Tag: Olafur Eliasson

In Qatar’s Zekreet Desert, Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Al-Thani Welcomes All

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Rahaal unfolded across three pavilions (an exhibition space, a salon and a library) in the historic nature reserve of Zekreet, Qatar, just miles from Richard Serra’s monumental East–West/West–East. Photo: Sebastian Boettcher

Sometimes there are stories so extraordinary they feel more like a romance. The one we’re about to tell, in particular, closely mirrors what Paolo Coelho described in his memorable book The Alchemist, where the protagonist leaves the Western world to embark on an improbable journey into the desert in a process of unlearning and rediscovery. As in Coelho’s narrative, this journey is less about the destination than about attunement and finding meaning through movement, disorientation and pause.

In Qatar, in a tent in the middle of the desert—yet not far from Richard Serra’s monolithic installation East–West/West–East (which became an Instagram must for Art Basel Qatar visitors) and only about an hour’s drive from Olafur Eliasson’s monument for cosmic connection—an unexpected exhibition invites visitors to rediscover a contemplative relationship with nature. It posits the universality of this need across cultures and latitudes through work by a diverse group of artists from different parts of the world. They speak very different visual languages, yet all draw inspiration from the earth.

At the heart of the initiative is Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Al-Thani, one of the youngest member of the ruling Al-Thani family, who now resides in New York, where he founded the Institute of Arab and Islamic Art (IAIA). He, along with acclaimed designer William Cooper founder of William White, conceived Rahaal, a temporary nomadic museum unfolding across three pavilions erected in the historic nature reserve of Zekreet, Qatar, and mounted the show, which is on through February 21, 2026.

“It was very important to be in a place that genuinely speaks to the idea of community-building around nature,” Mohammed Rashid Al-Thani told Observer when we met in the desert. Getting to Rahaal is no simple matter—our driver got lost a couple of times, despite having been there a few days earlier, as the desert itself is in continuous motion. When we finally arrived, more than an hour late, Rashid Al-Thani welcomed us casually, smiling, inviting us into the majjii pavilion to sit on colorful cushions covered in Moray textiles he had arranged to create a large, welcoming sofa. Almost immediately, his staff served coffee and tea with dates.

William Cooper and Mohammed Rashid Al-Thani. Photo: Sebastian Boettcher

The idea for Rahaal came to Rashid Al-Thani after seeing William Cooper’s New York studio—a room entirely wrapped in shirting fabric and cotton, creating an atmosphere both contemporary and deeply resonant. That use of fabric carried a powerful sense of familiarity for Rashid Al-Thani, evoking regional traditions in which textiles aren’t confined to interiors but extend outward, most visibly in tents covered in wool. The shared aesthetic inspired a playful imaginative exercise between them in which they envisioned a traveler from New York journeying to the small nation of Qatar. “Imagine they take this journey by water through Europe, via Istanbul, and onward toward the Gulf, culminating in a desert crossing,” Rashid Al-Thani illustrated. Passing through the Saudi border at Zekreet, the travelers pause to rest, asking if they can stop there. “Of course,” an Arab answers.

“That’s what Arabs do; we build community around nature,” Rashid Al-Thani explained. “That’s how the idea came together. As you drive here, you see encampments everywhere. It doesn’t matter who you are—every single person I know in this country understands that instinct.”

He added that many families in Qatar still keep a tent in the desert, and people are accustomed to driving out to gather and meet there on weekends. “If you know that someone has a tent, you know you can go there—you can join anytime, without formal invitation.” While today permits are required to build one, the desert itself is still largely understood as a shared space. There is no absolute ownership. The project takes its name from the Rahaal (رحّال), which translates as traveler or nomad—someone who moves across land rather than settling in one place, a desert figure accustomed to crossing vast, open landscapes. “When they saw a tent, they saw a community. They saw a place to rest, a place of refuge. That is what we wanted for people coming to the country: to feel there is a temporary place of connection.”

Qatar, now one of the world’s major global stopover hubs, still embodies this idea of continuous transit. What often gets lost, however, is the opportunity to connect with the place itself while passing through. “People arrive, visit the major museums and leave without sensing it,” Rashid Al-Thani reflected. “What we wanted was for visitors to experience what you’re experiencing now—the same feeling you would have in my parents’ home or any other tent or family home in the desert.”

Traditionally, those tents were always open, welcoming people and expanding into temporary communities. “It creates a deep sense of connection. It can be formal or informal, private or public—it depends on the person and the occasion,” he said, noting how in the Western world, that dimension often doesn’t exist anymore, as hospitality has become something separate, often associated with spaces outside the home. This is particularly felt in big cities, particularly after the disappearance of “third spaces” that once facilitated fluid transitions between private and social life.

