LUCE estratti LUCE 318_Longo, Rizzato Naressi_John Jaspers | Page 5

Martin Hesselmeier & Andreas Muxel – The weight of light, 2015
(I ed. International Light Art Award, 1° prize)
difficult to grasp and not so accessible at first
sight. As soon as people get closer to his work
though, they will find out how deep his art is.
The “International Light Art Award” is
another important initiative of the Centre
for International Light Art. Could you tell us
something about the next edition?
This is a worldwide competition, initiated
in 2015. During the first edition the participants
had to be proposed directly by museum
directors, curators, art critics and collectors:
each was asked to mention two significant
names in the contemporary scenery.
We had 30 competing Light Art artists in total.
However, many others complained so badly,
asking for an open competition, that we
decide to satisfy them.
The selection procedure has just closed,
and now we have almost 400 concepts from
over forty different countries. It’s amazing that
the award won such a recognition. Then the
amount of organizational work is gargantuan
this time, as we are attempting a sort of
preselection of the entries: if we gave the jury
400 concepts, they would run away! We check
them carefully out, whether they have abided
by all the conditions of participation or no, and
if the project is actually realizable. Sometimes
artists are merely dreamers, but the technical
side of Light Art has its importance as well.
Only 30-35 concepts will go to the jury and the
Dirk Vollenbroich – Erleuchtung | Enlightenment, 2015
(I ed. International Light Art Award, 3° prize)
48
LUCE 318 / CORRISPONDENZA DA BERLINO
exhibition of the winning installations will be
running from the 21st of April to September 2017.
I am very happy that the chairman of the jury
this year is Keith Sonnier, one of the
Light Art gurus. The winner will receive a cash
prize of 10.000 euros and additional 10.000
euros will support the production of each
installation project. The museum could never
have afforded such a prize, so I am very happy
that the Innogy Foundation, that deals
with energy, sustainability and environment,
sponsors the award.
We are also in touch with several light
industries, fortunately there are quite a few
in the surrounding of Unna. One of the current
supporters is BEGA. Unfortunately, I must say
that usually companies seem to be afraid
of opening their doors, having to worry about
their ideas “being stolen”, as they all compete
against each other. It is definitely a hard fight,
because the technological development
within the light industry goes really fast
at the moment.
Does Light Art go hand in hand with
new technological achievements?
Technology really becomes more and more
complex. Almost every concept, every
installation proposed to the International
Light Art Award, requires massive computer
programs. Nowadays we can achieved with light
many more effects than twenty years ago, and
artists are trying them out. The aesthetic quality
is not always at the first place.
You may dangerously think at a certain point:
“Is this art or kitsch?”. For instance LED lights
can change colors, but this can quickly result
kitsch. Many of the concepts in the 2017 edition
work only with light: you see no installation in
an exhibition room, just the light effect itself,
like James Turrel. Many people use projections,
but we do not consider projections Light Art; the
same for video mapping: it can be very arty,
but is not Light Art. With projections and video
mapping you only need a lamp to show
something, while a Light Art artist has to work
with light as a primeval material, like the
painter works with paint. After this first step, he
can add all kind of material or mixed
techniques – steal, wood, glass, mirrors,
anything. But light itself has to be the core
of the artwork. In conclusion, things have
become technically more complex, still artists
try to go up to the limit and see what they
can achieve: often they lose sight of the
artistic element.
Light Art is going to change in any case.
The incandescent lamp for example has
already been forbidden by the European
Commission; now the halogen one will
disappear for the same reason and many
others will exit the market soon. At the
moment fluorescent lamps, once commonly
used in art installations, disappear even faster,
replaced by LED lighting technology.
It will be very interesting then – and the
museum won one of the last chances
to make it – to open next year an exhibition
with ready-mades of light. Those fluorescent
lamps and similar industrial products
as industries readymades, together with
Dan Flavin’s Neons, as a tribute to this
old sources of light.