Olafur Eliasson and how public art changes your perspective on a city

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the Urbanist Monocles program all about the built environment. I'm your host, Andrew Tark. Coming up. - If a space is well-designed, it holds the potential of reflecting our unmet emotional needs. Essentially, we always experience what we bring along in our suitcase, in our mental and emotional suitcase and getting lost and finding your path again. That, I think, is an opportunity for you to question, is it actually right the way I always do things? - How can public art change your perception of the city? On today's show, we hear from the acclaimed artist, Olafur Eliasson, who's first permanent work in the UK, recently unveiled in the new multi-use development, Oxford North, gives visitors a chance to rethink their place in the urban environment. We also hear from the artistic director behind London's premier public sculpture exhibition, about its 14th edition. That's all ahead in the next 30 minutes, right here on The Urbanist with me, Andrew Tark. (upbeat music) We start the show today with Olafur Eliasson, the visionary Danish Icelandic artist, who has recently unveiled his first UK permanent public artwork. The piece was commissioned by and sits within Oxford North, a new 1.2 billion pound global innovation district in Oxford, designed to host the next generation of science, technology, and associated industry occupiers. The Fletcher Priest Architects design is a joint venture between St. John's College, through its development company, Thomas White Oxford, Ontario teacher's pension plan, and the asset manager, Stan Hope. Well, to explore how important public art can be, giving new developments a sense of place in the built environment, we recently caught up with Eliasson, and he began by describing his new work in Oxford North. In Oxford North, there is a new area being developed. There would be offices, residential stores and bars, and so on, so it was a little city development, and in the middle of all of that, there is a green area. It has a good size, it has a couple of roads going through it, zigzagging, and in that green area, I have made eight sculptures, if you want, or a one-week sculpture in eight parts, and they are actually, thematically based on the eight planets of our solar system. So one is the Earth, of course, there's Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and so on and so forth, and there are different colors, they're slightly different in the way they're made, but each of them underneath the sphere that looks a little bit like a planet, there is a bench, circular bench, which you can sit on if you're strolling through the park, and because it's a circle, it might be a little bit like sitting around a campfire or sitting in the circle, or you might turn the other way and sitting with your back to the center of the thing, so it both works, I would say, as a comfortable little bench opportunity to sit down, or at night, it has a light or it glows, it's not really illuminating the area, but it is a bit of a guidance, as a street lamp, so you could say, and of course, it also just works as a sculptural element of the park, and once the trees grow a little bit more, it, I believe, looks very welcoming. When you're working unusually, perhaps, with a client, as it were, when somebody comes to you and says, "Look, we're building this incredible development," and what's interesting about the development, it is a space where they're going to be inviting in scientists to work there, this proximity to Oxford University means it's a place of new learning and new ideas. How do you come to a conclusion about what you might think is correct for a new piece of public realm, a new park that hasn't existed before? How do you begin the conversation about coming up with an artistic solution to an intellectual challenge from a client? I try to, first of all, analyze what is the intentions, why making a park there in the first place? What's the programming, so to speak, the urban planning? Is it more recreational, or is it just like practical to get through from there to set, and who is actually going to go through the park? Is there a market once a week, I believe, and all these many questions, and once I understood that to some extent, and as well as I can, I start to think about what kind of hospitality is it actually intended to sort of hold? What type of generosity do we want it to radiate? It is, of course, a public space, and this means that it is a space that belongs to all of us. It is, lastly speaking, paid by the taxpayers. It is something that belongs to the people who intend to use it. And it also means that it's something that we look after together. Hopefully, we represent our values. We could say that we want, generally speaking, our public space is to somehow reflect our beliefs and our values and our sort of intentions of how we want to live and so on. This means that I, of course, then look into why is that important? Why is something public actually important? But isn't it enough that we just have our place to live in our little garden, maybe, behind there? Why do we also need to have something public? Of course, there is a discourse, or there is an idea behind this that I think has to reflect we live in a democracy, we live in a high degree of freedom. It is a regulated space, there