Photographers

Photographer

Olafur Eliasson

Biography

Olafur Eliasson (b. 1967, Denmark) is a Danish-Icelandic artist known for large-scale installations that explore perception, light, and the relationship between humans and the environment. While primarily recognized in the field of contemporary art, photography plays an important role in his practice, both as documentation and as an independent medium.

Eliasson’s photographic works often investigate natural phenomena such as light, color, and landscape, presenting them through serial structures and conceptual frameworks. His projects frequently emphasize experience and perception, encouraging viewers to reconsider how they see and interact with the world.

His publications and photobooks reflect his broader artistic concerns, integrating image, text, and spatial thinking. For collectors, Eliasson’s photographic work is valued for its conceptual depth, its connection to a major contemporary art practice, and its exploration of perception within the photobook format.

Photobook Library editorial summary · AI-assisted Independent summary

Photobooks

1 photobooks

Selected Works & Key Projects

A source-backed introduction to individual photographs and significant bodies of work.

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Key projects

© Olafur Eliasson

Project · 2003

The Weather Project

The Weather Project (2003) was a monumental installation in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, featuring a glowing semi-circular sun made from monofrequency lamps, a mirror ceiling, and artificial mist. It evoked the sublime while fostering a communal, meditative atmosphere; visitors lay on the floor, seeing themselves as dark silhouettes against the bright haze. The work proved hugely popular, drawing over two million people. Its significance lies in its influence on immersive installation art and its questioning of how perception and space are constructed.

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Project · 2008

The New York City Waterfalls

The New York City Waterfalls (2008) comprised four temporary artificial waterfalls, up to 120 feet high, erected along the New York Harbor and East River, commissioned by the Public Art Fund. Using scaffolding and giant pumps, the falls visually recalled natural waterfalls within the urban grid. They were illuminated at night and designed to be viewed from various points. This public art project demonstrated Eliasson's ability to bring large-scale environmental art to a dense city, engaging millions of viewers and prompting discussions about nature, infrastructure, and urban experience.

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Project · 2014

Ice Watch

Ice Watch (2014) is an ongoing public art project in which sizable glacial ice blocks retrieved from Greenland are arranged in city squares, allowing audiences to observe them melt over time. First presented in Copenhagen, then Paris (2015) and London (2018), it functioned as a visceral reminder of climate change. The work makes the abstract concept of global warming tangible, drawing attention to human-induced polar melt. Its power lies in its locally experienced, time-based decay, forging a direct sensory connection with anthropogenic environmental change.

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Career timeline

10
  1. 1989–1995

    Education

    Studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts

    Eliasson studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1989 to 1995. This period is a documented foundation for the artist’s subsequent practice across installation, photography, film, painting, and sculpture.

    Source: Studio Olafur Eliasson — Biography Verified Sep 5, 2026

  2. 1995

    Career milestone

    Moves to Berlin and founds Studio Olafur Eliasson

    In 1995, Eliasson moved to Berlin and founded Studio Olafur Eliasson. The studio is documented as bringing together practitioners and specialists including craftspeople, architects, archivists, researchers, programmers, art historians, and technicians.

    Source: Studio Olafur Eliasson — Biography Verified Sep 5, 2026

  3. 1998

    Exhibition

    New Photography 14 at MoMA

    MoMA included Eliasson in New Photography 14 and presented work from his Iceland cave trip there for the first time. The museum identifies The ice series (1997) as chromogenic color prints, and describes his Iceland photographs as grouped studies of ice, islands, and caves.

    Source: The Museum of Modern Art — New Photography 14: Olafur Eliasson Verified Sep 5, 2026

  4. 2003

    Exhibition

    Represents Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale

    Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. The same official biography places this international presentation in the year when he also installed The weather project at Tate Modern.

    Source: Studio Olafur Eliasson — Biography Verified Sep 5, 2026

  5. 2003

    Exhibition

    The weather project at Tate Modern

    Later in 2003, Eliasson installed The weather project in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in London. Studio Olafur Eliasson describes the work as an enormous artificial sun shrouded in mist, identifying the scale and atmospheric construction of this major installation.

    Source: Studio Olafur Eliasson — Biography Verified Sep 5, 2026

  6. 20 April–30 June 2008

    Exhibition

    Take your time: Olafur Eliasson at MoMA and MoMA PS1

    Take your time: Olafur Eliasson was presented at MoMA and MoMA PS1 from 20 April to 30 June 2008. MoMA calls it the first comprehensive United States survey of his work; the exhibition spanned more than fifteen years and included immersive environments, sculptures, and photographs.

    Source: The Museum of Modern Art — Take your time: Olafur Eliasson Verified Sep 5, 2026

  7. 2009–2014

    Career milestone

    Leads the Institut für Raumexperimente

    From 2009 to 2014, Eliasson led the Institut für Raumexperimente (Institute for Spatial Experiments), a five-year experimental arts-education programme at the Berlin University of the Arts. Studio Olafur Eliasson records that a comprehensive archive of the programme’s activities is available online.

