Artist recreates Icelandic nature in London's Tate Modern

With light, mist and rain, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson brings nature into the Tate Modern for a new London exhibition that appeals to visitors' senses while, at points, disorientating them.

About 40 works of art dating back over three decades are on display inside and outside the Thames-side gallery of contemporary art, including an extraordinary 11-metre high waterfall.

Eliasson won acclaim here in 2003 when he filled the Tate's vast Turbine Hall with a giant blazing sun for "The Weather Project", an installation that drew more than two million visitors.

In December, the 52-year-old left 24 blocks of glacier ice to melt outside to raise awareness of the impact of global warming.

Rainbow and waterfall

A giant kaleidoscopic sculpture "Your Spiral View", through which visitors can walk as if in a tunnel, is aimed at encouraging them to perceive things from a different viewpoint.

But the experience that is most disconcerting, even frightening, is a long corridor filled with thick mist in which the visitor loses their bearings, unable to see further than a couple of metres.

Nature is omnipresent in the exhibition, from a huge wall covered in moss to a rainbow formed as if by magic in a dark room where a soft rain falls.

A woman poses for a photograph next to an installation tiled "Stardust Particle."

"Olafur spent a lot of time as (a) child in Iceland and the environment, the landscape, have affected him greatly," said Godfrey.

Some installations give the sense that the visitor is "co-producing the work", he added.

In one room, visitors walk in front of projectors, watching their different coloured shadows dance on the wall in front of them.

The final part, dubbed "The Expanded Studio", addresses Eliasson's social and environmental concerns, including an artistic workshop he conducted with asylum-seekers and refugees.

The exhibition opens on Thursday and runs until January 5, 2020.

Agence France-Presse