手工簇绒的色彩拼块作品，以其柔软的质感与丰富的色彩组合，在视觉与触觉上都带来了强烈的吸引力。这种技法源于传统地毯制作，却被当代艺术家赋予了新的表现语言。他们用簇绒枪将毛线扎入布面，再经过修剪与定型，形成大小不一、层次分明的色块。这些色块有的浓烈热烈，有的温柔清淡，在不规则的边界中自由生长，仿佛一幅能触摸的抽象画。每一块拼色不仅是形式的游戏，更蕴含着情绪的暗示：温暖、宁静、张扬或怀旧。手工制作赋予了每一件作品独一无二的个性，也传达出一种慢工细活的温度。在这个快速复制的时代，这类作品像是一种回归，一种用手感与色彩建立起的私人空间与审美叙述。

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.”