Rahaal was conceived as a site where nature, culture and art converge. Photo: Sebastian Boettcher

Drawing from the traditions of Qatar’s essentially nomadic culture and the heritage of the majlis, Rahaal was conceived first and foremost as a platform for human connection and multicultural encounter, both between people and with nature. It is a site where nature, culture and art converge as part of a single, transformative experience that reflects centuries of Arab rituals rooted in community-building, shaped around natural cycles and rhythms.

That sense of openness—of arriving without announcement—is what Rashid Al-Thani and Cooper sought to capture with Rahaal. He recalls that just earlier, Perrotin had stopped by and asked whether he knew they were coming. The answer was no, but they were welcomed all the same. “What mattered was that people were received generously. That was the core idea,” he said, noting how different this is from the cultural paradigm in the U.S. In New York, hospitality exists, but Rashid Al-Thani misses the immediacy of hospitality in his culture, where it’s not a courteous performance but deeply embedded in ancient traditions.

For this reason, he has tried to recreate it in his own home in the West Village. “I tell my friends, ‘Just call me. I’m there. My coffee is ready. My tea is ready. My dates are ready.’ And now they actually do it every weekend,” he shared. “They call and say, ‘We’re in the West Village—can we come by?’” For him, the answer is always yes. “I wake up, prepare the coffee and tea, set out six cups, and whoever comes has a home—a place of refuge, even if just for that moment. That’s what we hoped to translate here.”

The central pavilion, Al Ma’rad, hosts the inaugural show, “Anywhere Is My Land,” curated by Rashid Al-Thani with work by contemporary artists from diverse geographies, all imagining landscape not as a depiction of place but as fragments of memory carried within the traveler—seen, altered and remembered in motion. The notion of constant movement informed the exhibition’s title, inspired by Antonio Díaz’s series Anywhere Is My Land, created while he was in exile in Italy. “The idea of land, and where you find it, becomes very powerful—especially here, where land is understood as a common space,” Rashid Al-Thani reflected.

Al Ma’rad served as the central pavilion of Rahaal, hosting its inaugural exhibition “Anywhere is My Land.” Photo: Sebastian Boettcher

Featuring both established and emerging artists, the exhibition leaves viewers with a sense of feeling at home—even in the desert—through the possibility of reconnecting with natural scenes that resonate differently with each person’s background and memories. Collectively, the works affirm the universality of humanity’s need for contemplation of nature as a way to reattune to the most primordial truths of our existence within a broader cosmic order. All hanging, Salon-style, in a vibrant constellation against the fabric-lined walls, the works on view range from the poetic, endless starry night of Vija Celmins and material collaborative connections with the prime elements of Arte Povera masters Giuseppe Penone and Pier Paolo Calzolari, to the lyrical, more abstract, synthetic visions of artists from the region such as Etel Adnan and Huguette Caland, and the archaic, archetypal reappearances of Simone Fattal, among other names.

“Everything in life feels so linear. Even museums are linear: you move from one point to the next,” Rashid Al-Thani explained. “The desert interrupts that. It forces you to think differently. Sometimes it gives you a moment of reflection. Sometimes you find yourself only when you’re lost. I know it sounds very poetic, but every time I come here—except maybe once, when I went straight through—I feel like I lose my way, but I find something else.” It is from this specific relationship with the desert—one that requires humility and receptivity in the face of nature’s infinite and overwhelming force—that the development of astronomy in Islamic civilization emerged. It was born from the need to locate oneself and find direction, because Arabs were always on the move.

In this sense, Rashid Al-Thani may have found an even more resonant interpretation of “Becoming,” deeply rooted in a place and its traditions, but openly encouraging all those in transit through Qatar to exit their Western culture-shaped comfort zone and “get off the road,” get to the desert and embrace the culture.

The response, not only from people visiting Art Basel Qatar but also from locals, has been incredibly telling. “Someone messaged me and said, ‘I’ve been here for 15 years, and I’ve never experienced something like this.’ That kind of response is exactly what we were hoping for,” he said. “If anything is going to change how people perceive one another, it has to be through connection.” It was that search for connection that brought him to art in the first place, and it’s a deeply humanist approach that he has embraced.

Despite the fast paced development of modern architectural hubs in the Arab world, ties to past traditions remain strong. Photo: Sebastian Boettcher

Since its founding in 2017, his Institute of Arab and Islamic Art has been focused on changing the perception people have of Islamic and Arab culture by creating occasions for meaningful encounters through the showcasing of contemporary and historical art from the Arab and Islamic worlds. “I felt a growing exhaustion being boxed in as ‘the Arab.’ I wanted people not to be scared when they encountered someone like me,” Rashid Al-Thani said, recalling how, when he moved in 2014, fear and misunderstanding toward Islamic culture were very present in the U.S., fueled by a political agenda.

“It is about normalizing what it means to be Arab or Muslim by placing it within a broader contemporary practice, whether that’s design, art or architecture,” he said. “Without those moments of connection we shared, my perspective might never have reached a wider audience, and the same is true for his. But connection is absolutely central to both of us. It’s what we’re deeply invested in, and I believe it’s precisely what has made this project successful.”

