Olafur Eliasson: Contact is Content

Over the years, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson (b. Copenhagen, 1967; lives and works in Berlin and Copenhagen) has continually returned to Iceland to investigate its landscape with his camera. The ambitious, ongoing venture – almost cartographical in its scope – has resulted in approximately eighty photo series to date, and a wealth of individual photographs of glaciers, waterfalls, rivers, volcanoes, and caves. Far from merely documenting the terrain, Eliasson’s vibrant images reflect on our relationship to nature, the physical space in which we exist, and the body’s felt motion through space – central concerns in his œuvre.

Alongside Eliasson’s photographs, the lavishly designed book in large format presents a selection of further works by the artist, granting the reader a glimpse into the process of inspiration leading from physical experience to abstraction. The sequence of images, curated by Eliasson himself, traces the intuitive connections between the landscape and the different modes of expression employed by the artist.