Versailles might normally be reserved for camera carrying tourists, but it has also become somewhat of a playground for acclaimed artists. For eight years now, it has in fact allowed artists to use its space to hold exhibitions with the intention of creating conversation between the work and the old (awesome) architecture.
A few weeks ago, following in the footsteps of Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, and Anish Kapoor, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has filled the 15th century palace and its leafy gardens with signature mind-bending waterfalls and mirror installations.
The exhibition encompasses three installations in the gardens and six inside the palace, created after the artist made several contemplative trips to the site. His outdoor pieces focuses on showing the stages of water — fog, fluid, and absent to impose a mood of impermanence on the audience. His indoor pieces use light and reflections to alter the interiors without actually altering the original rooms and their furnishings.
The Hall of Mirrors, the Palace’s main attraction, is a hall made of seventeen arches each equipped with twenty-one reflective surfaces. Here, the artist has installed “Your Sense of Unity”, a series of circular mirrors and LEDs that reflect and refract its hyper-mirrored environment.
If you find yourself in France in the coming months, you can see Olafur Eliasson Versailles with your own eyes until October 30th, 2016. If you can’t make it, check out the online-guided tour of the space and the works here.