An exhibition of Olafur Eliasson's six unpublished kaleidoramas at Rivoli

Another Olafur Eliasson exhibition in Italy. In fact, from November 3, 2022 to March 26, 2023, the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea is hosting Olafur Eliasson: Trembling Horizons, an exhibition curated by Marcella Beccaria that stems from a winning project of the PAC2021 - Plan for Contemporary Art promoted by the Ministry of Culture’s General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity. The artist transforms the Manica Lunga of the Rivoli Castle by presenting a new series of six immersive artworks resembling wedge-shaped optical devices. Within each installation one sees complex moving fluid forms traversing a 360-degree panoramic space that appears larger than physically possible. These are optical illusions produced through mirrors and light projections.

Since the late 1990s, Eliasson’s practice has combined the memory of the encounter with nature with the broad ramifications of science and ecological thought, offering works that invite the active participation of those who encounter them. Trembling Horizons presents new works that stem from experiments conducted by the artist in his studio in Berlin. Eliasson was inspired by scientific instruments of measurement, considering the ambivalent role they have played throughout history. Produced over the past year, the new works in the exhibition propose a closer relationship between body and mind, emphasizing the value of subjective and sensory experience.

In the Manica Lunga of the Castle, the exhibition opens with Navigation star for utopia (“Navigation star for utopia,” 2022), a suspended light work that welcomes visitors. Its beams of colored light pass through the room and draw light effects, almost suggesting the idea of a future orientation tool. This is followed by the series of works the artist created for the Manica Lunga space: Your curious kaleidorama (“Your curious kaleidorama”), Your power kaleidorama (“Your powerful kaleidorama”), Your self-reflective kaleidorama (“Your self-reflective kaleidorama”), Your hesitant kaleidorama (“Your hesitant kaleidorama”), Your memory of the kaleidorama (“Your memory of the kaleidorama”), and Your living kaleidorama (“Your living kaleidorama”). Each is mounted on the wall and oriented at a different angle. Visitors access the structures by entering from below or look directly into them to see light projections of lines, shapes and patterns. These are generated in real time using beams of electric light reflecting in pools of water or passing through a lens system. Eliasson calls these works kaleidoramas, combining the words kaleidoscope and panorama.

“In a sense,” Eliasson says, “they are both: they use the mirror effect of the kaleidoscope to evoke panoramic or landscape spaces that seem larger than the physical place in which they are shown, an environment in which you can stand. They open up new horizons through their mirrored surfaces, opening up spaces where you encounter waves, horizon lines, reflections, diffracted bands of light in the colors of the visible spectrum, and multiplied shadows, yours and other visitors’. Standing within these kaleidoramas, you may feel as if you are facing time as it unfolds. It is an opportunity to reconsider your sense of proportion and time, as when you see the deep space telescope images from the limits of our imagination.”

In all the kaleidoramas, the audience observes complex patterns of moving shapes that interact to create an ever-changing visual and spatial environment. The visual compositions intensify and diminish in frequency and rhythm, producing gentle waves as well as violent tremors, according to the behavior of water or the influence of optical instruments.

The exhibition culminates with Your non-human friend and navigator (“Your non-human friend and navigator,” 2022), articulated in suspended parts and others set up on the floor. This new work is produced using two pieces of driftwood, logs carried by the sea, worn down by the action of the elements. Eliasson collected them on the beaches ofIceland, where remnants of lumber often land after traveling many miles from distant countries. The presence of a magnet orients the suspended part of the work along the north-south axis, while the thin veils of watercolor applied to the wood laid on the floor evoke the action of the water and sea currents that have driven it thousands of miles.

“Olafur Eliasson’s work,” says Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, director of the museum, “contains echoes of Arte Povera, particularly Giuseppe Penone, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Giovanni Anselmo and Marisa Merz. Through his art, the processual and ecological thinking of the 1960s is connected to the contemporary vision through an organic development.”

"Through Trembling Horizons,“ declares Marcella Beccaria, ”Olafur Eliasson invites us to open our gaze beyond the boundaries of the visible, from the vertigo of deep space to the excitement of the encounter with ourselves and our inner landscapes. Involving body and mind, his works contribute to making perceptible the role of each person in the production of reality and the construction of this unstable present."

On the occasion of Trembling Horizons, a special reading room dedicated to Olafur Eliasson is open to the public in the spaces of the Rivoli Castle Library and CRRI. The room brings together a selection of nearly one hundred monographic catalogs covering the artist’s output, from the very first solo exhibitions in the 1990s to the present.

Olafur Eliasson has exhibited at Castello di Rivoli as early as 1999 on the occasion of his first museum exhibition outside his native Scandinavia, and in 2008 during the second Turin Triennale, when he made The sun has no money. Works from both exhibitions are part of the Castello di Rivoli Collections. Also in conjunction with the exhibition, the installation Your circumspection disclosed (“Your circumspection unveiled”), 1999, is installed in the mezzanine of the Manica Lunga, the room for which it was originally conceived by the artist. In December, in conjunction with the Museum’s 38th anniversary, The sun has no money (“The sun has no money”), 2008, will be installed in the 18th-century vaulted room for which it was originally designed by Eliasson.

Finally, Studio Olafur Eliasson makes it known that it is committed to the achievement of sustainability and carbon neutrality in all aspects of artistic production and its activities. The Studio says it is “aware that carbon neutrality begins with reducing emissions, while offsetting emissions is a last resort.” The full carbon emissions report on Olafur Eliasson: Trembling Horizons at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea will be available after the exhibition closes. Final results and offset projects will be published at www.castellodirivoli.org and www.olafureliasson.net.

An exhibition of Olafur Eliasson's six unpublished kaleidoramas at Rivoli

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.