Eliasson was born in 1967. He grew up in Iceland and Denmark and studied, from 1989 to 1995, at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In 1995, he moved to Berlin and founded Studio Olafur Eliasson, which today encompasses some ninety craftsmen, specialised technicians, architects, archivists, administrators, programmers, art historians, and cooks.
Since the mid-1990s, Eliasson has realised numerous major exhibitions and projects around the world. In 2003, Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale, with The blind pavilion, and, later that year, he installed The weather project in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, London. Take your time: Olafur Eliasson, a survey exhibition organised by SFMOMA in 2007, travelled until 2010 to various venues, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Innen Stadt Aussen (Inner City Out), at Martin-Gropius-Bau in 2010, involved interventions across Berlin as well as in the museum. Similarly, in 2011, Seu corpo da obra (Your body of work) engaged with three institutions around São Paulo – SESC Pompeia, SESC Belenzinho, and Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo – and spread out into the city itself. In 2014, Riverbed filled an entire wing of Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art with stones and water, emulating a river in a rocky landscape; later that year, Contact formed the inaugural exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. Verklighetsmaskiner (Reality machines), at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 2015, became the museum’s most visited show by a living artist. In 2016 Eliasson created a series of interventions for the palace and gardens of Versailles, including an enormous artificial waterfall that cascaded into the Grand Canal.
Eliasson’s projects in public space include Green river, carried out in various cities between 1998 and 2001, and the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007, designed together with Kjetil Thorsen. The New York City Waterfalls, commissioned by Public Art Fund, were installed on Manhattan and Brooklyn shorelines during summer 2008. Ice Watch brought melting icebergs from Greenland to Copenhagen in 2014 and to Paris on the occasion of the COP21 Climate Conference in 2015. Your rainbow panorama, a 150-metre circular, coloured-glass walkway situated on top of ARoS Museum in Aarhus, Denmark, opened in 2011, and Harpa Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre, for which Eliasson created the facades in collaboration with Henning Larsen Architects was completed that same year.
As a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, Eliasson led the Institut für Raumexperimente (Institute for Spatial Experiments; 2009–14), a five-year experimental programme in arts education located in the same building as his studio (www.raumexperimente.net).
In 2012, Eliasson and engineer Frederik Ottesen founded Little Sun. The social business and global project provides clean, affordable light to communities without access to electricity; encourages sustainable development through sales of the Little Sun solar-powered lamp, designed by Eliasson and Ottesen; and raises global awareness of the need for equal access to energy and light (www.littlesun.com).
Eliasson and architect Sebastian Behmann founded Studio Other Spaces, an international office for art and architecture, in Berlin in 2014. As an architectural counterpart to Studio Olafur Eliasson, Studio Other Spaces focuses on interdisciplinary and experimental building projects and works in public space (www.studiootherspaces.net).
Eliasson lives and works in Copenhagen and Berlin.
Olafur Eliasson. In real life - Tate Modern, New York, NY
Olafur Eliasson: Y/our future is now - The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto
The Speed of your Attention - Tania Bonakdar Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Olafur Eliasson: Wasserfarben - Pinakothek der Modern, München
Olafur Eliasson: Reality Projecton - Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
The unspeakable Opennes of things - Red Brick Museum, Beijing
Una mirada a lo que vendrà por Olafur Eliasson - Galería Elvira González, Madrid
Olafur Eliasson: Green light - An artistic workshop - Biennale di Venezia, Venezia
Olafur Eliasson: Green light - An artistic workshop - Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama
Olafur Eliasson: Maison des ombres multiples - Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal
Olafur Eliasson: Models for coexistence - PKM Gallery, Beijing
Olafur Eliasson: Green light - An artistic workshop - The Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, TX
Olafur Eliasson: The listening dimension - Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Olafur Eliasson: Green light. An artistic workshop - TBA21 – Augarten, Vienna
Olafur Eliasson: Nothingness is not nothing at all - Long Museum, Shanghai
Olafur Eliasson Versailles - Palace of Versailles, Versailles
Olafur Eliasson: Notion motion - Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
The Parliament of possibilities - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul
The presence of absence - neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Olafur Eliasson: Five Orientation Lights - Belvedere, Viena
Olafur Eliasson - Verklighetsmaskiner / Reality machines - Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Olafur Eliasson - Boros Collection 1994 - 2015 - Langen Foundation, Neuss
Olafur Eliasson We have never been disembodied - Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou, Guangdong
