With Major MOCA Exhibit, Artist Olafur Eliasson Hopes to Heal the World With Light and Wonder

The principal medium of the superstar Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson is light itself. Is it any wonder he feels such a close connection with Los Angeles, a city whose clear skies and even light built an industry and drew sun worshippers from around the world?

"I do feel very excited about this particular show because I have had a long relationship with L.A.," Eliasson tells The Hollywood Reporter about OPEN, his dazzling, immersive new exhibit at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA , part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, spanning 80 arts institutions throughout Southern California and on view until July 2025

Eliasson, who has had several major shows in Los Angeles over the years, says he was drawn early on to the "holistic approach" of America's West Coast art scene, counting mid-century SoCal-based art legends like Robert Irwin, Larry Bell and James Turrell among his influences. "I felt immediately more at home in this trajectory of art and art history. [Former MOCA director] Klaus Biesenbach invited me here, [prior director] Philippe Vergne, before Klaus."

To call Eliasson a light and space artist is to reduce him to the fundamental elements of his practice. His new show plays on some tropes of the genre but introduces simple technology utilizing mirrors and lenses to take his oeuvre beyond the skylights of Turrell, the treated glass cubes of Bell or the site-specific installations of Irwin.

OPEN consists of roughly two dozen pieces, most of them never before exhibited, sprawled throughout the warehouse-like space straddling the city's Japantown and arts district. Upon entering the exhibit, viewers stand beneath giant kaleidoscopes, heads invariably tilted up, bathed in dappled color and confusion. as dappled light bathes them from above. Each appears highly technical, but the machinery that animates the artwork is nothing more than sophisticated applications of rudimentary elements like lenses, mirrors and light. While all the shows in PST deal with the intersection of art and science , OPEN offers a more playful, fun house approach without compromising intellectual rigor.

To experience the show as the artist intended, OPEN challenges its audience to engage with a list of questions:

"Am I open to change?" asks Eliasson. "Am I open to not being defensive? And if I'm not defensive, I'm actually more likely to be optimistic and positive. It's not Utopianism, I'm not going to change the whole world through optimism. It's more the confidence coming from and acknowledging your own vulnerability. If I see that I'm vulnerable, I'm more likely to make hospitable decisions, hospitable in the sense that I acknowledge that I'm not invincible, I acknowledge that my surroundings are not invincible. It's about understanding that you are part of the ecosystem."

The treeless expanses of Iceland, punctuated by mountains and waterfalls, helped shape Eliasson's aesthetic from an early age, as reflected in public works like 2008's The New York City Waterfalls, four man-made cascades ranging in height from 90 to 120 feet, and 2015's Ice Watch in which icebergs were transported from Greenland to the streets of Paris. Both reflect a recurring theme in his work — environmental conservation.

"We suffer from the emerging trauma of the fact that the planet is collapsing right underneath our feet and the need for us to re-see seeing itself," he explains, urging a new understanding of how we comprehend. "The show plays into that. It's a very playful show. You might go and see something very different. It's also about daring to dream. Do we allow ourselves to have dreams or are we so boxed off in our own definition of success that we won't dream?"

His hope is that OPEN, and the tenets it promotes, might be a roadmap to healing in a nation he adores but finds more divided than ever.

"This country is looking at an election, and the polarization might be good for selling media, but I'm not sure that sitting around a table and being unable to fucking have a conversation is in anoyone's interest," he suggests. "I myself am so grateful for my relationship with this country. And the short sightedness with what is going on right now, I'm reluctant to talk about it because my show is open to all people. I think if we can start the day by actually reaching across to people with whom you do not agree, you have already had a better day."