Untitled 1998

Olafur Eliasson made this photograph, its title currently unknown, sometime after he was born in Copenhagen in 1967. What is the role of the artist in relation to the natural world? It is a question that dogs all landscape art. In this image, Eliasson shows us a cave whose walls and ceiling are heavy with ice. What kind of social contract do we enter into when we encounter nature presented in this way? Is this a sublime landscape, meant to inspire feelings of awe? Or is it a document of a natural phenomenon, such as one might find in a textbook? As viewers, we are also inhabitants of a world rapidly changed by industry and technology. Eliasson's landscapes can be examined alongside scientific journals, government policy, and corporate reports, helping us to understand the relationship between aesthetics, the natural world, and our changing social reality.