Over close to a decade in New York, the IAIA has helped facilitate broader international recognition of several key figures of Arab art, including Ibrahim El-Salahi, Behjat Sadr and the now-rising Huguette Caland, among others. The IAIA presents both exhibitions and site-specific interventions, each thoroughly researched and curated to open up complex narratives about art from the Arab and Islamic worlds. The institute highlights historically significant artists who have been underrepresented in global contemporary art discourse and aims to challenge stereotypes about Arab and Muslim cultural production.

To encourage spontaneous encounters with Islamic culture, the IAIA launched its inaugural Public Art program last fall with Big Rumi, a sculpture by Ghada Amer, marking the artist’s first public art installation in the United States. On view through March at 421 6th Avenue in New York, its latticework is shaped in space by the repetition of the Arabic quote attributed to the 13th-century mystic poet Rumi, which, translated into English, reads: “You are what you seek” or “What you seek is seeking you.”

As U.S. institutions increasingly turn their attention toward the Islamic segments of America’s multicultural population, works previously exhibited by the IAIA have entered the collections of major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a world—and a country—ever more divided, Arab culture, from the rise of the Gulf to the election of New York’s first Muslim mayor, is increasingly central to public discourse, the IAIA’s mission and Rashid Al-Thani’s welcoming approach to exhibiting art feel not only timely but deeply resonant.

IAIA recently launched its inaugural Public Art program with a sculpture by Ghada Amer, Big Rumi, on view on 421 6th Avenue in New York through March 2026. Courtesy Institute of Arab and Islamic Art

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Elisa Carollo

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February 14, 2026
How the Donum Estate Cultivated a World-Class Sculpture Garden

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At Donum Estate, art, wine, and land are conceived as a single living system shaped by stewardship, regeneration, and long-term vision. Photo Robert Berg | Courtesy Donum Estate

As California’s viticulture has matured—understood not merely as agricultural production but as a cultural, scientific and ecological practice—a generation of wineries in Sonoma and Napa began to reimagine the estate itself as a space where wine, hospitality and contemporary art could coexist, grounded in terroir-driven storytelling and aesthetic ambition. The Donum Estate was among the first to pioneer this convergence in a deeply intentional way, forging a sensory connection between land, wine and art.

The estate’s name—Donum, from the Latin for “gift”—reflects its ethos. Everything produced here is considered a gift of this extraordinarily fertile land that must be stewarded and protected. Its history traces back to Anne Moller-Racke, a German-born viticulturalist who came to California in 1981 and later led Buena Vista Winery, planting the estate’s original vines. When the family sold Buena Vista in 2001, they kept the Carneros vineyards and renamed the property the Donum Estate. In 2011, Danish entrepreneur Allan Warburg and his wife, Chinese-born art collector Mei Warburg, acquired the property and began transforming it into a site where contemporary sculpture and ecological stewardship would become inseparable from the wine experience.

While the estate’s viticulture has since earned acclaim—producing single-vineyard Pinot Noir and Chardonnay on over 200 hectares of regenerative organic land—what sets Donum apart is its world-class, open-air collection of monumental art. With more than 60 sculptures sited across its hills, it is now one of the largest accessible museum-grade private collections of outdoor sculpture in the world. These works are not static decor, but active participants in a living ecosystem, drawing on the land’s energy and shaping the visitor’s relationship to scale, time and movement.

That ethos of harmony extends beyond the vineyards. A regenerative organic-certified lavender field, olive grove, plum orchard and culinary garden compose a living laboratory of sensory and ecological exchange. Yet the art remains the emotional and spatial center of it all—quietly guiding the experience. What began as a vineyard has evolved into a rare cultural landscape, where sculpture and soil shape one another in real time. Donum is less a winery with art than an open-air museum embedded in the land, where every element—natural and made—serves the same purpose: to cultivate a deeper attunement to beauty.

A polyurethane fountain by Lynda Benglis. Photo Robert Berg | Courtesy Donum Estate

“It’s about the energy that emerges from the interplay between art and the land,” said Angelica de Vere Mabray, CEO of the Donum Estate, when Observer visited during FOG Design + Art. (Located just over an hour from San Francisco, the estate should be an essential stop for any art enthusiast visiting Fog City.) This year, for the first time, Donum officially partnered with the fair and SFAW, underscoring its commitment to supporting art and culture across the Bay Area.

De Vere Mabray welcomed us to the art-filled Donum Home, the estate’s hospitality center, which was redesigned and renovated by award-winning Danish architect David Thulstrup. Its light-filled interiors blend Scandinavian sensibilities with Eastern harmony, all rooted in California’s materials and natural beauty.

