Olafur Eliasson puts climate change at the center of exhibition and installation in the Qatar desert

In the age of the selfie, Olafur Eliasson’s experimentation with light and mirrors is well placed for social media virality, but for the multidisciplinary artist, aesthetics are just as important as activism. Last fall, ahead of the FIFA World Cup, museums in Qatar unveiled Shadows traveling on the sea of ​​day, a permanent outdoor desert installation, made up of steel and fiberglass structures with mirrored ceilings, which the artist describes as being “about what politics and economics can’t say. It’s about looking down and being grounded.

This spring, the Icelandic-Danish artist is back in Qatar for his first exhibition in the region, held both in the building designed by Jean Nouvel and LEED certified. National Museum of Qatar in Doha and the Al Thakhira Mangrove Nature Reserve, a sabkha (coastal sand plateau) habitat 64 km northeast of the capital. The museum exhibition, The curious desert (until August 15), brings together works made over 25 years with new pieces that highlight the importance and fragility of the natural environment. The show is part of Qatar createsan annual program celebrating the nation’s cultural activities.

While much of the museum section resembles a house of contemporary art, brimming with optical illusions and prismatic sensations, a gallery of photographs from Eliasson’s native Iceland ground the viewer in the mission of the artist as an activist (his studio has been under full carbon monitoring since 2020). Her glacier melt series (1999/2019) demonstrates the effects of climate change on the environment over a 20-year period, while The skyline series (2002) draws parallels between the arctic landscapes of Iceland and the desert terrain of Qatar.

Both in the museum and in the desert, viewers are encouraged to explore the mechanics behind Eliasson’s art of light and discover how lenses produce magical and ever-changing effects. With The living lighthouse (2023), rotating pieces of colored glass generate a spectrum of hues, forming a psychedelic backdrop on the walls of the circular room onto which visitors cast their shadows. In the desert, equally colorful light works evoke “driving through Doha at night,” says Eliasson, who was captivated by the city’s sparkling skyline.

In contrast to this rainbow-toned environment, the adjacent gallery features several mesmerizing round canvases in shades of black and cream, which directly connect the interior and exterior components of the exhibit. Each of these paintings was created in the desert by drawing machines, which slowly spin a canvas on motors as a wind-powered drawing utensil, containing water mixed with black and white pigments, slowly flows over the surface.

Three of the 12 circular open-air desert pavilions contain drawing machines, but almost all of them depend on the sun, wind and salt of the local conditions. In both Solar Drawing Observatory pavilions, the Solar incense burner uses the sun’s rays to emit typical Qatari scents, such as oud and amber. Each incense burns for exactly one hour, marking the time of day like clockwork. In the Municipal Laboratory for Desalination Architecture pavilion, hanging ropes collect salt water from a nearby lagoon. Like the leaves of the surrounding mangroves, which naturally desalinate water, the strings have formed a sculptural salt crust.

Other pavilions refer to Doha, the Nordic landscape and a shared need for ecological awareness. Your Obsidian Garden was informed by Eliasson’s treks through volcanic obsidian fields in the Icelandic highlands, while Your Ice Dust Garden contains mineral-rich glacial rock dust from Greenland, which can be used to revitalize depleted soils. Composed of clear and colored glass spheres, Your pearl garden evokes the dewdrops that cover the desert every morning and evokes the history of Qatar as an important pearling city. Your anti-pollution garden tar residue centers found on a Qatari beach after an oil spill. Eliasson stresses the need for countries in the Middle East, whose economies are largely based on fossil fuels, to find alternative sources of energy and income.

“Qatar is very interesting because, like all Gulf countries, it is extremely vulnerable to climate change – the sabkha site where the pavilions are located is likely to be underwater in just 70 years,” says Eliasson. . “But unlike other countries that have been significantly affected by sea level rise, Qatar has the means and the knowledge to address it. He adds that Qatar is one of the few countries in the region to provide data to United Nations climate reports.

The artist has been in constant dialogue with Qatar’s cultural, environmental and ecological leaders during the nearly decade-long development of The curious desert, not only to be as sensitive as possible to the place, but also so that its impact lasts longer than the six months of exposure. “Everyone in the world is trying to come up with a lasting idea of ​​why tomorrow is different from yesterday,” he says, “and the complexity of that is where art and culture can say something. “

• Olafur Eliasson: The Curious Desert, until August 15, National Museum of Qatar and Al Thakhira Mangrove Nature Preserve. Starting March 25, a free shuttle to the outdoor facility will depart from the National Museum of Qatar every Saturday.