are rules, traffic rules, there are all kinds of things that you can and cannot do. And all together, we want the hospitality, as I said, of a space like this to reflect our values. And interestingly, we could also then say, well, our values, we often claim our values are moral high ground. I'm so and so good, my values are progressive. But then when it comes to actually living your values or walking in the talk, we sometimes find ourselves really short on actually living them. And this, of course, is an interesting topic because we are not late to, so to say, pay tribute to our own good intentions. But is it actually possible for us to execute all our good intentions in what we consider a public space? I know that you think a great deal about, as you say, to ask us bigger questions with your arts. And I guess people can't help but think where they sit in the universe almost in a way when they sit amongst this artwork. It's a difficult thing for public art to do. But is that the ambition when you set out on one of these processes that without overwhelming people with questions, that people do see the work and respond to it in a way that they ask questions, I don't know about the environment, about what we're doing to nature, about our position in the planetary system in some way, that it does leave us thinking, as you say, about our responsibilities and the morality we have. And think that if a space is well designed, it holds the potential of reflecting our unmet emotional needs. And this means that if we feel comfortable or if we feel this is a space where there is a relative degree of safety, that means I could sit down and I could possibly talk to someone. How are you today? And I've seen you here before. And there's not really a right and wrong. And there's not really a prescriptive way of dealing with things or seeing things and experiencing things. I think that essentially we always experience what we bring along in our suitcase, in our mental and emotional suitcase. And of course, the planetary system wants to find out that that is actually what it is. That is a large scale, a huge scale, as our solar system, of course. And then you could also say there is a little scale, which is kind of like a bench around a campfire, almost. Each planet is a little bit like a fireplace. Of course, you have to look up in this case, but there's somewhat a warming gathering place, an opportunity to actually just sit down. They're not on one row or they're not organized. They're sort of meandering on and off, close to the path, further away from the path. So some of them, as it is with our planet, some of them are sort of drifting in their own orbital reality. And that suggests that maybe there's an opportunity for some informality. They would like the pavilions in the UK, you would call them folies. And it sounds a little bit like fulies, le folie in French. And this idea of having a space where you can actually deviate from the very narrow norm of normality of how to behave. You know, it's like if you walk on the sidewalk and you start to walk backwards, or you walk sideways, or you walk very slow. People, they wonder, oh my God, there's somebody really must be a mad person. Look how slow he walks. So this idea, of course, also historically referencing the English gun, that there's a kind of a little bit of getting lost and finding your path again. That, I think, is an opportunity for you to question, is it actually right the way I always do things? And tell me, for you as an artist, when you set out to make a piece, this is a permanent piece, your first permanent piece here in the UK. Do you think differently about those works that are more ephemeral, the Green River, for example, where the water was dyed? Do you think about them in different parts of your brain, as it were, that you have one track where you're thinking about a legacy of pieces that people can see all the time and other things which are interventions and more of the moment? Yeah, I think it's like slightly different languages, you could say there. It's not really better or worse. It's more like some ephemeral pieces would not necessarily work as permanent pieces, because they would just be not as interesting as artworks. And sometimes, like in this case here, there's a sort of slowness to the way that people can experience it. They can come back many times and maybe see something different, slowly realize they're not at all the same, these different planets. And everyone has a different color, not very different. And, you know, you could establish a relationship coming in the morning, it's different than the evening, the summer's different than the winter. And of course, importantly, the permanent pieces, there's a whole aspect around health and safety, and it goes to not break down and all of these things. So they follow actually the same architectural code as everything else in the space. So there's quite a big difference, but fundamentally, it is always not about the actual structure, but about the way people experience it. Do you ever take time to reflect and quiz yourself about why so many people responded in such extraordinary ways to your work? We're talking about millions of people coming to see your installations, your permanent pieces. Do you know when you look back at your career, what it is that's caught people's imagination? Because you speak to a high art world, a