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Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end, 2024. - The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, California – 2024 - Photo: Zak Kelley
Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end, 2024.
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, California – 2024
Photo: Zak Kelley
Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end, 2024 - The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, California – 2024 - Photo: Zak Kelley
Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end, 2024
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, California – 2024
Photo: Zak Kelley
Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end, 2024, 2024 - The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, California - Photo: Zak Kelley
Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end, 2024, 2024
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, California
Photo: Zak Kelley
Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end, 2024 - The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, California – 2024 - Photo: Zak Kelley
Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end, 2024
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, California – 2024
Photo: Zak Kelley
Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end
'Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end', 2024 is part of a series of installations within the exhibition 'Olafur Eliasson: OPEN' responding to MOCA Geffen’s building and the atmospheric conditions of Los Angeles. Eliasson draws attention to the relativity of our perception and challenges habitual ways of seeing and experiencing the world. A black viscous fluid composed of oil, ink, and water oozes around the backlit equilateral triangle at the top of this kaleidoscope. Its movements and shapes are transformed by the mirrors into a slowly evolving rhythmic pattern that wraps the surface of a glowing geodesic planet. Light and dark shift as the fluid fills the aperture and spreads out again. The hypnotic patterns appear both geometric and organic. The ambiguous view could exist either on a macro- or microscopic level, providing us with the glimpse of a distant sun or the contents of a petri dish.

Video by SHIMURAbros
Music by mamoru
Watch on soe.tv ⤶
The video features five new installations as part of 'Olafur Eliasson: OPEN', the first major solo exhibition of Olafur in Los Angeles. OPEN is part of the landmark Getty initiative 'PST ART: Art & Science Collide'. Continuing Olafur’s career-long exploration of light and colour, geometry, and environmental awareness, the exhibition presents over a dozen works commissioned for MOCA, amongst these site-specific installations responding to MOCA Geffen’s building and the atmospheric conditions of Los Angeles. Olafur draws attention to the relativity of our perception and challenges habitual ways of seeing and experiencing the world. The exhibition is informed by the artist’s belief in the potential of inconclusiveness—the idea that every artwork contains an aspect that is radically open.

Video by SHIMURAbros
Music by mamoru
Watch on soe.tv ⤶
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Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end, 2024

A black viscous fluid composed of oil, ink, and water oozes around the backlit equilateral triangle at the top of this kaleidoscope. Its movements and shapes are transformed by the mirrors into a slowly evolving rhythmic pattern that wraps the surface of a glowing geodesic planet. Light and dark shift as the fluid fills the aperture and spreads out again. The hypnotic patterns appear both geometric and organic. The ambiguous view could exist either on a macro- or microscopic level, providing us with the glimpse of a distant sun or the contents of a petri dish.

Artwork details

Title

Kaleidoscope for beginning at the end

Year

2024

Materials

Stainless steel, aluminium, mirror foil, water, acrylic basin, oil, colour pigments, LED lights, light diffuser, motor