Photo Gallery Eliasson's 'Natural Magic'
Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, best known for building waterfalls in New York and a giant sun in London, opens his first major show in Berlin this week. Here, Eliasson (right) is seen with Daniel Birnbaum, the curator of the exhibition at the Martin Gropius Bau, at a press conference for the show. Birnbaum, who is originally from Stockholm, is also the director of Frankfurt's prestigious Städelschule art school and was director of last year's Venice Biennale.
Eliasson is world famous for thought-provoking spectacles like life-sized waterfalls in New York in 2008 (seen here at Pier 35 in New York) and a giant sun in the Tate Modern in London in 2003.
With New York's waterfalls, the rushing water enchanted onlookers, but was also clearly constructed from standard plumbing and scaffolding. As Roberta Smith wrote in the New York Times, describing the waterfalls: "They fake natural history with basic plumbing, making little rips in the urban fabric through which you glimpse hints of lost paradise." The same thing happens with "Mikroskop" in Berlin.
