As one of today’s leading artists, Ólafur Elíasson has taken on a new challenge to transform a landmark location with his intriguing installations, and this time it’s the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy in Vienna, an ornate baroque-style building from the late 17th century. Curated by Daniela Zyman and Mario Codognato, the showcase is appropriately entitled Baroque Baroque and presents a selection of Elíasson’s works from Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Vienna and the private collection of Buenos Aires-based power collectors Juan and Patricia Vergez amidst the building’s architectural splendour. The works of Elíasson often blend science, psychology and architecture, and that can certainly be said of this presentation.

It challenges viewers’ habits of perception and proposes that reality can be understood as unstable and evolving, as a process of constant negotiation. interestingly, affinities between the artist’s works and their settings become evident as the juxtapositions explore the relationships between object and viewer, representation and experience, actual and virtual, giving rise to a concept of the baroque superimposed on itself — the Baroque Baroque. Also on display are new site-specific interventions that will shed more light on this exceptional dialogue between the baroque architecture and the modulating perception provided by Elíasson’s artworks [on through mar 3].

Photography: Anders Sune Berg

via Superfuture