Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life @ The Tate Modern

Ten Second Review: At an interesting intersection between art and engineering, Eliasson’s body of work might just challenge your conception of modern art and make you smile uncontrollably.

Towards the end of last year some friends and I took a trip to Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city. I say that because when people ask where we went and I say Aarhus, they always stare at me blankly. The city was quite nice and we had a great weekend exploring, but we were most taken with their modern art museum. The actual exhibits were full of interesting works that, to be perfectly honest, took us by surprise, but it was the top floor that we were enamoured by. A rainbow glass doughnut that gave a 360 degree view of the city in every colour the spectrum has. When one of my friends pointed out that the Tate was holding a sort of retrospective of this artist’s work this year, we got tickets as soon as we could.

It’s a little difficult to describe the exhibit the Tate has put on. An interactive and immersive experience, exploring colour, space and perception sounds a little fancy but it just about does the job of encompassing the content. A selection of objects and rooms that will make people of any age (and, as we discovered, a dog) stand transfixed looking at whats on show, might also be a fitting description.

There is a tired phrase currently employed by agitators to the art world, it takes the form of some version of “I could to that”. The increasingly likely retort that people bark is “…but you didn’t” and to be perfectly fair, both statements are true. One of may favourite pieces of art is Untitled (Perfect Lovers) (1991) by Félix González-Torres. It is, physically speaking, two store bought clocks hung up on a wall and even with the most waning belief in the abilities of individuals, you would have to accept that most people could manage that. What seperates those two clocks from the next two bought from that shop is the thought behind his piece. Those two clocks, perfectly in sync as they currently are, will fall out of step with each other. One may stop while the other continues or at moment one may drop a second at some point and they will become separated. These perfect lovers won’t remain so.

Olafur Eliasson is clearly an artist in full control of his abilities. I’m sure people will walk through his corridor of smoke (Din Blinde Passenger - 2010) or his mirrored room (How do we live together? - 2019) and scoff that they could have done that, but not only do I doubt that they could I doubt that they would. Filling a corridor with a sugar water vapor and telling people to walk through it is not an inherently valuable idea but in practice it becomes a bizarrely disorientating and oddly exciting experience. Give yourself over to the mystique of it (and give yourself a little space between yourself an the other participants), and sink in to what becomes and peculiarly involved experience. The actual craftsmanship, while often still flawless, is not actually the full extent of the art.

This is not to say that every work in the exhibit, or by extension every work of modern art will have some form of intrigue for all people. The Tate is full of works that really feel as though they are filling space in lieu of something the curatorial team can determine as marketable. Free galleries are one of the things that London does best but that doesn’t mean you don’t occasionally walk in to a room bewildered by what an artist is telling you they are trying to say as you strain so hard to see their vision that you get a crick in your neck.

Some of Eliasson’s works also fall into this bracket but his strength lies in the pieces that don’t need an explanation and that don’t get one. As his career has progressed, and his work was able to speak for itself, he seems to have left the interpretation of his art to the audience’s expirience. Some of his art, mostly the stuff that looks at climate change, has a very literal and clear message. These pieces, like Ice Watch, are easy to understand but don’t loose their flair for design and intriguing beauty (even if they are also rather depressing).

I can’t recommend seeing this exhibition enough. No matter the viewer, I’m sure that everyone could get something out of this often magical mix of art and engineering. While not every piece will fill you with joy and wonder, I imagine enough will to justify the trip. Playful, exciting and, most importantly, interesting, which is more than could be said for many of the recent big exhibitions at Tate modern. I doubt you’ll catch anyone muttering “I could do that” at this one, and if you do, just ask “…but would you?”