Olafur Eliasson

This work arose from a 2020 commission for Olafur Eliasson (born Copenhagen, 1967) to produce an installation designed specifically for this passageway in the Hortensia Herrero Art Centre. Eliasson has created a tunnel in which visitors can view 1,035 pieces of glass, each of a different size and design and with all the colours of the rainbow inside, but when they look back, all they can see is a black tunnel. As Eliasson himself explains: ‘I did a tunnel for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art called One Way Tunnel, which was, in a way, the first seed of the ideas for this tunnel. This one is more ambitious and I think it’s much more developed in terms of how it accommodates or receives people. I wouldn’t say it’s more generous in that respect, but it does have more to offer. It’s denser, and this idea that when you pass through it, it seems to open up, means that perhaps it’s stretching out more. And then it plays with the idea that it’s very different depending on which way you go.’