LIGHT AND MATERIAL, LIGHT AS MATERIAL

September 30, 2022

For decades now, there have been artists who in various forms use light as a matter to experiment with, evoking inspiration and challenging human perception. “Light and material and light as material are the main axis around which every gesture in lighting design is created“; this is a motto we often repeat to ourselves at Metis Lighting.

Upon our return to activity during this new Fall season, there are several lighting exhibitions that are a great opportunity to reconnect with art, reflect and get inspired.

Bruce Nauman brings his art at Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, in Milan (Sept. 15 to Feb. 26, 2023). His neon-lit spaces guide the guests to a physical and emotional journey, through experimenting on the relation of the body in space; of how body can move and what limitations it faces.

Olafur Eliasson is landing at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, where the exhibition “Olafur Eliasson nel tuo tempo” (Sept. 22-Jan. 22, 2023), through the combination of specific geometries with equally specific lights, accompanies visitors on a path that invites them to think about how to be together, how to dialogue with architectures, how to be political by taking a clear stand for the environment.

Another always relevant light art journey is visiting Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa, a church in the southern suburbs of Milan, illuminated by Dan Flavin back in 1997. Flavin created a dialogue with the architecture by Giovanni Muzio thanks to colored LEDs placed in specific points. The result of a carefully designed simplicity fills the guest with a sensation of being on a path starting from outside of the church versus the altar, from a place of everyday life to sacred, recalling the progression of natural light from night to day.

Art ignites emotions, escaping from everyday activity to a place of dreams enriching human experience. Just as lighting design transforms common places into an opportunity to experiment on new visual boundaries. What a great chance to combine light with art and momentarily escape again from the ordinary city life!!

Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio_Olafur Eliasson Exhibition in Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze.