Here Comes the Sun

CONTENTS:

Prologue by David Neuman, Director Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall
Here Comes the Sun – Daniel Birnbaum on Olafur Eliasson, Francis Alÿs, Tacita Dean and Tobias Rehberger, essay by Daniel Birnbaum, Swedish Art Critic and Curator
Working With, Working Between – Jérôme Sans in dialogue with Tobias Rehberger, interview by Jérôme Sans, Art Critic and Curator
Spectrum of an Image – Jérôme Sans on Jeroen de Rijke and Willem de Rooji, essay by Jérôme Sans, Art Critic and Curator
Reffering to a Dream – Rosa Martínez on Ghada Amer, essay by Rosa Martínez, Art Critic and Curator
From One to Another – Rosa Martínez on Rivane Neuenschwander, essay by Rosa Martínez, Art Critic and Curator
In Front of the Sun – Rosa Martínez on Pilar Albarracín, essay by Rosa Martínez, Art Critic and Curator
”I Always Have All the Time in the World” – Sarit Shapira in dialogue with Avital Geva, interview by Sarit Shapira, Art Historian and Curator

Exhibition catalogue no 33
No of pages: 68, color, illustrated
Binding: hard cover (two books in a box)
Graphic design: Mattias Givell

Language: Swedish and English
Year: 2005
Publisher: Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall
ISBN: 91-974236-7-X

EXCERPT:

Here Comes the Sun – Daniel Birnbaum on Olafur Eliasson, Francis Alÿs, Tacita Dean and Tobias Rehberger by Daniel Birnbaum

Time, said Austerlitz in the observation room in Greenwich, was by far the most artificial of all our inventions, and in being bound to the planet turning on its own axis was no less arbitrary than would be, say, a calculation based on the growth of trees or the duration required for a piece of limestone to disintegrate, quite apart from the fact that the solar day which we take as our guideline does not provide any precise measurement, so that in order to reckon time we have to devise an imaginary, average sun which has an invariable speed of movement and does not incline towards the equator in its orbit. (Austerlitz / W. G. Sebald, 2001)

In Your Sun Machine Olafur Eliasson created a “cosmological” installation with the simplest of means. It is a work about the relationship between sun and earth. His contribution is nothing but a hole in the roof of the Californian gallery where the work was presented. Above, the sun blazes, creating a vibrantly hot patch of light on the gallery floor. If you concentrate on the patch, you can actually see the sun moving.

Until you remember something you learned in school: the reason that the light of this heavenly body creeps across the floor is that you and your own little planet are tearing across the universe at an unimaginable speed. Or had you forgotten that?

We tend to forget certain basic things. Here Comes the Sun is an exhibition about cosmology, time, and our most prominent celestial body. Francis Alÿs’ work, Zocalo, is a further example that reminds us of certain fundamental cosmic facts. A flag that stands at the center of the huge square in Mexico City casts a shadow that attracts the people who try to escape the relentless light that falls onto the plaza. Thus, a large solar clock is created with human figures as an element. This is an artwork about the Mexican sun, about the movement of planet Earth through space, and about social life in the Mexican capital. (…)