Olafur Eliasson has created a site specific installation for Louis Vuitton’s shop windows,
to benefit the charitable organization 121Ethiopia.
In a collaboration with Louis Vuitton to benefit the charitable organization 121Ethiopia, founded by Olafur Eliasson and his wife, Marianne Krogh Jensen, Mr. Eliasson has created a site specific installation for Louis Vuitton’s shop windows, making a presentation that challenges the typical commercial luxury goods display. Starting on November 9th, in each store window at every Louis Vuitton location worldwide one “Eye see you” lamp will be on view. Resembling the pupil of an eye the sculpture is comprised of a low-pressure sodium lamp, which consumes a very small amount of energy and produces a strong monochromatic yellow light. Vibrant and illuminating, the piece creates a dialogue and connection between the interior of the store and the exterior spectator, flooding the street with light as the evening darkens, and transgressing the physical and psychological boundary represented by a commercial window display. Seen by millions of pedestrians “Eye see you” will become part of the urban streetscape in New York and abroad for the duration of its installation, combining the typical notion of window shopping with the intellectual and visually stimulating experience of looking at art.
A small edition of 30 related lamps, created specifically for this project, will be available for sale through the gallery; one hundred percent of the proceeds from these sales will benefit 121Ethiopia, to be put towards a series of relief initiatives, starting with the renovation of the state run orphanage in Addis Ababa.
121Ethiopia is purposefully small in scale, involving only a handful of people who can operate small projects with very high impact, insuring that all money raised goes directly toward relief work rather than towards the administration of a large organization. In keeping with his focus on engagement, an important element in many of his works, Mr. Eliasson has said the following of his organization, “With 121Ethiopia our aim is not just to raise money for a worthy cause. We are equally interested in making people aware that by engaging with something that matters to them, everyone can make a difference. It is my hope that 121Ethiopia may encourage people to find their own way of helping to solve the problems that are so real and immediate.”
In 2007 Olafur Eliasson will have his first major survey exhibition in North America, opening at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and traveling to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, with an auxiliary exhibition at PS1 Contemporary Art Center; the show will continue on to several other US institutions. Mr. Eliasson’s work is part of collections worldwide, including SFMOMA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; and Tate Modern, London. In 2003 Mr. Eliasson presented The Weather Project, at the Tate Modern, London, and represented Denmark with Blind Pavilion for the 50th Venice Biennale. A selection of more recent major solo exhibitions includes Your Uncertainty of Colour Matching Experiment, Ikon Gallery London, 2006; Light Lab, Portikus, Frankfurt/Main, 2006; Your light shadow, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2005;Notion Motion, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2005; Your Lighthouse. Works with light 1991-2004, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; among others.
For further information on 121Ethiopia or the sale of the “Eye see you” edition please contact Tanya Bonakdar Gallery at 212-414-4144, or email mail@tanyabonakdargallery.com. Information on 121Ethiopia is also available on their website, http://www.121Ethiopia.org.
