Responding to Peter Zumthor’s architecture for Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria, Olafur Eliasson installed, in collaboration with the landscape architect Günther Vogt, a work that spanned all four levels of the building and led the viewer from one landscape situation to another. On the ground floor, visitors first encountered a collection of logs sprouting shiitake mushrooms (Lentinula edodes). Moving to the levels above, they came across a pond with floating duckweed (Lemna minor) on level one, which they could cross via a series of pontoons, and a floor of gently sloping, compressed soil on level two. On the top floor, a suspension bridge spanning a room full of fog terminated abruptly at a blank wall, forcing visitors to return along their original route. A staircase of roughly hewn wood was built on top of the existing concrete stairs, creating an unbroken transition from one landscape situation to the next.
Artwork details | |
Title |
The mediated motion |
Year |
2001 |
Materials |
Water, wood, compressed soil, fog machine, metal, plastic sheet, duckweed (Lemna minor), and shiitake mushrooms (Lentinula edodes) |