light stuff

Diane Landry, Mandala, 2002
at SECCA re-opening exhibition
Look Again earlier this month
(image posted by SECCA on Flickr)

Saw this hugely powerful light work by Diane Landry at SECCA in Winston Salem recently (great show all round btw). The laundry basket (with clear plastic water bottles strapped round the top) and moving light source create a shadow that expands and contracts, dominating the space magnificently, like a sort of moving Rose window... It was AWESOME.


Peter Kogler, Untitled, 2010,
Multiprojection, sound, loop
at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
(news on E-Flux)

Press release says it is a 360 degree multiprojection from 12 projectors, creating a "space of illusion that completely envelops the observer". The sound vibrations by sonic artist Franz Pomassl from home made devices and technological instruments helps dissolve the space, as "the ground disappears from under our feet." It looks seamless, love to be there!


Jim Campbell, Scattered Light (2010),
Madison Square Park, NY
(art news daily)

Almost 2000 LED lights in a 3D matrix, going on and off to animate shapes of figures walking across the space. The images (which obviously are conceived in 2D it seems) break up as you move away from the initial viewing point and "blurring the boundaries between image and object". Like to see this in the flesh. I loved the more luscious quality of his tiny Ambiguous Icon #1 (running falling) from 2000 - LEDs embedded in 12 x 15 inch plexiglass.

Well, ending outside the remit of art but in the spirit of this website and the right direction for the planet... This is an amazing book so far. Ray demonstrates that big business (the kind with US$700 million dollar worldwide sales each year) CAN completely embrace green technology, and that Industrialists can be activists with enormous power and influence. He's a relentless salesman which can get a little grating but his actions are worth it, and the idea that green equals profits might just get other industries off their butts...

I have the stirrings of ideas for art installations in this direction but they'll have to incubate for a while.

Eliasson again...

Ok, its true, I really like Eliasson's work. His (visually) simple installations, at least. ArtDaily shows the new work in Vienna (lower image) and I found the above image by googling it.

Interestingly, Yellow Fog was first shown in NY in 1998, I think in a group show. I might have to search for a picture of that... Shows that sometimes developments take a while to reach their full potential, something that may get forgotten in the feverish demand for "new work".

Article mentions creating a new perception of urban space. I like it, a lot. Love the place you live! We are not robots and respond to our environment. The press release also talks about the effect of the inside reaching towards the outside, and connecting the two spaces. Apparently the electricity company (Verbund) has an art collection inside the building. Hmm, electricity, mysterious fog and Vienna kind of...spark... some possibly misguided Mary Shelley Frankenstein associations. Not a bad thing.

Interesting thought about the effect of presentation and professional photography on the perception of an artist's work. I found an amateur clip on YouTube which is good to see but maybe made me think of this. It won't let me post the link but it is easily found. (I'll also post an example of another artist's work illustrating the contrast, next time). Eliasson can now afford the best photographers, the costliest help, advice and materials, which adds an exponential curve to success, when it comes.

Yellowfog, on the facade of an Austrian electricity company HQ, Vienna. (They paid 75,000 euro - good move! Cheap at the price for great publicity and warm fuzzies for them.)
(above) photo by Rupert Steiner
(below) photo by EFE/ Hans Klaus Techt.