chief curator and artistic director of fondation louis vuitton suzanne pagé: ‘olafur eliasson often bases his work on cutting-edge advances in scientific thought, placing renewed emphasis on the situation of humanity in the world. tapping into the visitors’ capacity for empathy, the artist strives to activate their participation, implicating them in a complex, multi-sensorial experience. the constant oscillation between shadow/light, presence/absence, and affirmation/doubt causes us to question our visual perceptions and, in consequence, our convictions.’

‘to this end, the route through the exhibition is derived from the geometry of the circle and founded upon the underlying principle of circularity. by bringing viewers into “contact” with a meteorite, an extraterrestrial object with a magical, even symbolic, character, the exhibition begins with a gesture intended by the artist to place visitors in a state of perceptiveness that expands the horizons of our imagination.’

In the tradition of artists who have made lettering from the human form, like Vanessa Beecroft for Louis Vuitton or Horst for the cover of Vogue, Erik Foss created a series of twenty-six collages–one for every letter of the alphabet–after artist Jack Walls pointed out that he had created the letter “O” with a collage of nudes made from 1970’s erotic magazine clippings. The evocative works have a deep-seated personal significance to Foss, equaled by their ability to bring to the fore historical references that lie inherent within the nude figure. His subversive imagery and complete lack of contrivance allows one’s initial boyhood encounter with sexuality to percolate with an honest attempt at individualizing the human experience.