musical experiments from his score to Young Adam. Byrne also wrote, directed, and starred in True Stories, a musical collage of discordant Americana released in 1986, as well as producing most of the film's music. Byrne also directed the documentary Île Aiye and the concert film of his 1992 Latin-tinged tour titled Between the Teeth. He was chiefly responsible for the stage design and choreography of Stop Making Sense in 1984. Byrne added "Loco de Amor" (Crazy for Love) with Celia Cruz to Jonathan Demme's 1986 film Something Wild.

Byrne wrote the Dirty Dozen Brass Band-inspired score for Robert Wilson's Opera The Knee Plays from The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down. Some of the music from Byrne's orchestral album The Forest was originally used in a Wilson-directed theatre piece with the same name. The Forest premiered at the Theater der Freien Volksbühne, Berlin in 1988. It received its New York premiere in December 1988 at BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Forestry Maxi-single contained dance and industrial remixes of pieces from The Forest by Jack Dangers, Rudy Tambala, and Anthony Capel.

In late 2005 Byrne and Fatboy Slim began work on Here Lies Love, a disco opera or song cycle about the life of Imelda Marcos, the controversial former First Lady of the Philippines. Some music from this piece was debuted at Adelaide Festival of Arts in Australia in February 2006 and the following year at Carnegie Hall on February 3, 2007.

In 2008 Byrne released Big Love: Hymnal - his soundtrack to season two of Big Love. These two albums constituted the first releases on his personal independent record label Todo Mundo.

In 2010, David Byrne songs were featured on the soundtrack of Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

Byrne and Brian Eno provided the soundtrack for the film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.^[9]

Other musical contributions: 1990–present[link]

Byrne has contributed songs to five AIDS benefit compilation albums produced by the Red Hot Organization: Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute to Cole Porter, Red Hot + Rio, Silencio=Muerte: Red Hot + Latin, Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon, and Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip. Byrne appeared as a guest vocalist/guitarist for 10,000 Maniacs during their MTV Unplugged concert, though the songs in which he is featured were cut from their following album. One of them, "Let the Mystery Be", appeared as the fourth track on 10,000 Maniacs' CD single "Few and Far Between". Byrne worked with the "Queen of Tex-Mex", Tejano superstar Selena, writing, producing and singing a song ("God's Child (Baila Conmigo)"), included on Selena's last album, "Dreaming of You", before her death. Byrne was the host of Sessions at West 54th during its second of three seasons and collaborated with members of Devo and Morcheeba to record the album Feelings in 1997.

Byrne playing; Austin City Limits, in 2008

In 2001 a version of Byrne's single “Like Humans Do”, edited to remove its drug reference, was selected by Microsoft as the sample music for Windows XP to demonstrate Windows Media Player (not included in SP2 installs).^[10][11]

In 2002, he co-wrote and provided vocals for a track, "Lazy" by X-Press 2, which reached number 2 in the United Kingdom and number 1 on the U.S. Dance Charts. Byrne said in an interview in BBC Four Sessions's coverage of his Union Chapel performance that “Lazy” was number 1 in Syria.

In 2006, his singing was featured on "The Heart's a Lonely Hunter" on The Cosmic Game by Thievery Corporation.

He is featured on the tracks "Money" and "The People Tree", on N.A.S.A.'s 2009 album The Spirit of Apollo. Also in 2009, David Byrne appeared on HIV/AIDS charity album Dark Was the Night for Red Hot Organization. He collaborated with Dirty Projectors on the song "Knotty Pine". In the same year, Byrne performed at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. He also was a signator of a letter protesting the decision of the Toronto International Film Festival to choose Tel Aviv as the subject of its inaugural City-to-City Spotlight strand.^[12]

In 2007, David Byrne provided a cover of The Fiery Furnaces' song "Ex-Guru" for a compilation to celebrate the 15th birthday of Thrill Jockey, a Chicago-based label.

In 2008, Byrne and his production team programmed the Battery Maritime Building, a 99-year-old ferry terminal in Manhattan, to play music.^[13] Essentially Byrne took the old New York City building, hooked the entire structure - pipes, heaters, pillars and all, electronically to an old pipe organ, and made a playable musical instrument of it, for a piece called "Playing the Building".^[1] This project was also installed in 2005 in Stockholm, Sweden,^[14] and at the London Roundhouse in 2009. It bears similarities to a series of installations performed by New Zealand and Detroit based artists Alastair Galbraith and Matt De Genaro, recorded on their 1998 record Wire Music and 2006 follow-up Long Wires in Dark Museums, Vol. 2. Byrne says that the point in this project was to allow people to experience art first hand, by creating the music with the organ, rather than simply looking at it.^[15]

In April 2008, Byrne took part in the Paul Simon retrospective concert series at BAM performing "You Can Call Me Al" and "I Know What I Know" from Simon's Graceland album.^[16]

In 2008 Byrne collaborated with The Brighton Port Authority, composing the music and singing the lyrics for "Toe Jam".

