Image used on Blog post '1116' (from Instagram) - Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson

Final tests for exhibition @tanyabonakdargallery opening 23 March #NYC

Image used on Blog post '1111' (from S3)

Let America Be America Again, Langston Hughes, 1935
Click on image for full poem

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek— And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean— Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That’s made America the land it has become. O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home— For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore, And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we’ve dreamed And all the songs we’ve sung And all the hopes we’ve held And all the flags we’ve hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay— Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again— The land that never has been yet— And yet must be—the land where every man is free. The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME— Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose— The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives, We must take back our land again, America!

O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath— America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain— All, all the stretch of these great green states— And make America again!

Image used on Blog post '1107' (from Instagram) - Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson
Image used on Blog post '1108' (from S3)
Image used on Blog post '1106' (from Instagram) - Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson
Less ego wall, 2015 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim

The parliament of possibilities, Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art
Click on image to see exhibition documentation

Less ego wall, 2015 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
Less ego wall, 2015 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
Rainbow assembly, 2016 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
Power and care spirals, 2016 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
Moss wall, 1994 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
Meteorological circles, 2016 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
Untitled (stone floor), 2004 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
Reversed waterfall, 1998 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
The shape of disappearing time, 2016 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
The shape of disappearing time, 2016 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
The shape of disappearing time, 2016 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
Your unpredictable path, 2016 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
Your museum primer, 2014 - Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, 2016 - Photo: Hyunsoo Kim
Image used on Blog post '1100' (from S3)
[Blog post '1103'] @studioolafureliasson Instagram video
Image used on Blog post '1101' (from S3)
Image used on Blog post '1104' (from Instagram) - Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson

On our desks #research #studio

Image used on Blog post '1095' (from S3)

When travelling in Iceland, you may encounter piles of driftwood along the coast. In a country where no trees grow, the huge trunks washed up on the shore are like alien bodies: they come neither from a nearby forest or fjord, nor from a neighbouring country (there is none). Subjected to wind, tidal movement, drift ice, and waves, bleached by the sun and the ocean salt for up to fifteen years, most have made their way from Siberia, a few from North America, and some are even said to have come from South America, surfing the Gulf Stream.

These nomads, their surfaces chafed by water, ice, and shore friction, make no demands on their host country as they hover on its periphery. Unfamiliar and real at the same time, they tell a story of migration and of the natural forces that shaped their route. For me, they represent an emotional journey.

Image used on Blog post '1098' (from S3)

Spaces that might generate small frictional dialogues were found in Berlin; spaces where the trunks would be perceived as momentary thresholds, offering subtle resistance to our too pragmatic and automated relations with our surroundings. In this way, a small narrative was added to the multiple stories-so-far of the city.

Image used on Blog post '1099' (from S3)
Sigur Rós - Route One [Part 1 - 1080p]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G54tllj-SKI

Take a 24 hour trip around Iceland with Sigur Rós

Image used on Blog post '1094' (from Instagram) - Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson

The presence of absence - open until Saturday at neugerriemschneider, Berlin

[Blog post '1089'] @studioolafureliasson Instagram video

The adjacent possibilities. Cube meets octahedron. #studio

Motion perception, 2017

Motion perception, a film by artist Benjamin Skop

Image used on Blog post '1088' (from S3)
Image used on Blog post '1087' (from Instagram) - Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson

Catching black holes with X-rays #NASA

Image used on Blog post '1086' (from Instagram) - Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson

Everyday planetary awareness #studio

Life Is Space: Christine de Smedt and Eszter Salamon – Becoming lions

Life Is Space: Christine de Smedt and Eszter Salamon perform lioning exercise, 2011

Almost annually since 2006, Studio Olafur Eliasson has hosted a get-together called Life is space (formerly Life in space). For this day-long event, scientists, artists, scholars, dancers, theorists, spatial practitioners, and movement experts come together with the Institut für Raumexperimente participants and the studio team to share, discuss, present, and experiment. These meetings are only loosely planned in advance and are largely left to intuition and serendipity.

Life Is Space: Hildur Guðnadóttir – Drawing with sound

Life Is Space: Hildur Guðnadóttir makes a drawing with her cello, 2011

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