“标志性的大理石‘纹身’雕塑”是一种令人耳目一新的艺术表达，将传统雕塑与当代纹身文化巧妙融合。艺术家以经典的大理石人像为基础，在其洁白、光滑的“皮肤”上雕刻出仿佛真实刺青般的图案——可能是东方花纹、西方神话，或是现代符号。这种视觉冲突打破了人们对大理石雕塑庄严与纯净的刻板印象，为静态的艺术赋予了鲜活的叛逆气息。雕塑表面看似冰冷，图案却散发出浓烈的个性与故事感，使观众在观赏时不只是感叹工艺之美，更会思考身体、文化与自我表达之间的关系。这些“纹身”不仅是装饰，更是语言，雕塑因此变成了可以“阅读”的身体文本。在古典与当代之间，这类作品搭建起了一座桥梁，让传统艺术焕发出全新的生命力与对话空间。

Usually when a museum is flooded with water, something has gone seriously wrong. But at the Fondation Beyeler just outside the Swiss city of Basel, the flooding of the museum is all part of the show: a new site-specific installation called Life by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson.

The artist has removed one side of the Renzo Piano-designed building (with the architect’s blessing) and let the feature pond—usually separated from the climate-controlled interior by a large glass wall—into the museum. Visitors can navigate the waters, which are up to 80cm deep, using a series of walkways that run in and out of the building. At night, the interior is lit up with blue light.

Eliasson has also dyed the water a fluorescent green and filled it with pond plants, including water lilies and shellflowers selected by the landscape architect Günther Vogt. The water has been coloured using uranine, an organic dye that is commonly used to observe water currents, and which Eliasson has used previously for his Green River (1998) work where he dyed rivers in cities such as Stockholm, Tokyo and Los Angeles.

In an accompanying artist statement, Eliasson writes: “Together with the museum, I am giving up control over the artwork, so to speak, handing it over to human and non-human visitors, to plants, microorganisms, the weather, the climate—many of these elements that museums usually work very hard to keep out.”

The southern side of the building will be open to the elements for the duration of the show, which ends in July. Eliasson writes that “even if no human visitors are in the space, other beings—insects, bats, or birds, for instance—can fly through or take up temporary abode within it.” This possibility is very much part of the work, with the artist adding that when he first spoke to the museum’s director Sam Keller about ideas for the show, he thought to himself: “Why don’t we invite everyone to the show? Let’s invite the planet—plants and various species”.

The show is open 24 hours a day. “Visitors can access the installation at any time. After 9.30pm they do not need a ticket,” says a spokeswoman. She adds that, in terms of non-human visitors, so far there have been “insects, spiders, ducks, a goose and cats.”