Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson.

Take Your Time: Olafur Eliasson.

Thames & Hudson/276 pp./$50.00 (hb)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

It is getting harder and harder to feel genuine exhilaration from contemporary art. With the art press's coverage of the scene focused almost solely on the bales of cash changing hands at auctions and art fairs, it is difficult to envision a visit to a major contemporary gallery inspiring too much more than jaded cynicism. These are strange times for philosophers who look to art for sustenance.

But all is not lost--there are still a handful of big names whose work electrifies, challenging our perceptions of not only the gallery but of the world itself. Near--if not at--the top of this list is Iceland's Olafur Eliasson, an artist whose work relies heavily on the presence and participation of the viewer, and whose often-massive phenomenological installations cannot be so easily carted out the back door of Sotheby's and whisked up to a penthouse via freight elevator. As they say, "You had to be there."

This volume--the accompanying catalog to Eliasson's first major exhibition in the United States cannot re-create having been in one of the artist's enveloping spaces, but it does give you something more than memories to take home. It is stocked with images of Eliasson's work from 1991 to the present and a must for any devotee of those artists whose work values "experience" over "object." Speaking of which, the book establishes Eliasson's canonical standing with the inclusion of a conversation between Eliasson and Robert Irwin. The meandering chat covers many bases, but it is Irwin's statement that museums currently have "no methodology to deal with the phenomenal in art" that gave this reader pause. Great minds must bring themselves to this task, lest art become known less for the wonder of experience and more for the dullness of having made a purchase.

LUKE STROSNIDER is a recent graduate of the Visual Studies Workshop. To see more of his words, images, and projects visit www.lensless.net.