When I arrived at art school, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, to finally finish my BFA at the age of 28, I was still really green. I didn’t know nearly what many of my peers did, as I hadn’t been taking summer classes at Cal Arts in high school, nor had I been in New York going to galleries in SoHo. I spent my 20’s wandering around Colorado, working part of that time at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, but mostly just learning life lessons and having a good time.
So when I showed up, I felt a tad bit out of place. But to my luck, not long after I got there, someone brilliant showed up with an installation at the Art Institute Museum: Olafur Eliasson. Instantly I was in love.
I would spend hours at a time, sitting in his light-filled room, watching the clouds go by, as the light shifted from bright sunlight, to clouds rolling overhead, all mimicked by technology. It was in his work, full of openly exposed modern technology, that I understood nature. It is a paradox that he uses perfectly. As I felt like a fish out of water in this new place, I turned to his work for comfort and tranquility.
About the idea of taking your time, he said, “I think the principal question about taking your time is really also about generosity.” It is a generous thing, to allow someone to take their time. Many people rush, abbreviate, text, and hurry those around them. To offer someone time, is the most generous gift in modern society.
Throughout my time in Chicago, Olafur returned for more installations at the museum, as well as a lecture that I attended at University of Illinois at Chicago. And as my luck would have it, and yours too if you’re near San Francisco, he is currently having his first US museum retrospective at SFMOMA, called Take Your Time. And I intend too.
Browsing the SFMOMA website, there is an interactive web page set up for the exhibition, including video footage of Olafur talking about his work, his studio practice, and more. Most interesting to me was his conversation about sensing the world around you. Here’s an excerpt:
“We can take in our surroundings; but we can, as we do that, also be critical about how we do it. How do we take part in the world in a way that is both responsible, but also has an impact on the world? How can I, by looking at art, for instance, make sense? And isn’t that what we essentially all want, just to make sense to some extent? And I like this wording ‘make sense,’ because that is a proactive idea: I would like to make sense. And I’m not sensing the world; I would like to make sense of the world by sensing the world. The thing is, I don’t think we should be afraid of doing something very beautiful and very engaging, and very somehow seducing, emotionally very challenging.” - Olafur Eliasson
To learn more about the show, go to the page for Olafur Eliasson. And while you’re at SFMOMA, check out the other amazing artists also showing: Joseph Cornell, Jeff Wall, and Douglas Gordon.
Photos from sfmoma.org