In May 2011 Byrne contributed backing vocals to the Arcade Fire track "Speaking in Tongues" which appeared on the 2011 edition of their album The Suburbs.^[17]

Other work[link]

Byrne founded the world music record label Luaka Bop in 1990. It was originally created to release Latin American compilations, but it has grown to include music from Cuba, Africa, the Far East and beyond, releasing the work of artists such as Cornershop, Os Mutantes, Los De Abajo, Jim White, Zap Mama, Tom Zé, Los Amigos Invisibles and King Chango.^[18][19]

In 2005, Byrne initiated his own internet radio station, Radio David Byrne.^[20] Each month, Byrne posts a playlist of music he likes, linked by themes or genres. Byrne's playlists have included African popular music, country music classics, Vox Humana, classical opera, and film scores from Italian movies.

In 2006, Byrne released Arboretum, a sketchbook facsimile of his Tree Drawings, published by McSweeney's. Byrne is also a visual artist whose work has been shown in contemporary art galleries and museums around the world since the 1990s. Represented by the Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York, he has also created public art installations, many of them anonymously. In 2010 his original art work was in the exhibition The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.^[21]

Personal life[link]

While working on the film True Stories, Byrne met costume designer Adelle Lutz whom he married in 1987. They have a daughter, Malu Abeni Valentine Byrne, born in 1989. Byrne and Lutz divorced in 2004. Byrne began a relationship with the artist Cindy Sherman in 2007.^[22]

Although a resident of the United States since childhood, Byrne is a British citizen,^[23] and has never applied for U.S. citizenship. He lives in New York City.

Cycling[link]

Byrne is known for his activism in support of increased cycling, and for having used a bike as his main means of transport for most of his life, especially cycling around New York. He has a regular cycling column in the New York Times.

He says that he cycled when he was in high school and returned to it as an adult in the late 1970s. He likes the freedom and exhilarating feeling cycling gives him. He has written widely on cycling, including a 2009 book, Bicycle Diaries.^[24] In August 2009, he auctioned his Montague folding bike in order to raise money for the London Cycling Campaign.

In 2008, Byrne designed a series of bicycle parking racks in the form of image outlines corresponding to the areas in which they were located, such as a dollar sign for Wall Street and an electric guitar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Byrne worked with a manufacturer that would construct the racks in exchange for the chance to sell them later as artworks, and the racks remained on the streets for about a year.^[25]

Views[link]

Byrne also posts personal comments on the music and, occasionally, on the state of the recorded music industry. In July 2007, Byrne posted the following comment:

There was another piece in the Times today about yet another 20 percent drop in CD sales. (Are they running the same news piece every 4 months?) Jeez guys, the writing's on the wall. How long do the record execs think they'll have those offices and nice parking spaces? (Well, more than half of all record A&R and other execs are gone already, so there should be plenty of parking space). They, the big 4 or 5, should give the catalogues back to the artists or their heirs as a gesture before they close the office doors, as they sure don't know how to sell music anymore. (I have Talking Heads stuff on the shelf that I can't get Warner to release.) The "industry" had a nice 50-year ride, but it's time to move on. Luckily, music remains more or less unaffected — there is a lot of great music out there. A new model will emerge that includes rather than sues its own customers, that realizes that music is not a product in the sense of being a thing — it's closer to fashion, in that for music fans it tells them and their friends who they are, what they feel passionately about and to some extent what makes life fun and interesting. It's about a sense of community — a song ties a whole invisible disparate community together. It's not about selling the (often) shattered plastic case CDs used to come in.^[26]

Works by David Byrne[link]

Solo studio albums[link]

• My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (with Brian Eno) (1981)
• Rei Momo (1989)
• Uh-Oh (1992)
• David Byrne (1994)
• Feelings (1997)
• Look into the Eyeball (2001)
• Grown Backwards (2004)
• Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (with Brian Eno) (2008)

Talking Heads[link]

• Talking Heads: 77 (1977)
• More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)
• Fear of Music (1979)
• Remain in Light (1980)
• Speaking in Tongues (1983)
• Little Creatures (1985)
• True Stories (1986)
• Naked (1988)

Books[link]

• True Stories (1986)
• Strange Ritual, Chronicle Books (1995)
• Your Action World (1999)
• The New Sins (Los Nuevos Pecados) (2001)
• David Byrne Asks You: What Is It? Smart Art Press (2002)
• Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information with DVD (2003)
• Arboretum, (2006)
• Bicycle Diaries (2009)

^[27]

Film[link]

• Stop Making Sense - concert movie from Talking Heads tour (1984)
• True Stories (1986)
• Ile Aiye (The house of life) - Documentary (1989)
• Here Lies Love - concept album in collaboration with Norman Cook (released 2010)
• Ride, Rise, Roar - music documentary of his concert tour with Brian Eno (released 2010)^[28]
• This Must Be the Place - 2011

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Sytze Steenstra: Song and Circumstance. The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present. New York and London: Continuum Books, 2010.
• John Howell: David Byrne. (American Originals Series) New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1992.
• Ian Gittin: Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime: The Stories Behind Every Song.

External links[link]

Find more about David Byrne on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote

Wikinews has related news: Musician David Byrne sues Florida governor over campaign song

• Official website
• David Byrne at the Internet Movie Database
• David Byrne on Charlie Rose