Lilja Lever (Petru Vølven)
Olafur Eliasson
Stalke Kunsthandel/Galleri
Vesterbrogade 14A
2-12. 1994 to 12.1 1995
Lilja Lever (Petru Vølven) was Olafur Eliasson’s first solo exhibition at Stalke Gallery. Presented in 1994–95, the exhibition marked an important moment in the gallery’s development during the 1990s, when a new generation of artists emerged with installation, perception, and material-based investigations as central points of focus.
Lilja Lever (Petru Vølven)
Stalke Kunsthandel/Galleri, Vesterbrogade 14A, 1620 Copenhagen V, opened an exhibition of new works by Olafur Eliasson. The exhibition consisted of a series of photographs of stone patterns as well as a moss installation, which had received significant attention earlier that month at the Cologne Art Fair.
Olafur Eliasson had begun his studies at the Academy in 1988. He had lived in New York in 1991 and 1992 and had been based in Cologne, Germany, since the summer of 1993. His most recent solo exhibition prior to this presentation had taken place in October 1994 at Lukas & Hoffmann Gallery, Cologne.
At the time, Olafur Eliasson worked with installations and photography. His works did not propose a single solution or a “correct” interpretation; rather, they functioned as open structures in which the viewer’s own experience and perception were central.
The works were often characterized by a simple and minimalist expression, in which physical elements receded in favor of more immaterial components such as light, water, fire, gas, moss, and air.
Beyond their immediate organic references to nature, the works contained layers of meaning and association. By isolating elements from their usual physical contexts and reconfiguring them—an approach Eliasson had previously employed using motifs such as a rainbow, an ice mirror, or a wall of moss—the immaterial qualities of the elements became central and open to metaphorical interpretation. For the viewer, the works were experienced as much mentally or psychologically as physically.
At the time of the exhibition, Olafur Eliasson was planning a solo project at Hamburg Kunstverein in 1995.
Olafur Eliasson, Big Stone Series and Moss Room, Stalke Galleri/Kunsthandel 1994.
Torben Weirup, Berlingske Tidende, Friday, December 9, 1994
In his review published in Berlingske Tidende, Torben Weirup described the exhibition as a clear example of how a younger generation of artists was moving away from traditional art forms and fixed narratives. Olafur Eliasson’s contribution was highlighted in particular as representative of a practice in which the artwork was not only to be seen, but experienced.
Weirup emphasized that Eliasson’s installation operated in the space between nature and construction, and between sensory experience and conceptual reflection. Art was understood here as something that emerges in the encounter between the work and the viewer, rather than as a closed object with a single, predetermined meaning. Elements of nature were not presented directly, but transformed and staged in ways that foregrounded perception, space, and experience.
The review positioned Olafur Eliasson as part of a generation working in a more experimental and investigative manner, challenging materials, exhibition formats, and the role of the audience. According to Weirup, this approach pointed toward an open, process-oriented form of art, grounded in personal and psychological experience rather than in traditional aesthetic norms.