Olafur Eliasson - Photographs from the Martin Z. Margulies Foundation New York Thursday, April 4, 2024 | Phillips

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  •  “In 1999 I traveled to Iceland to document a number of the country’s glaciers from the air. Back then, I thought of the glaciers as beyond human influence. . . They seemed immobile, eternal. I was struck at the time by the difference between the human scale and the scale of geo-history. For me a glacier or a rock seem solid, but on the geological scale, rocks and glaciers are constantly in motion.”
    —Olafur Eliasson

    Both topographical illustration and scientific study, Eliasson’s Glacier Series examines our perception of nature as simultaneously eternal and ever-changing. His aerial views foreground the massive scale of the glaciers, isolating them in a moment in time despite their constant, if incremental, state of flux – a force powerful enough to carve the formation of the earth’s surface over thousands of years, but moving at mere inches a day. Eliasson’s work engages the discrepancies between representation and reality, as well as between human time and geologic time.

     

    These photographs now exist as a historical document of man’s influence on the environment, and Eliasson’s Glacier Series has since expanded into The Glacier Melt Series (1999/2019). In recent years Eliasson has revisited the sites of his original photographs and recaptured the current landscape, illustrating their marked contrast due to the impacts of global warming. Now a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations, Eliasson has achieved a higher level of recognition for his work, thus putting him in dialogue with leaders who can enact climate change policy on a large-scale.  

    • Provenance

      Bonakdar Jancou Gallery, New York, 1999

    • Exhibited

      Olafur Eliasson: Photographs, The Menil Collection, Houston, 26 May - 5 September 2004
      The Amazing and Immutable, Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, 14 January – 16 March 2004
      Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, 20 April - 30 June 2008; Dallas Museum of Art, 9 November 2008 - 15 March 2009
      La Morada Del Hombre: Colección Martin Z. Margulies / The Dwelling Life of Man: Collection Martin Z. Margulies, Fundación Foto Colectania, Barcelona, 3 June – 25 September 2011

    • Literature

      Fundación Barrié, La Morada Del Hombre: Colección Martin Z. Margulies, p. 158

59

The Glacier Series

1999
A grid comprised of 40 chromogenic prints, each mounted.
Each 12 1/4 x 18 1/2 in. (31.1 x 47 cm)
Overall 78 x 179 1/2 in. (198.1 x 455.9 cm)

Signed on a label accompanying the work. Number 3 from an edition of 6.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$70,000 - 90,000 

Sold for $76,200

Contact Specialist

Caroline Deck
Senior Specialist, Photographs
cdeck@phillips.com

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Chairwoman, Americas
vhallett@phillips.com

Photographs from the Martin Z. Margulies Foundation

New York Auction 4 April 2024