Olafur Eliasson Versailles

In Eliasson’s installations at Versailles displacements and destabilisation modify the perception of the spaces, inviting visitors to become active participants in the reality that surrounds them.

Olafur Eliasson approaches the château and gardens of Versailles as a site for experimentation. He doesn’t install objects, but rather devises apparatuses that engage the visitor in an active relationship. All of the pieces exhibited here were conceived for the particular space in which they are now positioned.

Olafur Eliasson Versailles — Olafur Eliasson, *Glacial rock flour garden*, 2016. Installation view, Place of Versailles, 2016. Photo Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. © 2016 Olafur Eliasson

They can be subdivided into two groups. The outdoor installations form a triptych on the theme of water, whose presence dominates, as we know, classical gardens of this type. The waterfall erected in the Grand Canal is positioned on the central axis of the garden, whilst the two bosquets or groves (l’Etoile [the Star] and la Colonnade) reaffirm their role as open air salons, with one housing a circular veil of fine fog, the other a carpet of glacial residue.

The Versailles that I have been dreaming up is a place that empowers everyone. It invites visitors to take control of the authorship of their experience instead of simply consuming and being dazzled by the grandeur – O. Eliasson

These three pieces thus share a common theme, tracing a continuous link and engaging the senses. Inside the château it is the gaze that becomes the centre of attention, through a set of successive mirrors and mises en abyme. The furnishings of the rooms have not changed, but are amplified through this multiplication of points of view. Visitors are surprised to discover their own reflections in unexpected locations, the rooms seem larger, transformed, revealing their hidden secrets. The artist glories in the fluidity of the baroque surroundings, which allow him to construct another reality. Displacements and destabilisation modify our perception of the rooms, inviting visitors to become active participants in the reality that surrounds them.

Eliasson excels in the creation of visual phenomena that establish a new perspective on space. After having reinvented the setting sun in the immense Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern (The weather project, 2003), installed gigantic waterfalls in New York City (The New York City Waterfalls, 2008) and added a new star to the Stockholm sky (Your Star, 2015), he brings his vision here in reinterpreting Versailles.

As Eliasson explains: “The Versailles that I have been dreaming up is a place that empowers everyone. It invites visitors to take control of the authorship of their experience instead of simply consuming and being dazzled by the grandeur. It asks them to exercise their senses, to embrace the unexpected, to drift through the gardens, and to feel the landscape take shape through their movement. For my exhibition this summer, I am doing a series of subtle spatial interventions inside the palace deploying mirrors and light, and in the gardens, I use fog and water to amplify the feelings of impermanence and transformation. The artworks liquefy the formal design of the gardens while reviving one of landscape architect André Le Nôtre’s original, unrealised visions: the placement of a waterfall along the axis of the Grand Canal. This waterfall reinvigorates the engineering ingenuity of the past. It is as constructed as the court was, and I’ve left the construction open for all to see – a seemingly foreign element that expands the scope of human imagination.”

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Olafur Eliasson, Deep mirror (yellow), 2016. Installation view, Palace of Versailles, 2016. Photo Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. © 2016 Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson, Solar compression, 2016. Installation view, Palace of Versailles, 2016. Photo Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. © 2016 Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson, The curious museum, 2010. Installation view, Palace of Versailles, 2016. Photo Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. © 2010 Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson, The gaze of Versailles, 2016. Installation view, Palace of Versailles, 2016. Photo Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. © 2016 Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson, Waterfall, 2016. Palace of Versailles, 2016. Photo Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. © Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson, Your sense of unity, 2016. Installation view, Palace of Versailles, 2016. Photo Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York. © 2016 Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson, Glacial rock flour garden, 2016. Installation view, Place of Versailles, 2016. Photo Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York © 2016 Olafur Eliasson

until 30 October 2016
Olafur Eliasson Versailles
Château de Versailles
Entrance to the exhibition in the Château and Gardens via the Cour d’Honneur of the Château de Versailles

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