December 9-16, 2004

art

Color Schemes

crystal blue persuasion: Visitors to Olafur Eliasson's "Your colour memory" installation are bathed in timed intervals of color, resulting in powerful afterimages.

Arcadia hosts an exhibit that experiments with hues—as well as with gallery visitors.

by Robin Rice

'Tis the season for mail-order catalogues. It's not unusual for me to get more than 20 in a day. And in light of Olafur Eliasson's installation "Your colour memory" at Arcadia University Art Gallery, I've taken special notice that gifts ranging from nightlights to Brookstone's "Ambient Orb" (whose shifting colors reflect the state of the stock market) all feature electrically generated prismatic color. Given this fad, the current international interest in the Danish-born, Berlin-based Eliasson makes all the more sense. Even the most intellectual artists both fuel and ride the wave of public and scientific interest.

Like these artists, let's indulge in some color theory. Individual colors have moments of glory. Mauve, so popular for part of the Victorian era, fell abruptly from favor and remained a hallmark of bad taste for almost a century. Changing fashions in color are also often a product of possibility. In the 19th century, affordable new technologies led to aniline dyes. In the 1950s, Technicolor made movies like Kiss Me Kate and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes thrilling to contemporary audiences, though the saturated hues seem almost lurid today. Fluorescent colors were hot in the 1960s. Burnished metallic and iridescent colors are big now, but even bigger is a kind of spectrum effect. You can see it frozen in a striped scarf at Bloomingdale's and you can live it in Eliasson's installation at Arcadia.

Walking into Eliasson's environment of atmospheric color baths, it's immediately clear that he's put the "you" into "colour"—figuratively through the use of the British spelling, and literally by placing the viewer at the center of the artwork. In the rounded apartment constructed within the gallery, a sequence of intense monochrome, ambient light surrounds the viewer, changing in timed intervals. Periods of white or clear light allow visitors to see the white fabric walls of the enclosure. Retinal afterimages bleed into each new light interval, altering the perception of each new color. As the afterimage fades, your sense of the new color shifts. You recognize that color perception is utterly distorted, and this is the primary understanding that emerges. Being in Eliasson's little labyrinth is like exposure to an overwhelming sound, say, a fire alarm, which goes on at the same pitch, volume and tone to saturate the environment. It's soon replaced by another unwavering sound. In this place, I'd hoped to feel the beauty of color, but instead felt only its power. However, I would not undo the experience.

It's instructive to encounter other people in the environment: As color segues from cerise to chartreuse, companions' faces appear to darken in sinister fashion. A clap of thunder even wouldn't be unexpected, but instead another color barges in, unwelcomed. Voices seem to acquire a different timbre and words become like masks. A few visitors find it impossible to endure.

Eliasson provided a small, dark velvety space in which to escape the light. Some may find it a refuge; I got bored. For whatever reason, I couldn't find the contemplative frame of mind I sought. Maybe lingering would have helped, but Eliasson's decision to make visitors stand around encourages the sense that this is not a stable place to be but, rather, one to visit, to pass through. I was happy enough to leave, glad to step into ordinary artificial light and nighttime darkness.

Though beautifully constructed, "Your colour memory" seems too simple, almost gimmicky on some level. Could there not be more subtlety in the color sequences, perhaps more intentionality in the timing? Possibly a sound component—even white noise—would make it feel more rounded and less like a science experiment.

Perhaps my doubts reflect disappointment in my own ability to appreciate this particular intense chromatic experience. Nevertheless, "Your colour memory" seems to define one extreme of color perception and should certainly be seen. I suggest giving yourself enough time to make a couple of visits to the interior. There's no way to imagine it.

Olafur Eliasson: Your colour memory Through Jan. 9, Arcadia University Art Gallery, 450 S. Easton Rd., Glenside, 215-572-2900