gallery world that is in reverence and intrigued by what you do and adores what you do. But you also capture the attention of a general public in the way that many artists would yearn for, but find tricky to do without diluting their work. And you don't dilute anything, it's the same work, and it appeals to such a range of people. Have you ever wondered what the touch point is that brings that moment of magic? No, I'm very grateful. I've worked now for almost 30 years, and I've been very fortunate to work with good people. And as a team, I think we have achieved a lot. I wish I could take credit for everything. But I think besides being relatively good at making art, I'm good at picking good people to work with. And I think because I listen a lot to what does people, how do they respond and why do they respond? No, necessarily what they say, but why do they say what they say? And what is it when we listen to each other? What is it we are missing? There's something profoundly humanizing in actually sitting down and not saying something but listening to each other. And that, I think, can be extremely inspiring because we tend to, when we speak out our truth, we tend to be maybe a little bit defensive. But after a little while, we lower our defensiveness and we become a little bit vulnerable. Once we're a little bit more vulnerable, we start to come across in a little bit more honest way. And once you are honest, there is trust. And once there's trust, there is love. So my secret is that I love the way people see the world. And it just takes sometimes a little time to get through to their most vulnerable parts. You use beauty in an interesting way to connect people to some challenging things. And one of those is around what's happening to our planet and to the challenges of climate change. Can I just ask you about this extraordinary story of you taking this 20,000-year-old piece of Greenland's glacial ice to be blessed by Pope Leo? And there's this extraordinary picture of him blessing this. How does something like that come about? Yeah, so the former Pope Francis made quite a legendary climate statement called Laudatsousie. That is 10 years ago. It was just around the time where the famous Paris cop happened. And people were very happy, because this week I know everybody says they do have a lot of influence, the Catholics. So the new Pope apparently made a commitment to sort of follow up on it and follow through with it. And the sort of science community was very happy because they needed all the support they can get now that the politicians are so big and unable to actually show any courage. So a couple of friends of mine, predominantly the amazing Mary Robertson, former president of Ireland, and Koumenaidou, South African, who was heading Amnesty Greenpeace for many years, they were invited to the Pope's sort of event where they were going to talk about the climate. And the Pope was going to announce this renewed commitment to the climate. And I spoke to the two of my friends there and they said, "Why don't you do something?" And I said, "No, I'm not going to do something where it's about preaching the choir. If I want to do something, it's going to be in the press." And I would like to make an artwork where the hand of the Pope is on the ice. And of course, that was only three weeks or four weeks before the event. And I couldn't really reach the Pope. So we agreed to just call our friends in Greenland just a little fishing boat and get a nice blue chunk of 20,000 year old ice, just like a kind of a nice block, roughly twice the weight of the Pope himself. And then just ship it to Rome and then take it from there. And that we did. I have a couple of really great Italian people working here at the studio. And somehow they managed to, you know, with the help from our friends on the inside of this event, they had to kind of get the ice in. And then we just like kind of snuck it up in the States where the Pope's chair was. So we kind of, I mean, everybody knew right in the open, but we kind of smuggled it in, smuggled it off to the States. And once the Pope came, of course, he was going to go like, "Wow, look at that. Isn't that fascinating?" And we had them briefed as much as we could that he should really give it a blessing because by all means it had come all the way from Greenland. And you know, it would have been embarrassing if nobody paid it. And it's a tribute for all the traveling that it's gone through to get there. And that is often how I work. It wasn't very informal, but also it wasn't really based on a formal invitation or anything. It kind of, everybody thought it was a great idea and just somehow it happened. You're creating work that isn't for hiding away on the whole in people's homes and hidden away in bank vaults. You're making art to be appreciated that's public. And if we go back to this project here in the UK, what is it about public art that you think is important? I think it's several layers. Public art you often see several times. You have a sense of belonging to somewhere. You have every place has a sort of signature or can footprint, something that is authentic to that. And I think once you have a sense of belonging and if you also feel acknowledged and you experience some kind of dignity in the way you can be in that space, then you have, I think, something truly unique. And in that space you can then evolve. I think