Olafur Eliasson in Versailles
John Hill
7. June 2016
Waterfall, 2016 (Photo: Anders Sune Berg)
Studio Olafur Eliasson has inserted three installations in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles as part of his summer residency that runs from 7 June to 30 October 2016.
Eliasson has intervened in the Palace with a trio of subtle artworks, but it is the landscape installations that grab the visitors' attention. The three pieces consist of Waterfall, which references André Le Nôtre’s original, unrealized design for the Grand Canal and recalls the four waterfalls he installed in New York's East River in 2008; Fog assembly in the Star Grove, which enshrouds visitors in a fine mist; and Glacial rock flour garden in Colonnade Grove, where the effects of water – or a lack thereof – are visible. Most immediately, the pieces reference the three states of water, but according to the artist:
The Versailles that I have been dreaming up is a place that empowers everyone. It invites visitors to take control of the authorship of their experience instead of simply consuming and being dazzled by the grandeur. It asks them to exercise their senses, to embrace the unexpected, to drift through the gardens, and to feel the landscape take shape through their movement.