ROTTERDAM.- From 18 June to 18 September, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is again showing the huge installation Notion Motion (2005) by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson (Copenhagen 1967).

With the minimum of means but on a grand scale Eliasson has created a captivating presentation that immerses viewers in the space. This installation consists of three different light projections that explore the interaction between light and water.

The Power of Nature versus Technology
Notion Motion is a continuation of Eliasson’s earlier research into vibrations and wave patterns caused in his artworks by the visitors themselves. The installation is made up of three interlinked parts around a central wall and explores the interaction between light and water. The first two parts are made up of a wooden catwalk over the full length of the space, surrounded by a water tank located under the structure. Visitors cause ripples in the water when they stand on the raised boards of the decking. The ripples are projected on to the surrounding wall, making visitors’ movements through the room visible. The third part revolves around waves in a pond created by a sponge on a rope that plunges into the water at regular intervals.

Eliasson plays with the idea that a conscious perception has the potential for change within it. Many of his installations are based on the question as to where in society we can still use our senses to define our surroundings, instead of being defined by our environment. Because a direct relationship is created between visitors and the surroundings in Eliasson’s work, visitors become aware of the possibilities of changing the environment themselves. The visitor, not the surroundings, is key.

From Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s Collection
This is not the first time that Notion Motion has been shown. In 2005 Eliasson created Notion Motion especially for the museum’s 1,500m2 Bodon Gallery. In that same year the Han Nefkens Foundation set up by the writer and collector Han Nefkens gifted the installation to the museum. Since then the artwork has been part of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s permanent collection. This summer everyone will get another chance – or perhaps their first chance – to be immersed in this fantastic installation.

The Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson (1967) works in a wide range of media, including installations, paintings, sculptures, photos and films. His work acts at the interface between natural phenomena and technology and is designed to make viewers aware of the way they perceive things.

One of Eliasson’s first international performances was at Manifesta 1 (1996) in Rotterdam, where he exhibited the artwork ‘By means of a sudden intuitive realisation’ in the garden of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Since 1997 Eliasson has staged solo exhibitions in prominent museums and at festivals worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Long Museum in Shanghai and the Venice Biennale, to the vocal approval of the critics. He achieved worldwide recognition with the large, yellow ‘sun’ he created in 1999 for Panorama 2000 in Utrecht and exhibited at Tate Modern in 2003 as the immensely popular The Weather Project . Eliasson’s projects in public spaces include Green River , which was exhibited in various towns between 1998 and 2001, The New York City Waterfalls of 2008, the 2015 Cirkelbroen (Circle Bridge) in Copenhagen and Ice Watch , for which Eliasson and the geologist Minik Rosing transported enormous blocks of polar ice from Greenland to city squares in Copenhagen (2014) and Paris (2015) to focus attention on climate change.

He has had his workshop in Berlin since 1995 and around eighty experts currently work there, among them specialist technicians, architects, archivists, administrative staff and cooks. The artists lives and works in Berlin and Copenhagen.