if you do not feel that you belong, if you feel alienated, and if you don't feel acknowledged, but you feel not listened to, and if you don't experience dignity, then you're kind of like you lose self worth. And that is, I think, how many people feels. So I think art or culture, you really, you know, meeting places and gathering and small events can give a space the kind of identity that makes you start to belong. You feel acknowledged. You feel you're worth something. You contribute to a space. You become a part of a community. Once you're part of a community, you also become a stakeholder in the future and then you start to vote. So art is an incredible investment also. I mean, this is one of the greatest thing you can do with public money is to put it into art. There's a return on that public investment simply in societal upside. What an amazing place to end. Olafur, thank you so much for joining us here on Monocle Radio. Next up today, we hear from Stella Ianou, the artistic director of Sculpture in the City, which is an annual activation of London's urban environment as a pop-up sculpture park. Since July this year, 11 artworks have been enlivening the Square Mile District in this 14th edition of the programme. Stella joined Monocle's Carlotta Rubello and Carlotta began by asking, what makes this event so special? Sculpture in the City started off as an experiment 15 years ago. I was called in to source a piece of sculpture to install in what is now referred to as the Eastern City cluster in the City of London, which is the Square Mile, what most people consider to be the financial district. And the space that I'm referring to is what everybody recognises as the iconic skyline. So where the cheese grater, the gurkin, Tower 42, the Lloyds building, if you're a real kind of architecture enthusiast, sit. So it's a very exciting urban space. And 15 years ago, the planning team at the City of London Corporation were aware of all the towers and the tall buildings that were on stream to come and kind of grow out of the ground and were challenged to bring contemporary art into the area. So I was tasked with the mission of finding one piece of sculpture to install as an experiment. That turned into four pieces of contemporary art, which we showed for the first time in June 2011. We managed to secure a sky mirror by Anish Kapoor, a brand new piece from France West's studio, which was actually a huge coup at the time. We'd identified a work by Kenneth Armitage at New Art Centre Roche Court, which was suitable for the project. And we also showed Julian Opie's Three Men Walking. So suddenly we had a show. It wasn't just an experiment, it was a show. And that then grew and grew and grew. The project now is showing its 14th edition, which is out on the streets in the area. We are currently showing 11 artworks. And to date, we have shown 162 artworks by 137 artists. So it's a significant public art initiative. It changes annually every summer, bar COVID. And it's a really fantastic way of retaining interest by the hundreds of thousands of people who come into the area to work. But also is a project that many people travel from far and wide to come and visit every summer. And on my many travels in the area, I have met people who are now retired. They travel the world seeing sculpture parks and they come into the city every summer. It's just a really fantastic initiative. I do love this idea of how public art can help transform a space, particularly in the city of London, which for those who don't frequent it enough, it might be a foreign environment. But the idea of the big office blocks, the big towers, and this is really a way of almost humanizing the area too. Absolutely. It's a space or a place which is defined by these monster buildings, which are all very shiny. It's glass and steel. It's a little bit inhumane. I mean, they are machines for working in, right? They're some of the best examples of contemporary architecture. But equally, they're not the friendliest or the cuddliest, let's say. But what's interesting is with the art, we kind of retain this level of interest. And then there's also a lot to be said about public art, making spaces feel much more welcoming. It's about lots of different things. And because the project also changes, then suddenly you're seeing these spaces or these places in a new light. Every time we bring a different artwork to, for example, the corner of 99 Bishops' Gay, you get a completely different sense. So in 2012, we showed one of the most iconic pieces of public art, Robert Indiana's Love on that corner. And now we have Richard McNess's Temple, which is a big super scale size, concrete, crumpled paper bag covered in gold leaf. So you get these really punchy artworks, which sometimes make you kind of stop and do a double take, which is really interesting. I'm curious on your take about the power that art has to change and perhaps even improve a city. It's so simple. It's about making the space feel welcome and cared for, giving people the opportunity to see things on their daily commute and hopefully get their noses and their eyes away from their phones. There are artworks, for example, a few years back we showed Marina Abramovich's Tree, which was a sound installation, again on the other side of the building at 99 Bishops' Gate. So on this really busy road, buses, commuters, hundreds of thousands of people stomping