Light Art (1992)
(Also Neon Art, Plasma Sculpture.) Excerpt fr. John A. Walker’s Glossary of Art, Architecture & Design since 1945, 3rd. ed.
artdesigncafé | café library | Published 17 August 2011
This text is an excerpt from Walker’s 1992 glossary previously published by Library Association Publishing, London.
Light Art
The advent of powerful sources of artificial light in the modern era made it possible for artists to employ light directly to make works of art. The American artist Willoughby Sharp has argued that Light Art is the only totally new artform of the modern age. The term itself signifies a broad concept encompassing such diverse phenomena as colour organs, fireworks, projected light, lasers and sculptures made from neon tubes. Light Art has often been treated as a subcategory of kinetic art, but some writers have claimed that such a large movement deserved a separate status. A more pertinent reason for such a distinction was the fact that not all artists who used light were concerned with movement or changes of illumination in time; for example, Dan Flavin’s austere neon installations were considered part of minimalism, while Chryssa’s and Bruce Nauman’s neon tube lettering related to pop art rather than to kinetics. Among the best-known kineticists exploiting light in the years since 1945 were: Lucio Fontana, Julio Le Parc, Frank Malina, Bruno Munari, Nicolas Schöffer, plus artists associated with the German group Zero and the French organization GRAV.
Neon light was invented by the Frenchman Georges Claude. By 1912 it was being used for shop advertising in France, in the 1920s and ’30s neon signs became a vital part of American street advertising and this is still one of neon’s main applications; today, however, it is also used in films, on TV programmes and as interior decor. “Neon art” is obviously a subdivision of Light Art. Unless readymade tubes are employed, neon art is slow to produce because circuitry has to be designed and tubes shaped by specialist glass-benders. During the 1960s artists such as Dan Flavin, Chryssa, Martial Raysse and James Rosenquist made neon fashionable for a while but then it suffered a period of neglect which lasted until the 1980s. In Los Angeles a Museum of Neon Art (MoNA) was founded as a non-profit making institution in 1981. Lili Lakich, its director and co-founder, has been a neon artist for over 20 years. She is the creator of “Mona”, an animated, fluorescent-coloured, punning portrait after Leonardo. Besides contemporary neon art, the Museum mounts exhibitions of electric and kinetic art. It also has a permanent collection of vintage neon signs, clocks and automata. Tuition is also available for those wishing to make neon art.
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