from New York Times
The sun sets at the Tate Modern
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This artist created a waterfall that flowed upwards, dyed several rivers in Europe and America green with eco-friendly dyes and his latest project "The Weather Project" installed mirrors on the ceiling and erected a fake sun and mist in the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. Mobs of visitors had lain on the cold floor of the hall, gazing up to their pale reflections and basking in the "sun" and "mist".

A piece of artwork that invites contemplation and participation. The artist, Olafur Eliasson, said:

I would like to think that the spectator became the center of this piece, that the project twisted the Tate so the people who came to visit were what the art was about."

It brings to my mind the contemporary museum perspective of how museums should exist to serve the community. In this case, I'm interested in how the relationship between the museum and the arts community fulfill the larger objective of serving society. So, artists create works that communicate to people a fragment of reality and museums recognise and showcase those works by which the larger public would be served, whether it be aesthetically or intellectually. From the visitor numbers and visitor response, this is a successful work and that was a successful museum exhibition. The kind of response shown by the visitors at viewing the work is encouraging. So much so that the musuem had offered to extend the exhibition of his work. Anyway, the artist has declined due to interesting reasons.

There is no doubt that the communication between the artist community and the museum is very important. It would be for the ultimate good of the masses (and the museum as well in achieving its long term objectives) that when the museum collaborates with the artists on exhibitions, the ultimate presentation of the works be to the best possible accordance to both the artist's intention for the work and at the same time, fits into the museum's larger objectives. This is by no means easy. In fact, it has been a cause of contention between the two. And many times, the power balance seems to be tilt in the museum's favour and compromises on the artists' part may result. If the "power" of the artworks is diminished due to inadequate communication and/or unresolved strifes, how is the exhibition, and therefore the museum going to serve the larger public effectively then? Having said that, I relied on the artist's professionalism too, to facilitate a meaningful working relationship between the two parties.

I would really like to see positive and far reaching effects from the collaborative efforts of both museums and the art community happening in Singapore.