up and down the street, especially at kind of commuter hour. And it was a piece where we had directional speakers in the tree, and the speakers played amplified birdsong. For her, it was a very early piece, which she made as a student, as a protest piece against the police, where she was growing up in then Yugoslavia. And what's fascinating was, if you stood under the tree, you could hear it, but if you stood away from the tree, you couldn't hear it. And on the Monday after we installed the artwork, I got an email from somebody who knew we were installing the artworks, full of excitement saying, "Oh my God, you've completely transformed my morning walk to the office, because now I can stop by the tree and listen to the artwork, and that's going to make a huge difference to my every day." And that's the power of public art, something that takes us away from ourselves, even for an instant and for a moment. So there are well-being qualities, there are placemaking qualities to installing public art, but for me, it's much more about the human and what it does to us. And even if it's subliminal, it's always there affecting us. It's fascinating to hear about that particular example, but it does make me think about the challenges, or even how do you begin to curate a program like this, when you know that your audience can be anyone. Well, your audience is always anyone, right? But for us, over the years, we have very much developed a process, although I should add, even from the very first exhibition, it always starts with the artwork. So you need to source the right type of artwork to show in these environments. We're competing against lots of noise, lots of visuals. We don't have advertising in the city of London, which most people don't know about. So we're not competing against advertisements, but there is enough kind of visual noise and acoustic noise to compete against. So these artworks have to be bold enough and big enough and colourful enough and strong enough to really kind of stand their ground and make an impression. We have shown very small works. We showed Tamaki Suzuki's little figures, five figures, and they were only 30 centimetres tall, and we installed them in one of the planters behind the gherkin in the public space. And they were so incredibly loved and adored that by the time they went back to the artist, the paint on some of the figures had kind of worn off, because literally people would lie on the ground and hug them and have their photograph taken with them. But then equally, it's important when we've selected the artwork. So now we do an open call for submissions, which is international. The last big submission brought in 422 artworks, which is a considerable number of pieces. We do a first review as a team, and then we have an incredible selection panel who shortlist works that they feel they want to see in the next edition. And we always have more artworks than we have sites, because I then meet each artist or their gallery representative individually to walk around the entire area and identify the locations where they feel their artwork would work. And so it really starts with the eye of the artist and the artwork's preference for sight. And sometimes we find these beautiful connections between the artwork's theme and the artwork itself. So a few years back, we installed Alice Channer's burial in a burial ground at St Bottles without Bishop's Gate right in the churchyard. And when I originally met Alice to walk around the area and to identify sites, she really wanted to find an urban location. So we went and looked at all the really hard urban spaces. And at the end of it, she said, "Oh, you know, there's a couple that I like. I'm not sure." I said, "Do you know what? There is one space which goes against everything that you've told me, but we're going to go and have a look." And the minute we walked into that churchyard, she lit up and said, "That's it. We found it." So not only was the artwork called burial and was installed in a burial ground, but the artist absolutely loved it. So that process is how we do it. It has to be about the artwork. You know, the audiences are really significant, but if you don't cite the artwork, if you don't select the artworks, then you don't really have a show. You mentioned at the start of our conversation how this is indeed the 14th edition of Sculpture in the City. What are your personal highlights? I know that it's terrible to ask you for a favorite, but if someone is in London just for a few hours and they're in the area, maybe two that they need to check out. Oh, which are there now? Yes. I was going to give you a highlight from the past because it's quite a significant one. We're showing Roots Palace by Ai Weiwei at the moment, which is in the same churchyard where we showed Alice Chan as burial. So there's a connection there. But I think for me, one of my biggest highlights from the 162 artworks that we've shown to date was actually Showing Forever by Weiwei in 2015. And at the time when we selected the artwork or when we'd agreed with the gallery that we were going to show forever outside the gherkin, Weiwei was still incarcerated in China. And then you've kind of rolled forward to suddenly we were installing the artwork in September. And I believe it was probably either July or August that year where he was released. And suddenly he was out of house arrest. He was