EXH 019       The Mediated Motion       Ólafur Elíasson, Günther Vogt 2001

Header image: Kunsthaus Bregenz © Markus Tretter, KUB
Text: Studio Ólafur Elíasson

Responding to Peter Zumthor’s architecture for Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria, Olafur Eliasson installed, in collaboration with the landscape architect Günther Vogt, a work that spanned all four levels of the building and led the viewer from one landscape situation to another. On the ground floor, visitors first encountered a collection of logs sprouting shiitake mushrooms (Lentinula edodes). Moving to the levels above, they came across a pond with floating duckweed (Lemna minor) on level one, which they could cross via a series of pontoons, and a floor of gently sloping, compressed soil on level two. On the top floor, a suspension bridge spanning a room full of fog terminated abruptly at a blank wall, forcing visitors to return along their original route. A staircase of roughly hewn wood was built on top of the existing concrete stairs, creating an unbroken transition from one landscape situation to the next.

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