Light Show
?Texts by Philip Ball, Cliff Lauson, Ralph Rugoff, and Anne Wagner
Light Show explores the experiential and sculptural nature of light, tracing a historical trajectory of artwork that uses light to create specific conditions of viewership. The book, which accompanies an exhibition originating at the Hayward Gallery, London, showcases more than twenty dramatic installations and sculptures from the 1960s to the present, pictured in 150 illustrations, most in color. These include works by artists associated with historical movements such as the “Light and Space” movement of the 1970s; rarely seen installations by such precursors as Dan Flavin and Carlos Cruz-Diez; and work by contemporary artists who have found new ways to use light as a sculptural medium.
All of the artworks explore different aspects related to light, including color, duration, movement, sunlight, and moonlight. Some, including Dan Flavin’s work made from fluorescent tubes, use light to dematerialize space while others, such as Anthony McCall’s “solid light” projections, give light an almost tangible quality. Many light works create immersive experiences, including Olafur Eliasson’s atmospheric environments; still others use light as a medium for political response, including Jenny Holzer’s LED signs that broadcast censored documents from the “war on terror.”
Light Show features essays by the curator and editor Cliff Lauson, the art historian Anne Wagner, and the science writer Philip Ball, who traces the rich history of light as a medium, from phenomenon to artwork.
Publisher: The MIT Press
Artists: Dan Flavin, Doug Wheeler, James Turrell, Peter Fischli/David Weiss, Jenny Holzer
Contributors: Philip Ball, Cliff Lauson, Ralph Rugoff, Anne Wagner
Publication Date: 2013
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 9 3/4 x 11 in (24.8 x 27.9 cm)
Pages: 192
Reproductions: 100 color, 50 b&w
ISBN: 9780262019149
Retail: $42.95 | £29.95
Status: Available
Dan Flavin
From 1963, when he conceived the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi), a single gold, fluorescent lamp that is installed on a diagonal on the wall—a work which marks the artist’s first use of fluorescent light alone, until his death in 1996, Dan Flavin (1933-1996) produced a singularly consistent and prodigious body of work that utilized commercially-available fluorescent lamps to create installations, or “situations” as he preferred to call them, of light and color. Through the construction of light, Flavin was able to literally establish and redefine space.
Doug Wheeler
Doug Wheeler’s prolific and groundbreaking body of work encompasses drawing, painting, and installations that are characterized by a singular experimentation with the perception and experience of light, space, and sound. Raised in the high desert of Arizona, Wheeler began his career as a painter in the early 1960s while studying at the Chouinard Art Institute (now the California Institute of the Arts) in Los Angeles.