travelling. He was coming to London because at the same time he had a big show on at the RA. And that was just phenomenal. So to have that moment where we started off with an artist who was under house arrest and then a few months later, we're installing the artwork which took nine days. So there were 1,274 bicycle frames that needed to be connected to create a work which was 15 metres long, 7 metres tall and 5 metres wide. So it was this huge installation which took nine days to build and then Weiwei was here. So for me, if I was to pick, my biggest highlight of all times was actually meeting Weiwei that morning when he came to see the installation. Now I know there's other side events too. So tell me a bit about those and the role that they play in bringing bigger audience to the arts world. And into the city, so not just the art world. So the city is a place which most people don't consider. They can go out with the family too. But actually we've organised family festivals. We've done things called Sculpture Fest. We have a fantastic event which we've organised at least four or five times now which is called Little Art Critics TV where young people get to become a critic for the day. So they walk around with a TV crew. The children speak to the artworks. The children are always the best art critics because there's absolutely zero filter to what they're seeing and what they're saying. And then the team compile a film which then gets screened on a big screen. I mean, it's a great family event. So that takes place at least twice a year at the moment. And then the other end of the scale is we have events called Cocktail and Create where more recently we had Maya Rose Edwards, our artist who we're showing at the moment with Kissing Gate at Old Gate Square. And Maya run a whole workshop creating love tokens with people who came from far and wide. We had a lady who came in from Bristol for that particular event. We've hosted roundtable discussions over creativity and hormone health. We're currently putting together another one around wellbeing and public art. So there is a huge range of talks, events, family events that we curate and produce as part of the overall programme. And all I'd say is go to the website sculptureinthecity.org.uk and the programme is there. There's more coming next year, but the next one is definitely on wellbeing and it will more than likely be in January next year. Stella Ianou, Artistic Director of Sculpture in the City, speaking there with one called Carlotta Rebello. So two interesting takes on the world of public art. But just because it's public art, it doesn't mean that it's, well, good art. All sorts of nonsense gets dropped into parks and plazas in the name of democratising culture, administrating a dose of art to places deemed to be in need of some lofty inspiration. But then often the problems begin. To avoid offending folk, private landlords and corporate players, sponsor pieces that are less art and more gigantic knickknacks in offensive confections. All the commission gets dispatched via some committee that listens to stakeholders, lots of stakeholders, and the outcome is then something that has no merit as art. That's why it was so interesting hearing from Olafur Eliasson, because he comes good on both the public and the art elements. I think he understands the power of creating a project that engages with a large number of people and that sits outside the confines of, say, a gallery. He knows that some ideas should result in permanent works, others be events that shine, inspire, change perceptions, then vanish. He also sees how you can raise some big ideas with public art, suggest some fundamental questions for people to ponder, only though, however, if you make an artwork that enthralls and entertains too. I think he understands how art can work on the public stage where many others don't. And he's also good at that art bit, making work that the public and the art world both find some merit in. We live in a time when many people think that society is cleaved in half by politics, different opinions, where people are unsure of each other, question who belongs. These problems tend to fester and entrench behind closed doors, yet get people into the public realm to focus their intention on engaging with public art, and add differences subside, get parked, even if only for the day. Public art can pull us together, well, if it's done well. Done badly, well, then it just winds people up even more. So, let's remember Christo and Jean-Claude wrapping the Arc de Triomphe and the Reichstag too. Let's cheer in each corpore's mirrored cloud gate, affectionately known as the Bean in Chicago, and enjoy the arguments that to and fro about the merits of the temporary artworks that get parked on the fourth plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. They're all works that got get us talking, smiling, even frowning on some occasions. But believe me, public art can do good things. Really, it can bring us together. And that's all for this week's episode of The Urbanist. You can follow us for new editions of the show every week, and you can subscribe to Monocle magazine for reports on all things design, architecture, and urbanism too. Just visit monocle.com. The Urbanist is produced by Carlos Ribello and by David Stevens, who also edits this show. I'm Andrew Tuck, goodbye, and thank you for listening, City Lovers. you