Olafur Eliasson: Innen Stadt Außen in Berlin @ Martin-Gropius-Bau, 28 April to 9 August 2010

Innen Stadt Außen is the first solo exhibition by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson in a Berlin institution. The exhibition’s central theme stems from Olafur Eliasson’s close relationship with Berlin, the city in which he has lived and worked for many years. It is also where he has set up his multi-faceted studio, combining the functions of research, production and teaching.

Since 2009 he has held a chair at Berlin’s University of the Arts, where he heads the Institute for Spatial Experiments.

After numerous international surveys and projects among others in London, New York, Kanazawa and Sydney, this exhibition will profit from the fact that Berlin, as a site of constant change, is still open to experiments with architecture and urban structure. Through various new installations especially made for the exhibition the Martin-Gropius-Bau will develop an examination of Olafur Eliasson’s practice.

Innen Stadt Außen concerns itself closely with the relationship between museum and city, architecture and landscape, as well as between space, body and time. The site-specific investigations within the museum are amplified and commented on through ephemeral projects in public space, thus linking the Martin-Gropius-Bau to various places within the city.

The exhibition is curated by Daniel Birnbaum, art critic, curator and rector of the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, and the contemporary exhibition space Portikus attached to it.

In 2009 he was in charge of the 53. International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale. Artist and curator have been engaged in a longstanding collaboration in the fields of book publications, exhibitions and projects in public space, which goes back to the 90s.