The next room is called ‘Perspectives and Truths’. The first thing we see as we move through the grey corridor to enter this white space is an artwork named Your negotiable vulnerability from two perspectives.
We see two very large, pale grey lenses, they're almost entirely transparent. They have a polarizing film stretched across them. This is a little bit like something that you would find in your polarized sunglasses. It cuts out about 50% of the white light that moves through the filter and orders the rays of light as they move through. In between these two large grey filters are two further suspended pieces of almost transparent plastic, this Perspex also polarizes light.
So, as we first see this work, we see a beautiful effect of colour slowly changing. The change is brought about by the two smaller pieces rotating on their horizontal axis. But if you look closely, you'll also see that the first very large, pale grey filter is slowly rotating, a little bit like the hand moving clockwise around the face of a clock. As this filter moves, the grey effect moves from something very pale and close to white, to something close to black. This happens when the two filters come into alignment and you can see the startling effect of the colours of the two smaller pieces of Perspex shifting and changing as they intersect with each other.
Step through the space. Everything changes again, and we can see that the filter itself is very pale. The colours of the Perspex when not seen through the filter are almost entirely transparent.
As we move through the space and our perspective changes, the colours that we see change, and how we make sense of what we see changes as well. This same principle guides the other work that you'll see to your left, which is titled Your Truths. It uses the same effects but in a different way. Instead of two circular, pale grey filters, you'll see a long curtain behind this pale grey, this is flat. In between is a kind of rumbled transparent curtain, a little bit like an enormous plastic shower curtain. This element of the artwork moves and shifts with a fan. And as we look through each circular filter, we see that it catches the light and reflects this beautiful rainbow optical effect in different ways.
There are five filters along the line, and when we look through each of them, what we see is different. There's the gradation of colour, from a paler effect through to something that, to me, I describe as a little bit like a rainbow in a kind of glass of beer, with this beautiful golden brown-amber hue. As we get to the end in the fifth filter, there's a radiance, but you can't really see something or someone if they stand on the other side. Have a look if you have a friend with you, or maybe you could, ask someone that you meet in the gallery if they could walk along behind?
When you do walk behind, you'll see that the rainbow is not visible. It's all about the angle of light and how these filters effect what we see. Each of the five filters in front is exactly the same material. It's just how they're rotated that impacts the colour that we see. And this is something that Olafur has explored over many years in his career. In these rooms we are seeing some of the newest works he's made, especially for us in Brisbane. But the next room allows us to experience one of the very earliest works he made, when he was still a young artist at art school, its name is Beauty.
