Tate Modern: Olafur Eliasson, Naim Jun Paik and Takis
Olafur Eliasson’s works embrace a visual spectrum and challenge our senses. In many works we are faced with large scale environments, such as a whole wall of sphagnum moss. As I entered the exhibition at the Tate, there was a wonderful array of geometric shapes and polyhedra; we appear to have the same affliction. ‘Your blind passenger’ 2010 is a fog filled room (or series of rooms). As one walks through you can barely see in front of your own face. You shuffle as a crowd but cannot see anyone in front or behind; aside from perhaps a faint shadow. Guided by voices, the hum of the crowd, clinging to the wall for guidance, you are robbed of everyday familiar senses as you struggle to navigate. I wonder how the experience would be on your own, in the middle of the room alone! Olafur has infused various rooms with colour and possibly aromas. You walk through orange, white and blue zones. I wasn’t the only one to sense a hint of orange oil in the orange air, but perhaps the brain is just forming a picture and filling in the gaps. We don’t know.
In other works, one is asked to stop and take notice, such as the water on the window, simulating rain. ‘Rain Window (Regenfenster)’ 1999 triggers memories of childhood, when I would happily sit for hours and watch rain on the window; I would follow one drop down the pane, trying to predict where it would run; if it would merge with another drop and pick up speed. Sometimes on a car journey, the drop would get blown backwards, and sometimes upward; the unexpected drop of rain that appears to defy gravity.
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I was surprised that Naim Jun Paik’s show, also at Tate, shared so many visual similarities with Olafur Eliasson. Eliasson’s work seems so involved in both the environment, with nature and climate; and with the senses and sensory experiences. Paik threatened to be more anarchic and technological. But beyond clumsy looking robots, Paik delicately employed technology and audio visual equipment. Far from Fluxus associations and subversive tendencies, candles flicker in a split spectrum of light. Magnets on cathode ray tubes conjure up angelic apparitions on screen.
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Also in this vein, Takis has taken metal, magnets and clunky decommissioned machinery, then made them dance and hover as if gravity doesn’t belong in their worlds. Old mercury arc rectifiers emit blue light and produce an ethereal glow. Reportedly, Takis used these to make viewers aware of the energy fields surrounding them; these glowing blue valves use magnetism to convert alternating electrical current (AC) into direct current (DC). Ethereal and beautiful, they solicit a very emotive response.
“But the simpler pieces need no translation. They are (suitably enough, for an artist whose works often screen and rattle) a sort of visual equivalent of music. They do not mean anything. They are meaning. They reflect harmonious relationships between energy and space and mass. Taki’s work is like his subject: it hides in plain sight.”
Simon Ings, Full of wonders: Takis at Tate Modern Reviewed, Spectator Magazine