Greeting visitors at the entrance is a towering Yayoi Kusama Pumpkin. Inside, major works from the collection appear throughout the space: an expansive tapestry by El Anatsui flanks the wine display, while overhead, a floating “cloud ceiling” by Tomás Saraceno hovers beside Jeppe Hein’s colorfully playful balloons. A large canvas by Liu Xiaodong anchors a grouping of works by prominent Chinese artists from the post-Tiananmen generation, including Yue Minjun and Zhang Huan. In another room, a glass cylinder encases Ai Weiwei’s hand-painted Sunflower Seeds—originally created for his iconic Turbine Hall commission, in which he filled the space with more than 100 million individual porcelain seeds to draw attention to the artisanal labor behind mass production and the mythology of conformity in China.

Zhang Wang’s Artificial Rock. Chip Allen 2016

Beyond expansive glass doors, the estate’s lush greenery foregrounds California’s mountains and San Francisco Bay, in a landscape punctuated by monumental artworks. On the terrace, a pink-tinted polyurethane fountain by Lynda Benglis flows with shifting currents, its organic form constantly in motion. Farther down the path, a head by Jaume Plensa towers, while a more recent work by William Kentridge appears downhill in dialogue with Zhang Wang’s Artificial Rock No. 28.

Dated 2001, Zhang’s sculpture was the first installed at the Donum Estate. The artist used stainless steel to create a handmade, three-dimensional rubbing of natural Jiashan stone, embodying a tension between organic formations and human-made imitations. “That connection is really intentional. The ideas of healthy soils, regenerative agriculture, responsible stewardship and farming are core to our belief system. They’re deeply integrated into how we think about the art, the wine and everything else at Donum. All of it reinforces that bond between the land and the experience,” emphasized de Vere Mabray.

Allan and Mei Warburg now live full-time in Hong Kong, while maintaining homes in Beijing, Shanghai and San Francisco. Allan Warburg, born in Denmark, frequently traveled to Asia with his parents and studied Chinese in college before enrolling at Yunnan University. He began his career in the trading industry, ultimately settling in China, where he met Mei. The two shared a passion for both art and wine and began collecting early—particularly works by the emerging Chinese artists of the time. “When they purchased Donum, they brought that first work by Zhang Wang with them, without any concrete plan to build what would eventually become one of the world’s most significant contemporary sculpture collections,” de Vere Mabray said. “Everything else unfolded organically from there.”

The estate was originally founded in 2001 as a winery, with no plans for hosting visitors. It wasn’t until nearly a decade later, as artworks began to arrive, that the property began evolving in a new direction. The Warburgs started collecting large-scale sculpture in 2015, and soon after, they began intentionally dedicating works to the estate, collecting not just for themselves but for the land and its future. Still, it was only in 2019, with the arrival of de Vere Mabray as CEO, that art became strategically embedded in Donum’s identity. “We start thinking much more intentionally about programming and how people experience Donum not just through wine, but through the intersection of art, land and place,” de Vere Mabray explained. “At that point, the collection comprised around 40 works; today it has grown significantly, and continues to shape how the estate is experienced.”

Louise Bourgeois, Crouching Spider, 2003. Photo Robert Berg | Courtesy Donum Estate

Today, it’s home to nearly 60 artworks, with new additions installed at an irregular pace, depending on the artists’ schedules and production timelines. Nearly half the pieces are site-specific commissions by artists who’ve spent time on the property, engaging with its environment and responding to the land. The curatorial direction is guided not by an external consultant or brand identity, but by the Warburgs’ taste, affections and personal relationships with the artists.

Although they’ve kept a low profile and chosen not to brand the collection under their name, the Warburgs still make all key decisions. “In most cases, they’ve built real friendships with the artists, who are involved in choosing the precise location of each work,” de Vere Mabray said.

She gestures to a sculpture by William Kentridge as a clear example. “He came to Donum a few years ago with his wife while he was at Berkeley for a symposium. He walked the property, spent time here and chose this specific location for the work,” de Vere Mabray recounted. “That’s generally how it happens. When they acquire something, there’s a real conversation with the artist about where it belongs and where the energy is right.”

Before venturing deeper into the green hills of the estate, we stop at a pavilion dedicated to Louise Bourgeois’s iconic Crouching Spider. This particular work is one of the few the artist created using metal construction materials she gathered in New York before fusing and welding them by hand. Due to its sensitivity, the sculpture requires an indoor, climate-controlled environment for proper preservation. In the same room, her The Mirror presents a distorted reflective surface, seemingly devoured by the vital interplay of predator and prey, winner and victim—the very dynamics that shape every ecosystem.

In the Sensory Garden, Yang Bao’s site-specific installation reimagines land damaged by disease as a living soundscape shaped by wind, humidity and movement. Photo Robert Berg | Courtesy Donum Estate

Just outside, Mikado Tree by Pascale Marthine Tayou rises from the landscape. Another signature site on the property is the Vertical Panorama Pavilion, conceived by Olafur Eliasson’s studio in collaboration with architect Sebastian Behmann. An immersive architectural and emotional experience, the rainbow-hued structure functions as a multisensory instrument—inviting visitors to reconnect with nature and recalibrate to its rhythms. Its conical canopy acts as a kind of calendar, centered on a north-facing oculus and glazed with 832 laminated glass panels in varying hues. Each panel corresponds to data gathered at the estate by Eliasson’s design studio, representing annual averages of solar radiation, wind intensity, temperature and humidity.

