Olafur Eliasson’s “Waterfall” part of his current exhibition at the Palace of Versailles (photo by Anders Sune Berg c/o the artist) paired with Self-Portrait’s floral lace-paneled dress.

…. of calamities, most recently in Nice. Today, Olafur Eliasson’s “Waterfall” installation at the Palace of Versailles in France feels like a solemn sentinel to the outpouring of sorrow felt around the world for Nice, Baghdad, Orlando, Dallas (the list goes on). Set on the central axis of Versailles—the Grand Canal—the installation is part historic fulfillment—Louis XIV’s landscape architect Andre Le Notre never realized his vision for a grand fountain—and part tribute to engineering. The water seems to flow from no where, a phantom font, a misty mirage that cleverly obscures its own making: The slender scaffolding built according to the specs of the rest of the court, its structure exposed—as we all are in times of suffering. Perhaps solace can be found in such moments where humans seem capable of more than they are, capable of sublime intervention, of beautiful collusion with nature.