Artist Olafur Eliasson on his SFMOMA show and work with brands

SAN FRANCISCO—For the past 15 years, the Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson has made art that engages perceptual, ecological, and temporal themes by harnessing such abundant and ephemeral elements as water, light, and mist in installations that typically unfold in public spaces. His best-known work, 2003's The Weather Project, a dramatic optical illusion suggesting the atmosphere of sun at twilight, was created with a few simple materials, including a bank of lights and a mirrored ceiling. The work was installed at London’s Tate Modern, where it reportedly attracted two million visitors, many of them repeat customers, who sprawled out on the public floor and pondered their reflections on the ceiling as they basked in the glow. With its fantastic success, The Weather Project nudged the artist’s work to a new level of public awareness, success, and scrutiny.