Olafur Eliasson - Time-sensitive activity - Modern Art Museum - Gebre Kristos Desta Center, Addis Abeba
Olafur Eliasson - Space Minding - Stevenson, Cape Town
Olafur Eliasson - Contact - Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
Olafur Eliasson - Your trust - Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim
Olafur Eliasson - Your trust - Kant Gallery, Copenhagen
Olafur Eliasson - Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk
Olafur Eliasson - Beauty - Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art - SMoCA, Scottsdale, AZ
Olafur Eliasson - The Cubic Structural Evolution Project - Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin
Olafur Eliasson – Your exhibition guide - K20 Grabbeplatz, Düsseldorf
Olafur Eliasson - Your successful uncertainty - Galería Elvira González, Madrid
Olafur Eliasson - Eine Feier, elf Räume und ein gelber Korridor - Mönchehaus Museum Goslar, Goslar
Olafur Eliasson - Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Linz
Ólafur Elíasson - i8 Gallery, Reykjavik
Olafur Eliasson - KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg
Olafur Eliasson - Your orbit perspective - Galeria Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo
Your Orbit Perspective - Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo
Olafur Eliasson - The cubic structural evolution project - Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation - SCAF, Sydney, NSW
Olafur Eliasson - Volcanoes and Shelters - Neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Olafur Eliasson - Volcanoes and shelters - Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Nueva York, NY
Olafur Eliasson - Gerhardsen Gerner, Oslo
The Uncertain Museum - Duke University, Durham, NC
Olafur Eliasson - Your Uncertain Shadow - PKM TRINITY GALLERY, Seoul
Olafur Eliasson - Seu corpo da obra - Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo
Olafur Eliasson - ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus
Your emotional future - Office 510, Kiev
The Green Glass Carpet - Kulturhuset, Borås
Utopia - Olafur Eliasson - ARKEN Museum for Moderne Kunst, Ishoj
Cars in rivers - Listasafn Islands - National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik
Olafur Eliasson - Notion motion - Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Olafur Eliasson: Innen Stadt Außen - Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
Olafur Eliasson - Multiple shadow house - Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Nueva York, NY
Olafur Eliasson - Kepler was wrong - Galería Elvira González, Madrid
Take your time: Olafur Eliasson - Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney - MCA, Sydney, NSW
Olafur Eliasson - Nothing is ever the same - 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art - Kanazawa, Kanazawa
Olafur Eliasson - Is the sky part of a landscape - PKM TRINITY GALLERY, Seoul
Olafur Eliasson - Stary Browar, Poznan
The Truth Of Non-Digital Colours - Art Stations Foundation, Poznan
Projekt Sammlung (6): Olafur Eliasson - The moving museum - Kunsthaus Zug, Zug
Take your time: Olafur Eliasson - Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Chicago, IL
Olafur Eliasson - i8 Gallery, Reykjavik
Olafur Eliasson - The colour circle series - Niels Borch Jensen Galerie & Verlag, Berlin
Olafur Eliasson - Your Watercolour Machine - Andersen's Copenhagen, Copenhagen
Take your time: Olafur Eliasson - Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
Olafur Eliasson - MoMA PS1, Nueva York, NY
The New York City Waterfalls - Public Art Fund, Nueva York, NY
Olafur Eliasson - La naturaleza de las cosas - Fundación Joan Miró, Barcelona
Olafur Eliasson - Die Neue Sammlung, Munchen
Olafur Eliasson - Your Mobile Expectations: BMW H2R Project - Kunstareal München, Munchen
Olafur Eliasson - Neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Take your time: Olafur Eliasson - MoMA PS1, Nueva York, NY
Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson - MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, Nueva York, NY
Fokus: Olafur Eliasson - Museum für Gegenwartskunst - Emanuel Hoffmann-Stiftung, Basel
Olafur Eliasson – Lava floor - Kunsthaus Zug, Zug
Take your time - Olafur Eliasson - San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA
Olafur Eliasson - PKM GALLERY| Bartleby Bickle & Meursault - Seoul, Seoul
Olafur Eliasson: The cubic structural evolution project 2004 - NGV National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC
Sonne statt Regen - Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus & Kunstbau, Munchen
Olafur Eliasson - Your Uncertainty of Colour Matching Experiment - Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
Caminos de Naturaleza - Sede Social de Telefónica, Madrid
A laboratory of mediating space - AedesLand, Berlin
Olafur Eliasson - Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo
Olafur Eliasson - Remagine - Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn
Light lab (test I-XII) - Portikus, Frankfurt/Main
Olafur Eliasson - Your engagement sequence - Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Nueva York, NY
Olafur Eliasson - Neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Omgivelser - Andersen's Copenhagen, Copenhagen
Projekt Sammlung (3) - Olafur Eliasson - The Body as Brain - Kunsthaus Zug, Zug
Olafur Eliasson - Your Light Shadow - Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Olafur Eliasson - Round Rainbow - Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus & Kunstbau, Munchen
Olafur Eliasson - Notion Motion - Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Olafur Eliasson - color spectrum series - Niels Borch Jensen Galerie & Verlag, Berlin
Olafur Eliasson - The light setup - Malmö Konsthall, Malmö
Olafur Eliasson - The light setup - Lunds konsthall, Lund
Olafur Eliasson - 101 Projects, Reykjavik
Meant to be lived in (Today I'm feeling prismatic) - Galleria Emi Fontana, Milano
Studium bez konca/The endless study - Foksal Gallery Foundation, Varsovia
Forgetting - Brandstrom stockholm, Estocolmo
Olafur Eliasson - minding the world - ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus
Your colour memory - Arcadia University Art Gallery , Glenside, PA
Olafur Eliasson - Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO
Olafur Eliasson - The Body as Brain - Kunsthaus Zug, Zug
Olafur Eliasson - Your Lighthouse. Arbeiten mit Licht 1991 - 2004 - Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg
Photographs - Olafur Eliasson - The Menil Collection, Houston, TX
360° room for alla colors - Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt/Main
Olafur Eliasson - Listasafn Reykjavikur - Reykjavík Art Museum, Reykjavik
Ólafur Eliasson - Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo
Olafur Eliasson - Delight and other luminous movements - Galleria Emi Fontana, Milano
Olafur Eliasson - Kunsthaus Zug, Zug
Olafur Eliasson - The Unilever Series - Tate Modern, Londres
Olafur Eliasson - Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Nueva York, NY
Olafur Eliasson - Sonne statt Regen - Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus & Kunstbau, Munchen
Olafur Eliasson. Funcionamiento silencioso - Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
olafur eliasson - Niels Borch Jensen Galerie & Verlag, Berlin
Olafur Eliasson - Udsigten der Aldrig Tænker - Stalke Galleri / Stalke Out Of Space / Artstamp.dk, Kirke Saaby
Olafur Eliasson - i8 Gallery, Reykjavik
Olafur Eliasson - Chaque matin je me sens différent - Chaque soir je me sens le - Musée d´Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris - MAM/ARC, Paris
OLAFUR ELIASSON : THE STRUCTURAL EVOLUTION PROJECT - Moderna galerija Ljubljana, Ljubljana
Die Dinge, die du nicht siehst, die du nicht siehst - Neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Projects 73: Olafur Eliasson–Seeing yourself sensing - MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, Nueva York, NY
Olafur Eliasson - Surroundings Surrounded - ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe
Olafur Eliasson - The mediated motion - Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz
Olafur Eliasson - "the cartographic series" - Niels Borch Jensen Galerie & Verlag, Berlin
Olafur Eliasson: Your only real thing is time - ICA - Institute of Contemporary ArtBoston, Boston, MA
Olafur Eliasson - Your now is my surroundings - Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Nueva York, NY
Olafur Eliasson - Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg
Focus: Olafur Eliasson - The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Olafur Eliasson - Surroundings Surrounded - Neue Galerie Graz - Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz
Your orange afterimage exposed - Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo
Olafur Eliasson - Your blue afterimage exposed - Masataka Hayakawa Gallery, Tokyo
Olafur Eliasson - The only thing we have in common is that we are different - Center for Contemporary Art, CCA Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu
Olafur Eliasson: New Work - The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
Olafur Eliasson : The Curious Garden - Irish Museum of Modern Art - IMMA, Dublín
Olafur Eliasson - Your position surrounded and your surroundings positioned - Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA), Dundee, Escocia
Yet untitled - Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg
Your circumspection disclosed: A project for the castle - Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turín
OLAFUR ELIASSON - Reflessi di una certa importanza - Galleria Emi Fontana, Milano
Beauty - Marc Foxx, Los Angeles, CA
Olafur Eliasson - i8 Gallery, Reykjavik
Olafur Eliason - New paperworks - Stalke Galleri / Stalke Out Of Space / Artstamp.dk, Kirke Saaby
Olafur Eliasson - Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst - GfZK, Leipzig
Yet untitled - Neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Tell me about a miraculous invention - ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus
The inventive velocity versus your inverted veto - Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Nueva York, NY
Olafur Eliasson - Bildmuseet, Umeå
Olafur Eliasson - Listasafn Reykjavikur - Reykjavík Art Museum, Reykjavik
Olafur Eliasson - Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich
Your windy corner - Brandstrom stockholm, Estocolmo
Your Sun Machine - Marc Foxx, Los Angeles, CA
Olafur Eliasson - Stalke Galleri / Stalke Out Of Space / Artstamp.dk, Kirke Saaby
The curious garden - Kunsthalle Basel, Basel
Tell me about a miraculous invention - Slottet Malmöhus/Malmö Museer, Malmö
Your foresight endured - Galleria Emi Fontana, Milano
Your Strange certainty still kept - Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Nueva York, NY
Eine Beschreibung einer Reflexion, oder aber eine angenehme Übung zu deren Eigenschaften - Neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Projekt in der Glaswand - Olafur Eliasson - Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburgo
Olafur Eliasson - Stalke Galleri / Stalke Out Of Space / Artstamp.dk, Kirke Saaby