For the past two month I’ve been talking more about the weather than I do the remains of the year. Constantly hoping for sunshine and dry roads so I can drive my motorbike. Today I drove it to the shop to get new tyres (enjoying a bit of rain doing it) and came to think of an exhibition by Olafur Eliasson at Tate Modern in London called “the weather project (The Unilever Series)” (note how a corporation is part of the name of the exhibition – art and business can work together). The main attraction was a mirror ceiling and an artificial sun. First of all, I could really use one of those right now! Secondly, think about how much attention it got – three years down the road I can still remember the event and the fact that it was sponsored by Unilever. The exhibition and the company supporting it almost took ownership of something as abstract as the weather. If you rode a London taxicab that summer you might have seen the copy “73% of London cab drivers discuss the weather with their passengers. Have you talked about talking about the weather today?”.
Even now it’s giving the corporate sponsor another hit on their corporate website!
Picture courtesy of www.olafureliasson.net