“His studio flew from Berlin to install it. A concrete pad was poured here; the work was fabricated and assembled in Berlin, then brought to Donum and reconstructed on site,” de Vere Mabray shared. “Olafur was standing right here with Sebastian Berman, and he pointed out that when you stand here, you’re shoulder-width apart, fully grounded—literally planted in the earth. You have a 360-degree view, and while you’re standing here, you can smell the soil, hear the grasses moving, and hear the birds. It’s deeply immersive and completely rooted in this place.”

Doug Aitken’s Sonic Mountain (Sonoma) transforms the Carneros breeze into a resonant instrument. Photo Robert Berg | Courtesy Donum Estate

Indeed, much of the art is organically and symbiotically rooted within the land. A particularly moving example is the estate’s Sensory Garden, which has been completely reimagined through Yang Bao’s immersive multisensory installation HYPERSPACE. Designed to blend seamlessly with the natural environment, the work responds to and converses with its surroundings: encircling a central pyramid, nine sculptural elements generate a spatial soundscape—a site-specific composition by Bao that shifts with wind, temperature and humidity.

Donum grows three lavender varietals, and each summer, an entire hillside blooms into an ocean of purple. Originally, the estate’s lavender was planted on the very site where Bao’s installation now stands. But repeated failures led the Donum team to consult botanists who diagnosed Phytophthora—a soil-borne pathogen that attacks lavender roots coping with poor drainage. Instead of fighting the land, the team relocated the lavender to higher ground, where it now thrives. The cleared site became the foundation Bao—who is both a chemist and a composer—used to reimagine the terrain, helping it heal through art.

There’s a spiritual dimension running through many of the artists’ installations at Donum, according to de Vere Mabray. One such work is Doug AItken’s Sonic Mountain (Sonoma), located in the Eucalyptus Grove. Measuring 45 feet in diameter and composed of 365 chimes—one for each day of the year—the sculpture is a living instrument activated by the Carneros breeze, one of Donum’s most persistent natural forces. While Aitken has engaged environmental themes in recent projects—most notably in his 2025 exhibition at Regen Projects—this installation marks a subtle and unexpected shift. Rather than addressing ecological urgency through overt imagery or a conceptual framework rooted in institutional critique, the artist operates here in a more spiritual register, privileging sensation and attunement.

Anselm Kiefer, Mohn und Gedächtnis, 2017. Photo Robert Berg | Courtesy Donum Estate

The land speaks to the art just as the art speaks to the land—there’s a clear dialogue between the two. “It’s incredibly powerful, De Vere Mabray said. “That’s really what we hope people take away: an understanding of that possible exchange of energy between art and landscape.” Seen in person, sculptures feel embedded in their environment, not simply installed on it. Rather than functioning as a curated series of standalone works, the collection operates as part of a larger, site-specific system in which form, material and placement respond directly to the terrain.

This sense of integration runs throughout the estate. Sculptures are situated with intention—some echoing the contours of the land, others drawing attention to its shifts in light, texture or scale. The same attention applied to cultivating Pinot Noir and Chardonnay is visible in how artworks are commissioned and positioned. The result is not just aesthetic harmony, but a layered visitor experience that bridges visual art, agriculture and landscape. Here, art doesn’t compete with the landscape, and the landscape doesn’t merely serve as a backdrop. Each reinforces the other, creating a rhythm of encounter that feels designed to sharpen awareness—not just of the estate, but of the viewer’s own place within it.

Ai Weiwei, Circle of Animals Zodiac Heads, 2011. Photo Bob Berg | Courtesy Donum Estate

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Elisa Carollo

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February 8, 2026
The Most Ambitious Hotels to Open Around the World in 2025

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The travel industry has a problem with words. Walk through any luxury hotel conference, and you’ll hear the same ones lobbed around like currency: “authentic,” “experiential,” “transformative.” Marketing teams deploy them with the confidence of people who’ve never actually stayed anywhere transformative. The couples booking their anniversary trips debate them endlessly—she wants “authentic,” he wants “comfortable,” they both say “experience” like it’s something you can order from room service.

But the hotels that opened in 2025 suggest the industry might finally be asking better questions. After surveying this year’s most ambitious openings across six continents, a pattern emerges: The properties worth anyone’s time aren’t selling comfort, authenticity or even experience. They’re selling something rarer: the chance to move through the world differently, even temporarily.

