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Rembrandt & van Hoogstraten: The Art of Illusion

It takes a split second these days to create an image, and how many millions are recorded daily on mobile phones, possibly never to be looked at again? You can see it all happening in the palatial surroundings of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, definitely one of those tick-off destinations on many travellers' bucket lists, where those in search of instant pictorial satisfaction throng the imposing statue-lined staircase for a selfie or pout for a photo in the café under the spectacular cupola. But we're not in Vienna for a quick fix, we're at the KHM to admire something more enduring in the shape of art produced almost 500 years ago by Rembrandt and his pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten that was intended to mislead your eyes into seeing the real in the unreal. Artistic deception is the story at the centre of  Rembrandt--Hoogstraten: Colour and Illusion , one of the most engrossing and best-staged exhibitions we've seen this year. And, somewhat surprisingly, a show wi...
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Mist and Mirrors: Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson is very of the moment, isn't he? He wants to save the planet, and he hopes that if you go to see Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life at Tate Modern in London, the immersive art he's made that you encounter will heighten your sense of the world around you and make you even more minded to combat climate change. Of course, if you were planning to see this show in the first place, we suspect the chances are that you're already fairly environmentally aware.

Eliasson wowed London with The Weather Project in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall back in 2003, and so, many of those flocking to this retrospective on the South Bank will be hoping for just as much wow this time round. Do they get it? Well, the best of the 40 or so works on show really do astonish and delight and surprise.... but to be honest, quite a few fall a bit flat.

Perhaps that's because while most of these haven't been on display in Britain before, we have seen a fair number in the past, including in a show in Berlin, where the Icelandic-Danish artist is based. And because this is art that depends to some extent on giving you something unexpected, you do lose quite a bit of the impact on a repeat viewing.

And here's another thing: If you're going to have your senses heightened, you really need a bit of time and space and quiet. But in an exhibition that's jam-packed, where you'll need to queue to get into some of the installations, and shuffle along with the crowd in others, and where there are a lot of children running around excitedly, you may be unable to attain anything approaching a zen-like state in which to contemplate the future of the Earth.

Does that all sound a bit too negative? Well, the truth is that some of Eliasson's installations really are things of wonder. Take Beauty, originally made in 1993 when he was in his mid-20s. In the middle of a darkened room, a waterfall. A spotlight shining through the gentle mist of water creates a magical rainbow effect. It really is lovely, reminding us of one of those waterfalls that you can walk behind, like in the Brecon Beacons.
On the other hand, there's nothing at all magical about Waterfall, sitting outside an entrance to the Tate. It's supposed to recreate a natural waterfall cascading down from the rocks. Maybe it's the location, because he's done rather more ambitious versions of these in New York and Versailles, and they do look stunning, but this is just water cascading down some scaffolding, into some plastic sheeting, and sounding like the flow from a broken gutter in a heavy downpour.
The biggest installation in this show is the disorientating Din blinde passager (Your Blind Passenger). It's a long corridor filled with a yellow mist that prevents you from seeing more than a couple of feet around and in front of you as the group you're in plays follow-my-leader until you finally reach the door at the other end, which is further away than you might think. It's a discombobulating experience, and Eliasson at his best: making you really aware of just what you can actually sense around you, and what you can't.
Once you've negotiated the yellow tunnel, you're out and faced with one of Eliasson's newest works: the one that gives this exhibition its title, In Real Life. The complex and impressive geometrical effects of light reflected onto the walls, floor and ceiling from inside a kaleidoscope of aluminium and coloured glass are certainly fun.

But, "for the artist, the kaleidoscope offers more than just a playful visual experience," the Tate says. "You are offered different perspectives at once, and understand your position in new ways. You might let go of the sense of being in command of space, and instead enjoy a kind of uncertainty." Or you might just let the kids jump about and Instagram the experience....
A bit further along, we get to the portentous-sounding How Do We Live Together?, another new work. To cite Eliasson's studio: "One semicircular arc mounted to a mirror on the ceiling visually combines with its reflection to create the illusion of giant ring (sic) that traverses the mirror’s surface, uniting the actual space of the gallery with the virtual space that appears in the mirror." 

Hmm.... in a crowded room, it just comes across as a rather unexciting reflection on the ceiling of Tate-goers lying on the floor flapping their arms (not us; we remained upright). Eliasson's done more interesting things with mirrors, including, in this show, The Seeing Space, where a glass sphere inserted in a wall gives you inverted and distorted views of the room on the other side, but only one way: from the darkened side. Though if we're looking for someone to do something stunning with mirrors, we still like Anish Kapoor. 

An unexpected thing of beauty is found in one of Eliasson's works that uses glacial ice to help spread the message about climate change. For Glacial Currents, chunks of ice were placed on top of washes of coloured pigment, creating intriguing patterns on the paper beneath as they melted away. It's as if another planet, a strangely different world has been brought into being....  
Eliasson's studio in Berlin has more than 100 people working for it, and the recent BBC TV documentary about him left us with the somewhat dispiriting impression that we were watching a corporate conglomerate in action, with endless meetings and talk of team leaders. It's all very earnest....

And this show itself? Well, it has some wow moments, but not quite as many as we'd been hoping for. Maybe now that the schools are back, you might find the atmosphere (during the week) a little more thought-inducing, the experience a little less frantic. But would we go back and see it again before it closes? To be honest, no. 

Practicalities

Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life continues until January 5 at Tate Modern in London, which is open from 1000 to 1800 Sunday to Thursday and 1000 to 2200 on Friday and Saturday. Full-price tickets are £18 and can be bought online here. (Cost comparison: £18 is the same as this year's big Pierre Bonnard show at the same venue and £5 more expensive than the excellent Dorothea Tanning exhibition.) 

Blackfriars on the Thameslink cross-London rail line and Southwark on the Jubilee Line Tube are the nearest stations to Tate Modern, though eco-warriors will perhaps seek to cut their carbon footprint even further by mooring their solar-powered yachts, rowing boats or other zero-emission vessels next to the Millennium Bridge. 

Images

Olafur Eliasson, Beauty, 1993, Installation view at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2015. Photo: Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles. © 1993 Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson, Waterfall, 2019, Installation view: Tate Modern, 2019. Photo: Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles. © 2019 Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson, Din blinde passager (Your Blind Passenger), 2010, Tate Modern, 2019. Photo: Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles. © 2010 Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson, In Real Life, 2019, courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles
Olafur Eliasson, Glacial Currents (Yellow, Sienna), 2018, Collection of Eleanor & Francis Shen


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