CONTAINING THE INFINITE.

Olafur Eliasson: New Work The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art Ridgefield, Connecticut January 23-April 30, 2000

To walk on a glacier is to be equally blinded by sunlight and scale. How to replicate such an environment is confounding; few have the opportunity to experience a glacier as [anything more than an image, a presence that remains indelibly frozen. Based in the realm of reproduction, the glacier "exists only through, the distance of the photograph . . . now subject to transformations out of control of the creator and the beholder." [1] The glacier series (1999) is one of three new photographic works by Olafur Eliasson exhibited at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. Each piece relays an aspect of the artist's ongoing. concerns with spatial relationships and viewer engagement-how we respond to and interact with our environment

Although currently living and working in Berlin, Eliasson's native Iceland was the backdrop for creating this work. Each piece is untitled, thus amplifying the notion of uncharted discovery. Yet within each work Eliasson also exposes the inherent contradiction of documenting nature: how to contain the seemingly infinite within the confines of both the picture frame and the architectural space of the gallery.

Two of the exhibition's works, The glacier series and The lighthouse series (1999), are structured as grids. Through the repetition of similar imagery, one cannot help but reference the use of typology in photography specifically in the work of Bernd and Hula Becher. Perhaps most articulated in The lighthouse series, Eliasson's 20 photographs read as a highly composed, assembled observation. Within each frame, a lighthouse is recorded from a similar focal length, centrally grounded, the horizon line an unwavering continuum. In such a depiction the viewer is not a tourist, but rather a scientist ranking each lighthouse against each of the others as variations of a specific class or subset

Eliasson's use of color both within individual images and throughout the groupings resonates. The banding of primary reds and yellows interspersed with white and accentuated against the clarity of a blue sky can be interpreted as naval signal flags. The strong vertical, horizontal and diagonal patterning throughout the grid composition encode a language to those who rely on the lighthouse as a beacon to chart travel. As such, Eliasson's images of lighthouses are weighted in both the tradition of typology. and that of topography.

Although the lighthouse exists in architectural isolation, it cannot compare to the emptiness of the glacial field. In lieu of actual human proportions, the glacier can be interpreted as an enormous body. Eliasson's point of focus is the "tongue," the geological term for glacial movement in which a mountain snowcap melts, runs down into ,a valley and refreezes. [2] The glacier series is a grid comprised of 40 aerial photographs of various parts of the "tongue." One engages with the entire formation of the tongue as it gently caresses the earth.

The photographs provide viewers with a unique angle in which to observe the properties of water. The interplay of ice and cloud formations questions our traditional perspective of foreground and background as form and shadow abstractly collide with one another. Water is also reminiscent of life's primal places, such as the womb. The photographs have a strong resemblance to Sally Mann's The Ditch (1987), in which her child lies in a narrow canal between a small pond and the wet sandy shore, suggestive of the act of expulsion, and a clinging to the maternal familiar. Eliasson's glacial photographs convey 'the potential to conjure what is both known through photographs yet is dramatically untraveled by humans, perhaps as a reminder as Assistant Curator Jessica Hough states that this icy "view [was] not intended for human eyes." [3]

The effect of viewing the glacier from above asks the viewer to bear witness from "this privileged perspective." Eliasson's chosen gaze, heightened by the presentation as a repeated, multiple image, offers viewers the chance to become scientists observing nature's variation on a theme, but also the potential to translate into weary redundancy. Rosalind Krauss wrote, "although the grid is certainly not a story, it is a structure, and one, moreover, that allows a contradiction between the values of science and those of spiritualism to maintain themselves." [4] Thus the monumentality of the glacier, as it would be experienced firsthand, is restrained via the confines of the grid (each single image no larger than 12,5/8 x 19 inches) and by its representation in the gallery. Here nature is scrutinized, controlled and regulated by the artist and the curator.

The inextricable link between the awe of nature, the lure of [landscape and the spiritual sublime was heightened by the Aldrich's concurrent exhibition, "Faith: The Impact of Judeo-Christian Religion on Art at the Millennium." This group exhibition, comprised of over 20 contemporary artists representing six countries, physically towers above Eliasson's work as it occupies the museum's upper three floors. Perhaps not a scheduling coincidence, the two exhibitions seem to cry out for a contemplation of the long-standing relationship between nature and religion both as the subject, and the object of art. Was modernism able to effectively replace religion with art as the new site of worship? Judging from the number of people who spill forth in equal numbers from the cathedrals of midtown Manhattan and the nearby Museum of Modern Art on a Sunday morning, apparently not. Yet entering through the stone arches of a gothic cathedral, walking upon a glacier or standing in front of an oversized canvas all have the poten tial to humble and impress.

Eliasson's third body of work, The walk series (1999), offers a return to solitude, a meditation. Here, we track the artist as he descends a mountain, pausing every 200 yards to document :the landscape of his six-hour trek. The viewer must ascend several steps and stand upon a miniature stage to view the work, which undulates against a hexagonal form, mimicking the rhythm of the walk. Shot primarily in black and white, referencing the traditional role of the documenitarian, several of the images were printed in color. They emphasize the indiscriminate nature of the artist's eye and of the sign postings for recreating specific views at national parks: Stand with your feet inside the yellow footprints; aim your camera and shoot. In each, we are [directed by a vision other than our own.

The walk series addresses the inherent contradiction of exhibiting earth art in a gallery setting. By installing the work on a stage, the absurdity of containing nature is reinforced. What was once raw in emotion and content has become mere decoration isolated from a specific. place and time, domesticated to conform to man-made cultural cues.

If the photographic image is made in part as a construction against loss, what is it exactly that we are preserving? Eliasson works in a space not delineated specifically by scientific observation or by the artist's eye. His images question both what we see, and what remains elusive. Eliasson ponders how to contain nature, and how to continue to look at what has the potential to swallow us whole.

SARAH WEBB is an artist and writer based in Rochester, NY.

NOTES

(1.) Susan Stewart, On Longing (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993). p. 77.

(2.) Noted from exhibition literature by Jessica Hough, Olafur Eliasson (Ridgefield, CT: The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, 1999).

(3.) Ibid.

(4.) Rosalind Krauss, "Grids," October 9 (Summer 1979), p. 55.