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Arhus, Denmark
If there is a dark that we shouldn't doubt, and if there is a light, don't let it go out
Arhus, sometimes spelled Aarhus but always pronounced oar-hoos, is in Jutland in Denmark. From here you can see that there are a few interesting looking buildings and probably an old church or something. But that doesn't seem like that great of a reason to go to somewhere that's otherwise so far out of the way. So one question remains. Why Metz, um.. uh... I mean, why Arhus?
ARoS is why I went to Arhus.
The whale with the helicopter propeller that landed out front gives you some idea about what to expect when you walk into the doors of ARoS, a wonderful art museum and by far the best reason to think about taking that two hour train ride all the way out to Arhus. The museum has a few real draws, including something that they call “The 9 Spaces,” a series of really interesting changing installations hidden in dark rooms in the basement. And while I’m all about really interesting changing installations hidden in dark rooms in Danish basements, there is an even better reason to go to ARoS.
ARoS is home to two installations by Olafur Eliasson, one of my favorite living artists. The first installation is called “Your Atmospheric Colour Atlas” and that one did not allow photography, probably because it would be useless anyway. The installation was inside a room of undeterminable size and featured a thick, manmade fog illuminated by colored lights. Once inside it felt like you were inside color and that color was fairly unsafe. It was impossible to see more than a foot in front of you at any time, and with no obstructions, the view of all that color was wonderfully endless, exhilaratingly dangerous and painfully claustrophobic all at the same time.
Eliasson’s other big installation at ARoS is on the roof and is far less dangerous, at least in a physical sense.
This is a panorama of “Your Rainbow Panorama” by Olafur Eliasson, the reason that I went to ARoS and the reason that I went to Arhus.
The ARoS museum building is built into a hillside in Arhus and its main entrance is right in the middle, with exhibit floors both above and below. In the basement are those 9 dark rooms and on its top floor there is a staircase that leads to the roof and to another staircase that leads right here. This is the only section of the installation with clear class, the rest consists of curved glass segments that follow the color wheel around the rooftop, with an infinite loop of constantly changing views and colors.
Orange, red, purple, blue, green, yellow, repeat.
Walking through “Your Rainbow Panorama” is hard to describe, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to try. The entire time that you go through, you can always see the next color ahead around the curve and it draws you deeper and deeper through the artwork. Once inside, the color is a bit overwhelming and the total color saturation kind of takes over, making the color that you’re standing inside feel a little dead, an odd but not entirely unexpected effect of so much colored glass. The space felt a little too warm (even on that chilly day in Jutland) and during moments of direct sunlight, when the clouds part for even a brief minute or two, the space lights up with a wonderfully sharp shadows and somehow even more color in a space that some might think was almost too colorful to begin with.
Like I just said, orange, red, purple, blue, green, yellow, repeat.
