After several years of cooperation, we are now entering the sixth and last phase of Project: Collection with the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson (b. 1967).

“Project: Collection” is a process-oriented model for art-museological work with which the Kunsthaus Zug has made a name for itself internationally over the course of the past ten years (Tadashi Kawamata, Richard Tuttle, Pavel Pepperstein). It allows unusual artistic undertakings in an age of increasing acceleration. In this context, the concern is with productive cooperation between artist and institution above and beyond established structures, and with the heightened involvement of the public.

Eliasson, for his part, concentrated on reacting to the architectural-social circumstances, cultural traditions and personnel-related constellations and possibilities of Zug. The act of collecting is not conceived of here as the mere acquisition and classification of artworks, but as an artistic process in which the viewer, the work and the museum convey themselves anew with regard to the constitution of reality.

In 2005/2006, for example, Eliasson conducted the nearby Burgbach brook through the Kunsthaus by means of a wooden trough three hundred metres in length; in 2007 he went on to cover the floors of the entire building with Icelandic lava. Now, with his final show, he has designed a complex “perception course” through the Kunsthaus which is the culmination of lengthy and in-depth planning. How do I perceive space as I move through it? Do I perceive it physically as well as mentally? How do I react to shifts between dark and light? What do I remember, what do I expect?

The visitor makes his way through the transmuted building in tunnels, encountering new projection works, light installations, a fog room, a colour wheel and a large moss wall as he goes. Two video works premiere the artist’s “body-space drawings”.

Whereas his previous exhibitions in Zug revolved around the elements of water and earth, Eliasson is now concerned primarily with the medium of light. In cooperation with the Kunsthaus staff and a local surveyor, long-term photographic studies of Zug Canton were carried out on the basis of two-year preparations. The same section of landscape was photographed from the vantage point of the “Milchsuppenstein” twice at the equinox as well as on the longest and shortest days of the year at intervals of ten minutes for twenty-four hours in each case. The result is on view on the lower level of the south wing. Each of the four photo series corresponds to one day. On the lower level of the north wing there is an analemma photograph on display, which summarizes the annual cycle of the sun from the point of view of the Kunsthaus Zug.

These works are all elements of the exhibition entitled “The moving museum” and devoted to the question as to what the art museum is today. The concern here is with the experience of and reflection on perception, the body, space, movement and time. Eliasson’s installation transforms the Kunsthaus Zug into what is essentially a model on a scale of 1:1. Yet this is not a mere project proposal; on the contrary, the artist conceives of the museum as a model for the constitution of reality. The theme of the tunnel system – movement – offers a new way of experiencing the visual arts.

The temporalized museum as a journey through constantly changing and mutually dependent contexts: at the end of the parcours the visitor reaches a video work with moving hands. The body represents The moving museum. The conclusion of the cooperation with Eliasson can at the same time be a new beginning, especially in view of the Kunsthaus’s plans for a new building near the Schützenmatt sports area on the lake, a project which will involve various artists, including Olafur Eliasson. The undertaking will mark the transition from Project: Collection to Project: Museum.