Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Best known for his immersive installations with light, water, and air, Eliasson's work includes The Weather Project - a giant sun in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern in London, and the spectacular public work New York City Waterfalls.
His retrospective exhibition, Your Curious Journey, at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki brings together a diverse range of works from the artist's 30-year career - and marks the first solo show for the artist in Aotearoa.
Eliasson, who is based in Berlin, told RNZ's Culture 101 he hoped visitors left an exhibition thinking that they did not go to see art - rather, art saw them.
"There is this feeling of being used to experiencing things in a certain way which are very much driven by capitalism and the market economy.
"We go to the malls, we go to the shops, we consume the experiences, we have the experience economy, the conspicuous experiences, all driven around profitability and the way we organise our senses in order to take in the world."
Art, or culture in general, was an opportunity to have an experience that was outside of capitalism in the "traditional, exploitative, extractive, profit-oriented" way, he said.
"I realised that the culture that I engage in is putting structure, is putting a scaffold, or it's putting form on things that I had yet not come around to articulate, but I'm emotionally dealing with.
"I'm boxing around with something, and this particular piece of music just suddenly gave me the key to what is it I actually feel, and that is a great experience, that is suddenly feeling seen."
Olafur Eliasson's work The Glacier Melt. Photo: David St George
That was something, he said, that we all needed on a deep level.
"We have a necessity to say 'I actually exist. Am I of value to the society? Do I feel respected? Am I included? Am I marginalised?'
"If I keep feeling marginalised, I'm more likely to seek like-minded and radicalise myself, I want to be seen, I'm going to radicalise myself. I'm going to go to some kind of radicalisation group.
"And so, it's extremely important, I think, for society to offer the kind of generosity or hospitality for everyone, in some way, to feel of worth or value."
Olafur Eliasson's work Wind Writings and Sun Drawings. Photo: Supplied
Culture was a "a strong, strong force", he said.
"It doesn't have a CEO, which is good. It's a messy, chaotic, wild system, culture. It's decentralised. It's absolutely amazing.
"But it's not a small economy. Don't forget that it employs thousands of people ... it's a huge part of our society.
"We just always somehow mistakenly think the culture that holds society accountable to itself is of less value. We think that this is the least important, but it's actually the most important, we should ask the cultural ministry to run the finance ministry if you ask me."
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