The thread connecting them isn’t luxury or location but obsession. Behind each property stands someone who looked at conventional wisdom and chose violence. The couple who decided their Cretan hotel’s roof should be someone else’s olive grove. The architect who thought Prague’s most oppressive Communist-era tower just needed better lighting and a sense of humor. The chef who built an entire restaurant around the radical idea that garbage doesn’t exist.

These hoteliers aren’t chasing trends or conducting market research, but building the hotels they wish existed, then betting there are enough like-minded travelers to fill them. They’re right. In an age when every city has the same glass tower with the same infinity pool serving the same burrata, the real luxury has become specificity. Hotels that do one thing—whether that’s zero-waste dining or gorilla voyeurism or forcing you to walk five days just to check in—and do it with the conviction of people who’d rather be perfect for some than pleasant for all.

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Paul Jebara

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December 24, 2025
Olafur Eliasson Tests the Complexities of Our Visual and Psychoacoustic Perception at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

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Installation view, “Your psychoacoustic light ensemble” at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. Photo by Pierre Le Hors Courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles

From colors and qualities of light we cannot perceive accurately to frequencies of sound inaudible to our ears, a significant portion of the phenomena in the cosmos remains out of reach to us. Moving between aesthetics and physics and working at the intersection of art and science, Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson is known for exploring ephemeral phenomena in his work with dynamic materials like light, color and frequency, which shape our experience of reality even though their complexity often surpasses the limits of our senses.

In his newly opened show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, “Your psychoacoustic light ensemble,” Eliasson delves even deeper into the fringes of perception, playing with light frequencies and exploring sounds and vibrations—an often underrated medium in art—as an essential part of human experience and the universe’s composition. Observer enjoyed an exclusive walkthrough of the show with the artist, who shared insights into the processes and themes his new works examine, challenge and deconstruct to create awareness of how we orient ourselves in this world.

The exhibition’s central installation is an immersive spatial soundscape, an engaging synesthetic experience that harmoniously blends visual and sensory elements. This work is the result of a complex orchestration that translates light into sound through shared frequencies that align with the universe. In this way, circles of light move, expand and interlace in the dark room, tracing the wavelength of sound itself.

“This is a piece of music that is made from the light to the sound, not from the sound to the light,” Olafur explained to us. To achieve this effect, he first crafted and adjusted the exact light composition with mirrors, refining the colors and gradients until they created the desired “painting” of this synthetic environment, which he then completed with sound. Once again, Eliasson demonstrates his ability to use waves and frequencies—whether light or sound—as the primary medium for his compositions.

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While light and sound operate in distinct ranges of the electromagnetic and acoustic spectra, the invisible factors of wave frequency and length determine whether we hear a particular sound or see a specific color. Sound is a mechanical wave that travels through a medium (such as air, water, or solids), with the frequency determining if it will produce a low-pitched sound (e.g., bass) or a high-pitched one (e.g., treble). For light, however, it is the frequency or wavelength of the electromagnetic wave that determines color, as Eliasson explains during our walkthrough. He elaborated that every “surface and material has its vibrancy, which regulates the relation with the space.” This synesthetic experimentation creates a meditative, harmonious sequence that transports visitors to another realm, allowing them to sense a hidden harmony within the universe. “It is eventually harmonious; it has this beautiful sense of harmony, like an inhaling and exhaling.”

This installation, which engages both the psyche and the senses through frequencies, lends itself to the show’s title, focused on the concept of “psychoacoustics.” This theme addresses Eliasson’s interest in the inherent relativity of perception and how our senses and their psychological processing shape our experience and understanding of the world—despite the inherent limits that keep many phenomena beyond our full comprehension.

At the gallery entrance, one of his suspended sculptures, Fierce Tenderness Sphere, expands into the space, decomposing light into its spectrum across innumerable quadrangles. With every viewer’s movement, the sculpture shifts, creating an interplay of light, color and form that offers a multifaceted and layered experience, revealing new perspectives and meanings within the same shape.

The works on the second floor continue Eliasson’s investigation of color phenomena, a central concern for much of his work across all media. Photo by Pierre Le Hors Courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los AngelesPhoto by Pierre Le Hors

Upstairs, Olafur continues his exploration of color phenomena and how they are perceived and accessible to us, depending on the wavelengths of light that objects reflect, transmit, or emit. As in many of the artist’s works, and much as with sound, humans can only perceive a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum due to our eyes’ receptors (cones) that respond to only specific wavelengths, allowing us to perceive only specific colors. However, this does not mean that this is the only way vision might work in the universe—especially when viewed from a different perspective or with advanced tools.

The concept of color as reflection, emanation or transmission is central to the processes from which the artist’s works originate. “Color does not exist in itself, only when looked at,” he said. “The unique fact that color only materializes when light bounces off a surface onto our retinas shows us that the analysis of colors is, in fact, about the ability to analyze ourselves.”

