Cover photo: Open, 2024. Round glass prism, LED lights, aluminium, wood, fabric. Dimensions variable. Installation view: Olafur Eliasson: OPEN, The Geffen Contemporary MOCA, Los Angeles, 2024. Photo: Zak Kelley.
Courtesy of the artist; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles; neugerriemschneider, Berlin © 2024 Olafur Eliasson
The MOCA – Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is presenting OPEN, the first major solo exhibition by Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. The exhibition, running until July 6, 2025, features twelve large-scale, site-specific installations that explore the interplay between light, color, geometry, and environmental consciousness.
Eliasson’s works, tailored to the unique architecture of the Geffen Contemporary, invite visitors to engage with immersive, multi-sensory experiences that challenge perception and encourage a reevaluation of the human relationship with nature.
Light as a sensory experience in Olafur Eliasson’s work
For Eliasson, light is not merely a physical phenomenon that illuminates but a sensory experience that prompts reflection on our perception of the world and space, engaging visitors as active participants in an ongoing process of discovery. The works, specially commissioned for MOCA and accompanied by a selection of recent pieces, respond to the museum’s architectural features and Los Angeles’ atmospheric conditions, offering the chance to see reality from a novel viewpoint.
The artist’s approach lies at the intersection of art and science, a dialogue mirrored in the structure of the exhibition, conceived as a series of fluid experiences within the expansive industrial spaces of the Geffen Contemporary.
The central gallery becomes a starting and returning point, welcoming visitors and inviting them to explore the museum while interacting with various optical devices that refract and reshape the building and its surroundings.