NEW YORK—For anyone who has ever seen Olafur Eliasson’s work firsthand, his recent comments to ARTINFO will resonate profoundly with the experience: “People’s relation to their surroundings has always interested me. I think that aspect maybe lies at the root of all my works in one way or another.” Viewer engagement in some form, either mental or physical, is the trademark of these pieces, which frequently combine simple natural elements such as color, light, and mist in large installations that envelop the viewer.

Eliasson is something of a New York art world celebrity this summer, with a two-part mid-career retrospective “Take Your Time,” on view at MoMA and P.S.1 through June 30, as well as a Public Art Fund project, New York City Waterfalls, set to be unveiled June 26. And two words seem to be dominating recent discussion of this Danish-Icelandic, Berlin-based artist’s work — “immersive” and “environment” — which, overused as they may be, are spot -on in their description of the way his art tends to function.

The word “environment” also serves something of a dual purpose in discussions of Eliasson’s works, as many of them focus on re-creating various aspects of the natural world. New York City Waterfalls, the latest in a line of such investigations, consists of four man-made waterfalls located along the city’s East River: one at the Brooklyn end of the Brooklyn Bridge, one between Piers 4 and 5 near the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, one at Pier 35, just north of the Manhattan Bridge, and one on the north shore of Governors Island. The waterfalls, which range from 90 to 120 feet high, will operate seven days a week from 7 in the morning until 10 at night, be lit after sunset, and stay on view through October 13.

In light of this giant public art project, which reportedly cost some $15 million and has New Yorkers all abuzz with news of special boat-ride waterfalls tours, ARTINFO offers a look at some of Eliasson’s environmentally themed works, tracing through a decade of work his belief that “we need to make nature tangible and relevant to people in order to add clarity to the discussion of natural resources.”

Click on the photo gallery above left to see highlights from a decade of Eliasson's environmentally themed art.

Interview by Jacquelyn Lewis.