In the first gallery, the artist is presenting a new body of work: a vibrant watercolor piece in which shades of green and yellow expand circularly and fluidly, as though something has collided at its nucleus and spread outward. Olafur explains that this piece results from a partially intuitive process: allowing an ice cube, along with bleach, to melt on a surface treated with watercolor and ink. Over time, the melting ice activates a transformation of pigments, which expand across the canvas in different gradations, transforming black into green and, eventually, yellow. Here, black—the absence of light and wavelength—is symbolically interrupted by the bleach’s aggressive chemical reaction, allowing color to reemerge as the ice melts and alters the composition.

In a nearby dark room, the artist has installed a band of light containing all colors in the visible spectrum, appearing as a reflection—similar to sunlight hitting glass or the rainbow formed by raindrops. By using bright white light on a colorful arc, he creates a flat reflection resembling a horizon or boreal line that shines out of the darkness. “It’s in darkness that you understand the need for some light,” Olafur enigmatically noted. By staging this light reflection, the artist essentially “paints” within the space with a single, precise stroke that captures all the colors contained in any natural light ray, achieving with scientific precision the “illusion of light” long pursued by painters throughout art history.

Large watercolor works conjure the evanescent luminosity of a rainbow on paper. Photo by Pierre Le Hors Courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles

In Tanya Bonakdar’s main sky-lit gallery, the artist has hung large watercolor works that evoke the fleeting luminosity of a rainbow on paper. Here, the interplay between light, color and paint becomes even more nuanced: ethereal watercolors suggest the hues in the visible light spectrum, akin to sunlight reflecting off a white surface. Bathed in the full range of colors, these works attempt to capture something our senses often struggle to fully perceive. As the artist explained, here he is painting “the impossibility of what we can see, painting something that is beyond vision, or saying something that we almost can’t see.”

The works begin with grey paint underneath; when multiple colors accumulate densely, they blend and return to grey. These watercolors are painted on wet surfaces, applied in delicate, repetitive layers in an almost ritualistic manner, allowing colors to emerge only to fade back to grey. “It’s like white paper bouncing through the middle of the color,” Olafur said. The result is works that have a special glow, as if the colors have absorbed the light spectrum that bathed them and now transmit it to the viewer’s eye. This vaporous, diaphanous effect surrounds the viewer, filling the room with color—like sunlight bathing the paper and translating wavelengths into hues and tones that expand through the space.

By challenging and testing viewers’ perceptions of color and light, and this time incorporating sound, Eliasson has crafted an immersive exploration that allows us to understand how perception of these elements shapes our environments. Highlighting the complex relationship between the senses and psyche, Olafur reveals how we navigate them, consciously or otherwise, within an interplay of frequencies and wavelengths that silently and invisibly surround us. This work links all these experiences to a perpetual cycle of energy and particles governed by the cosmos’s largely impenetrable rules. Acknowledging the limitations of sensory perception, Eliasson offers a glimpse into the vast realm beyond our immediate awareness, emphasizing that our understanding of the world is inherently relative.

Olafur Eliasson’s Midnight Moment

Lifeworld by Olafur Eliasson, presented in Times Square as part of the Midnight Moment series. Courtesy of the artist and Times Square Arts.

In addition to the exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar, Olafur Eliasson will present a work in New York City’s Times Square throughout November as part of the Midnight Moment program. Every night from 11:57 pm to midnight, his piece Lifeworld will transform the iconic billboards with a mesmerizing sequence of floating light forms that mimic the cityscape’s vibrant energy. In this work, Eliasson seeks to capture and abstract the essence of the iconic spot by filming its screens from various perspectives, creating an intentional blur that suspends these light stimuli in time and space. Removed from their usual meanings and messages, these stimuli become pure atmosphere, with shimmering abstract shapes and dancing colors inviting viewers to slow down and creatively reimagine the urban landscape.

“It’s a thrill, but the environment also determines my actions—driving me mostly to spend or to consume,” the artist said in a statement. “Lifeworld shows the immediate site anew, and its hazy qualities may prompt questions. If you are suddenly confronted with the reality of having a choice, you might ask what cities, lives and environments we want to inhabit? And how do I want to take part in them?”

This Midnight Moment marks Eliasson’s first project as guest curator for WeTransfer, which has partnered with CIRCA as an exclusive Digital Screen Partner. “By abstracting the energy of Times Square itself, Eliasson’s Lifeworld offers a rare moment of meditation—a poetic gesture on a monumental scale that holds the potential to ground us in a place designed to economize our attention perpetually and in a political climate that offers little psychic reprieve,” said Jean Cooney, Director of Times Square Arts. “We’re excited to present this timely and distinctive Midnight Moment and join this global collaboration.” Coinciding with the Times Square display, Lifeworld also appears every evening at 8:24 p.m. local time through December 31 on Piccadilly Lights in London, K-Pop Square in Seoul, Limes Kurfürstendamm in Berlin and online 24/7 on WeTransfer.com.

