Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.05.2011, Síða 18

18
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 5 — 2011
A CONCERT IN A
CONSTRUCTION SITE
How do you feel about Harpa
opening for business without
your contribution being ready?
I have been thinking a lot about that.
The building is now opening from the
inside out. Maybe there’s quite a good
point to that. It’s almost like getting
back to why we built the house in the
first place, for the music and the cultur-
al aspect. So I am actually quite happy
that the first function of Harpa will be
music.
But thinking like that, I am also try-
ing to give myself therapy because I
am so incredibly unhappy with it not
being finished. But on the other hand
I also think we have got past the need
for glamour and more representational
luxury. For the nation it seems it is time
to focus on the essentials, and the mu-
sic being made and performed inside is
its essence. In the end, I am lucky to
have been able to create the façade,
and I hope that the building will eventu-
ally be an icon for the city of Reykjavík.
This can wait for six months—Reykjavík
is not going anywhere.
Still the truth is that Harpa will be
opening with a concert in a construc-
tion site. The inside is finished, yes, but
people might not realise that the skin of
the building, my contribution, is not fin-
ished. You are not going to see what it
looks like for another six months, even
though looking at the south façade now
gives an impression of what some of it
will look like in the end.
Maybe it’s also fair to say that one
of the other reasons for the delay is the
crisis and the fact that everyone had to
take a deep breath to continue again,
with everything being restructured to
save money.
THE qUESTION OF COST
The onslaught of the crisis com-
pletely and suddenly shifted the
atmosphere in Iceland. The cost
of the building, not much dis-
cussed when it was a ‘private
enterprise’, became the proj-
ect’s main point of discussion ...
It’s no wonder. The building is now
being funded by taxpayer money. Fur-
thermore, these are traumatic times
that have involved some very painful
cutbacks. I am not at all surprised that
people look at the cost.
However, after the crash, everybody
involved with the project started raising
questions about the cost and looking at
ways to minimise it; this response was
not limited to the public but also includ-
ed the team responsible for the build-
ing. The design team, the construction
team, my team—everyone was in the
same boat.
There was never a point where
people were unclear about the grav-
ity of the situation. The fundamental
question was whether we should finish
the building or not. I think by that time
the building was too far along to be
stopped, and quite a bit of the bill had
already been paid. In terms of fund-
ing and construction, we were further
along than people probably realise.
The public is right to be vigilant
about the costs of Harpa, especially
in light of the crash and the fact that it
subsequently had to be publicly fund-
ed. But there were also some odd situ-
ations that arose from the crisis and the
fall of the króna. Suddenly the project
could employ local craftsmen because
the króna was so low. The devaluation
of the currency was sad and horrible,
but one of the positive side effects, if
such events can be viewed in a positive
light, was that a lot of local subcontrac-
tors were hired. Things like the EXIT
signs, which normally would have been
ordered from some factory in Poland,
were being made by small companies in
places like Hafnarfjörður. This was nice.
I am not trying to spin a positive story,
but it’s worth mentioning that in light
of the situation, these small local com-
panies that employ excellent craftsmen
began working on the project. And they
develop a sense of pride in their work,
which is clearly reflected in the end
product, and this maybe also creates a
better sense of ownership for the build-
ing; it belongs more to Icelanders.
THE PRICE OF ART
Lately Icelandic newspapers
have discussed your commis-
sion for the project, questions
about which you have declined
to comment upon. What are your
feelings on this?
I thought a lot about that. Since Harpa
became a publicly funded project, I
somewhat expected that information
would be available as a matter of public
record. With public enterprise in Den-
mark, the law says you can look into all
the pertinent documents.
I do have a clause in my contract,
which I always do, that grants me the
right to refrain from naming my fee, but
if one looks into the artworld and looks
at the prices... you can essentially con-
tact a gallery and ask about the price of
my artworks. You’ll find there is a price
structure; there are relationships be-
tween the pricing of, say, a small bowl,
a bigger sculpture, a large photograph,
a space installation and then the very
large pieces.
My works follow a price structure
that is somewhat conventional in the
artworld. There are enormous sums fly-
ing around, with artists like Jeff Koons
or Damien Hirst, whose works of art
are selling for millions of dollars—and I
wonder if this is why people are won-
dering about me being overpaid. Which
Ólafur Elíasson draws inspiration from the
natural landscapes of his Scandinavian
homelands. Much of his work deals with
the environment in one fashion or the oth-
er. For instance, he has dyed rivers bright
green using a non-toxic dye (of course)
to get people thinking about pollution. In
other instances he has brought nature-in-
spired installations into a museum space to
draw attention to the relationship between
culture and nature. The following are some
of his best-known exhibitions:
1. The Weather Project, Tate Modern
Museum in London (2003)
With the Weather Project, Ólafur explored
the connection between cities and the
weather. Using hundreds of monochro-
matic lamps to create a sun, 37 meters
in diameter, Ólafur filled the expanse of
Turbine Hall in the Tate Modern Museum
in London with a bright yellow light. He
used a humidifier to create a delicate mist,
which also filled the space and, through-
out the day, formed into gentle, man-made
clouds. He also covered the ceiling with a
mirror, which gave the illusion of a far more
expansive atmosphere and offered specta-
tors the chance to gaze up, through the
mist, at their small reflections. The exhibit
attracted two million visits during the six
months that it was open and marked an
important turning point in Ólafur’s career.
“The work became one of those pop-cul-
ture events, like ‘Survivor’ or the Academy
Awards or the Tate's own Turner Prize:
spectacle and tabloid news, its popularity
almost transcending logic,” according to
The New York Times.
2. The New York Waterfalls, New York
Harbour (2008)
Commissioned by The Public Art Fund,
Ólafur designed four man-made waterfalls
that ran for three months at sites along the
shores of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Gov-
ernors Island. With the waterfalls, Ólafur
brought nature into the urban city to draw
attention to the riverfront and how it has
been developed. A common theme in his
work, Ólafur looked at the relationship be-
tween humans and nature. He worked with
a team of 200 people to complete this proj-
ect, which required a lot of technical work.
The 90 to 120-foot tall installations cost 15
million USD.
3. Take Your Time, The Museum of
Modern Art (2008)
'Take your time' at MoMA was the first
comprehensive U.S. exhibit of Ólafur’s
works. MoMA curators compiled pieces—
ranging from photographs to sculptures to
installations—from all over the world span-
ning fifteen years of his career, from 1993
onwards. The rooms in the museum that
held Ólafur's works were transformed into
hybrid spaces of nature and culture to give
visitors a fresh way to look at everyday life.
I have the impression that money has been used very
efficiently, and the building is stucturally efficient. I
believe it’s actually worth what it cost, because there
has been no uneccessary spending.