“With The Weather Project, I ask myself that question all the time. I did not anticipate the global warming issue as it is today, it was more an attempt to set up ideas that would constitute a platform for collectivity. But the weather has become politicized. So, interestingly, the world has changed and the reading of my work has changed with it, but the work itself hasn’t changed.”
He stares at my tape recorder for a long moment, as if lost in thought, then he says, “One should be careful about only amplifying the ecological aspects of the waterfalls. I certainly don’t consider myself an eco-warrior. Not at all. Talking about green power, that is for the brain. I’m not an intellectual artist, as you can see from my art. I make my work and then I talk about it. My work does not illustrate my ideas; my ideas try and support my work.”
Nevertheless, this is a man who initially wanted the Turbine Hall in Tate Modern to accommodate a tropical rainstorm as well as a giant sun. For once, though, the mechanics could not support the idea. The New York City Waterfalls, it strikes me, may well be that idea transformed. Indeed, one could view Eliasson’s entire output as one unified work-in-progress.
“Olafur’s process has to do with producing reality,” says Hans Ulrich Oberst, “and that has taken him way beyond the exhibition space. He has an incredible sense of determination and a commitment to pursuing his ideas to see where they lead. With him, it’s not so much about the destination but the journey itself.”
Towards the end of our meeting, I ask Eliassson, who has grown visibly restless, if he ever finds the time to daydream or be bored? He looks momentarily startled. “When I am bored, I start doubting whether I exist,” he replies, without irony. “When I don’t do anything, I feel I might disappear.”
I ask him, in conclusion, if there might come a point when the bigness starts getting in the way of the art. “Generally speaking, you are surely right,” he says, frowning and looking even more fretful, “but one needs to challenge oneself and look deeper and ask oneself what role art has in society. To answer that question, one must take certain risks in order to reinvent what art can do. For me, the question is not how big or how small, but does the work succeed.”
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