Olafur Eliasson’s “Your Psychoacustic Light Ensemble” is on view at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery through December 19. The show is timed with the November presentation of his work “Lifeworld in Times Square, part of the “Midnight Moment” initiative.

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Elisa Carollo

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November 1, 2024
Frieze Brings Glitter and Gloss to New York But Takes Few Risks

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Paintings from Sterling Ruby’s TURBINE series presented by Gagosian. Casey Kelbaugh

Frieze New York has arrived with all its “I’m the art fair” glory. Expect long, awkward lineups snaking around poorly placed escalators and a general three-story mall vibe. I hate to say it, but it’s much easier to peruse art in a venue like the Javits Center because there’s just so much more space. Here, too many galleries are packed across three floors, and even getting through the double doors can be a squeeze.

But this May art fair does offer up a much-needed splash of color for spring—mainly in the form of sparkles galore, iridescent Plexiglas and gradients that seem perfectly aligned with our screen-based lives (even the offline feels online). Led by director Christine Messineo, this Frieze edition features displays from more than sixty galleries, along with solo booths featuring Alex Katz (paintings of trunks and branches), Sterling Ruby (splatters of muddy, manpower colors) and childlike paintings by Hiroshi Sugito, among others.

A series of new paintings by Alex Katz. Casey Kelbaugh

My favorites are those colorful and unpretentious works that speak to the fact that spring has finally sprung in the city. That includes untitled paintings from 2024 by Chris Martin (not the singer of Coldplay, but the New York-based artist) with Anton Kern Gallery, filled with sequins and glitter. More of the artist’s glitter-infused paintings are on view at David Kordansky Gallery’s booth, where Martin shows some of his latest pieces like Morpheus and Magenta Burst. Honestly, this is the only part of Frieze that feels like a party. The rest is comfortably numb, and even corporate, but Martin brings a breath of fresh air, and I’m grateful for that.

Another highlight is the glossy abstract paintings by Hasani Sahlehe, which are on view at both the Canada Gallery booth and at Tif Sigfrids, a gallery from Athens. Clearly a rising star, broad swaths of color are brought together in a poetic way that doesn’t feel like it’s imitating anything else with its own brushstroke.

Glossy abstracts by Hasani Sahlehe. Casey Kelbaugh

Sleek, glossy abstraction continues in the Matthew Marks Gallery booth, which has a painting called The Dreaming (2023) by Gary Hume. It’s enamel paint on aluminum, and technically has a few animal figures in the piece, but still represents a type of abstraction we’re seeing more of. It’s also very anti-1990s, as we’re in a time of FaceTune, glossing over details with the swipe of a finger.

Everything is clean and flawless, not only our selfies, but in art, too. That cleaned-up vibe can be found in the illustrative pieces by Matthew Brannon at Milan’s Gio Marconi booth. His silkscreen Reassuringly Expensive creates a montage for modern luxury, something that has become a mirage for the money-hungry on Instagram. It’s done elegantly, though, through the window of an airplane seat, surrounded by luxury objects.

‘Foam SB 103/17p’ by Tomas Saraceno. Casey Kelbaugh

Iridescent hues are a lasting trend, especially in sculpture. Tanya Bonakdar Gallery has Foam SB 103/17p, a hanging geometric sculpture by Tomas Saraceno made of steel and iridescent Plexiglas. Apparently, it ties into climate change, but it also just looks cool. Speaking of optical illusions, the gallery also has Olafur Eliasson’s The Dewdrop Agora, a 2024 sculpture of glass spheres and 24-karat gold leaf, which is part of the artist’s “exploration of optical devices, mirrors and lenses.”

Olafur Eliasson’s ‘The Dewdrop Agora.’ Casey Kelbaugh

Carpets are in. Tina Kim Gallery has Seoul artist Suki Seokyeong Kang’s carpet-made wall piece Day #24-75, made of dyed wool and thread on a wooden frame. It’s so rare for an artist to be able to pull off such a domestic material, but Kang has given an old medium new meaning. Meanwhile, a set of gradient paintings by Rob Pruitt—A Month Of Sunsets (February 2024)—is on view at Massimodecarlo gallery, tapping into our need for the fresh, and almost, the empty.

But the third floor is worth avoiding altogether. The “Partner Activations” likely funded the fair but feel like too much of an exercise in logos and branding. And sadly, that’s the direction things are going overall. I expected more from the Focus presentations, too, which felt predictable and not very cutting edge.

Choosing the safe route—i.e., what will sell—instead of what is fresh feels very 2024. This year’s edition of Frieze New York proves we are indeed in a recession, and that the arts aren’t exempt from snipped budgets and a real thirst for sales. Overall, it’s risk-averse, though there were those gallerists who took a risk on what truly stands out and cuts through the noise. Hopefully things will change soon, but until they do, consider this yet another example of what it takes to keep art alive in hazy, uncertain times.

Frieze New York 2024 runs through May 5 at The Shed.

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Nadja Sayej

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May 2, 2024