Your Glacial Expectations

An arresting volume to commemorate Olafur Eliasson’s latest work of installation art, featuring lush illustrations and unique insights from participating writers, photographers, and artists

One of the most wide-ranging and ambitious creative minds of his generation, Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson has produced a dizzying spectrum of work around the world. Perhaps best known in the United States for his “upside-down” waterfall installation in New York, his constant inventiveness and public projects have entranced huge numbers of people. Working in a variety of fields and media, there is no end to his creative ambition and the delight his works elicit.

The title of the book and accompanying exhibition refers to the glaciers that formed the landscape around the installation’s site in Denmark, their traces still evident in the site’s topography and geology. The project does not end at the property boundaries, but incorporates the entire surrounding landscape. Five mirrors, ranging from a perfect circle to elongated ellipses, reflect the changing sky above and the contemplator’s own gaze as though in the surfaces of glacial pools.

This publication offers a unique and highly detailed insight, captured over the course of four seasons, of this singular landscape. Working with geologists, landscape architects, and other specialists, Eliasson has created an outdoor space only a privileged few will ever see. This publication documents and enhances the work through photographs, essays, and collaborators who render the power of the project in images and words.