    Source: Studio Olafur Eliasson — Biography Verified Sep 5, 2026

  8. 2012

    Career milestone

    Founds Little Sun with Frederik Ottesen

    In 2012, Eliasson founded Little Sun with engineer Frederik Ottesen. The studio identifies it as a social business working with off-grid communities in sub-Saharan Africa and raising awareness of the need to extend access to clean, sustainable energy.

    Source: Studio Olafur Eliasson — Biography Verified Sep 5, 2026

  9. 2014

    Career milestone

    Forms Studio Other Spaces with Sebastian Behmann

    In 2014, Eliasson formed Studio Other Spaces with architect Sebastian Behmann, described by the studio as his long-time collaborator. The office focuses on interdisciplinary and experimental architectural projects and work in public space.

    Source: Studio Olafur Eliasson — Biography Verified Sep 5, 2026

  10. 2019–2020

    Exhibition

    In real life opens at Tate Modern and travels to Guggenheim Bilbao

    The wide-ranging survey In real life opened at Tate Modern in London in 2019 and travelled to Guggenheim Bilbao in 2020. Studio Olafur Eliasson characterizes it as a survey of Eliasson’s artistic practice.

    Source: Studio Olafur Eliasson — Biography Verified Sep 5, 2026

Collections & representation

Representation

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery represents Olafur Eliasson, coordinating exhibitions and sales of his photographic and installation works in New York and internationally.

Verified 2026-09-05Wikipedia

Representation

neugerriemschneider

Neugerriemschneider has represented Olafur Eliasson since the 1990s, showing his gallery-based photographic series and light installations in Berlin and at major art fairs.

Verified 2026-09-05Wikipedia

Representation

i8 Gallery

i8 Gallery, located in Reykjavik, represents Olafur Eliasson in Iceland, presenting his landscape-related photography and site-specific projects.

Verified 2026-09-05Wikipedia

Articles & news

3

Other · Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Moving Pictures. Contemporary Photography and Video from the Guggenheim Museum Collections. (opens a new site)

This Guggenheim Museum Bilbao exhibition record situates Eliasson within a 2003–2004 presentation of approximately 150 works by 55 artists using photography, film, and video. In its section on “The Empirical Eye,” the museum identifies Eliasson as an artist who processes subjects, often natural landscapes, through predetermined conceptual systems. The page is especially relevant to his photographic practice because it places that work within museum discourse on conceptual, reproducible media rather than treating it as separate from his installations.

Other · Tate · Mark Godfrey

How Eliasson is changing our perceptions (opens a new site)

Tate introduces Olafur Eliasson through perception, collective experience, and climate-oriented practice. Drawing on comments by Tate curator Mark Godfrey, the article explains how works such as Beauty and The weather project reveal their own mechanisms while making viewers conscious of their sensory experience. It also describes the latter installation’s use by visitors as a collective and politically responsive space, making this a concise museum resource on Eliasson’s participatory approach.

Other · Oct 2, 2018 · The Guardian · Tim Jonze

How we made Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project (opens a new site)

This Guardian oral-history feature gathers accounts by Olafur Eliasson and Studio Olafur Eliasson’s Sebastian Behmann about the making and unexpected public use of The weather project. It documents the installation’s mirror-and-light construction and records how visitors turned the Turbine Hall into a space for lying down, performance, yoga, and an anti-war message. It is a useful primary-adjacent account of participation, spectatorship, and reception around one of Eliasson’s best-known environments.

Videos

3

Other · Studio Olafur Eliasson · 28:49

Topology: Spaces of Transformation Continuity / Infinity, with Olafur Eliasson, Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (opens a new site)

This Studio Olafur Eliasson video documents a March 3, 2012 conversation at Tate Modern among Eliasson, Bruno Latour, and Peter Weibel. Its value is the direct encounter between the artist’s practice and two major interlocutors on science, technology, images, and systems of thought. For viewers studying Eliasson’s photographic and spatial work, it offers sustained context for considering transformation, continuity, and the relation between perception and constructed environments.

Other · Video Data Bank · 24:28

Olafur Eliasson: An Interview (opens a new site)

Video Data Bank’s interview presents Eliasson discussing installations, sculpture, and photography, including his use of artificial illumination and recreated natural phenomena. Recorded in 1998 and re-edited in 2007, it addresses his Scandinavian background, early work, artistic precedents, and the relation between art and experience. Its early date makes it particularly valuable for studying the formation of the ideas behind his later large-scale environments and photographic investigations, before many of his most widely known commissions.

Other · Jul 10, 2019 · Art21 · 13:28

Become Your Own Navigator (opens a new site)

In this Art21 Extended Play film, Eliasson discusses light, colour, reflection, movement, and the viewer’s role in completing an artwork. The film connects early photographic series with installations and public projects, and follows him at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery and in his Berlin studio. It is a strong introductory moving-image resource because it presents his own account of how optical effects, visible apparatus, and audience movement produce subjective readings rather than a single prescribed meaning.

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