Luminaries of Light & Space
“…the most remarkable quality about the Los Angeles experience is its specific dynamic of light which paradoxically offers a cornucopia of color through an iridescent haze both natural and artificial.”
Presented by dublab and LAWA Art Program
Curated by Laura Whitcomb
Directed by Eli Welbourne
Luminaries of Light & Space is a historic installation inaugurating LAX’s new international Westgates tunnel for the City of Los Angeles. It presents Southern California’s most notable homegrown art movement highlighting many of its key pioneers. This installation Luminaries of Light & Space offers an important message welcoming all international arrivals to the 6th busiest airport in the world, LAX International Airport.
The installation holistically conveys the existential trajectory one may experience in Los Angeles through the phenomenology of both light and color which these artists induce through minimal forms in a language that speaks to all cultures. International travelers entering or exiting Los Angeles will pass through a tunnel hosting this 60 foot vitrine representing a futuristic altar uniting all faith and philosophies through the latent psyche’s understanding of geometric form. Together the works collectively assemble each artist’s approach to reflect and distort light and engage space.
The installation was installed November 15, 2022 and will run through November 15, 2025. The participating artists include the very pioneer of the movement Robert Irwin and the pivotal pioneers Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Helen Pashgian, Fred Eversley, De Wain Valentine, John McCracken, Hap Tivey, Laddie John Dill and the post millennial light and space artist Gisela Colón.
Luminaries of Light & Space for the new international tunnel at LAX will be the official first cultural installment of many to enhance travelers experience at LAX and prepare Los Angeles for the US Olympics in 2028. One of the artists Peter Alexander notably participated in a similar civic project to prepare LA for the Olympics in 1984.
The center of this installation features Torch by Hap Tivey as the stabilizing anchor signifying the ritual of inaugurating through the power of the flame inviting global dialogue. Although the works presented in the case’s main body are traditionally encouraged to be experienced
through rotational viewing, this composite highlights each artists’ most prescient dynamic and qualitative experiential qualities as a unit.
The LAX installation will be in conjunction with dublab’s Orchestrina. An auditory component produced by dublab that will be included featuring 30 composers pushing the sonic envelope forward, meanwhile living and working in Los Angeles. This sound installation brings into focus the ever-extending language of experimental and minimal composers rooted within the minimal art movement and its shared ethos, Light & Space.
The Role of the Light & Space Movement in History
For most of these artists the most remarkable quality about the Los Angeles experience is its specific dynamic of light which paradoxically offers a cornucopia of color through an iridescent haze both natural and artificial. The basin’s palm trees which are given a halo effect as the sun sets washes the city with a glow like none other. In the vast horizons and the broad architectural landscape the city affords, infinite wondrous encounters with the phenomenon of light were sought to be distilled into the reverie-inducing task of art.
As a collective the artists of the Light and Space movement interpenetrate the sculpture tradition by both eradicating its confines and parameters through the phenomenon of light. The works explore both transparency and the boundless enigma of light and the unlimited possibilities it incurs through the spectrum of color and yielding forms. This particular installation highlights the properties of form as each work delivers a window into new modalities of perception.
One might argue that Los Angeles is equally known for its postwar movements of assemblage and expressive ceramics, but it is the Light and Space movement that has carved an enduring aesthetic that has seeped into the cultural fabric of the city. The notable Los Angeles art critic Christopher Knight states of these artists that a “quiet lyricism” and a “transcendent approach towards the perfection of the object” reveal “an attitude towards making art that is charged with an idealism concerning the object.” It is this philosophy and approach that encapsulates the atmosphere and essence of the city and its natural wonder into a “pure form.” The works which will be displayed encapsulate the spectacle of light through the modern canon of the innovations of materials that emerged in the American post war manufacturing zeitgeist contributing to the city’s zenith growth.
The Artists
These artists, following the lead of Robert Irwin, who sought to eradicate the traditional limitations of the frame, engaged the aura of light to signify boundaries. This installation commences with a work of Robert Irwin who is considered the forefather of the Light and Space
movement. Irwin, whose trajectory of influence over Los Angeles can not be overstated, presents a selection of the artist’s process of ‘Conditional Art.’ The artist has selected a work that he feels will drive the installation forward. Irwin’s practice responds to its environment, and its objective enhances space perception.
One might argue that Los Angeles is equally known for its postwar movements of assemblage and expressive ceramics, but it is the Light and Space movement that has carved an enduring aesthetic that has seeped into the cultural fabric of the city. These minimal forms which
celebrate the singular light endemic to Southern California have also particularly informed the architecture of the City of Los Angeles. The most notable Los Angeles art critic Christopher Knight states of these artists that a “quiet lyricism” and a “transcendent approach towards the perfection of the object” reveal “an attitude towards making art that is charged with an idealism concerning the object.” It is this philosophy and approach that encapsulates the atmosphere and essence of the city and its natural wonder into a “pure form.” The works which will be displayed encapsulate the spectacle of light that could be experienced through the modern canon of the
innovations of materials most notable for the post war manufacturing zeitgeist that largely contributed to the city’s zenith growth.
Distilling Nature into the Manufacturing Age
Irwin, Bell, Pashgian, Dill and Alexander grew up experiencing the coastline of the West as a central part of their lives influenced by the surf and automotive culture that symbolized enduring freedom. The materials that were used in these industries became elements to simulate the natural wonders of light on the coast. They would explore the materiality and the new technologies of the aerospace and engineering sector.
Outgrowths of Industry
These minimal forms executed in the modern innovation of Southern California manufacturing also signify the Space Race and the yearning of flight. The exploration of how light commands permutations upon the spectrum of color is married with the materials that enabled space flight and fueled the technical innovations the West Coast became known for. Their art made through the technical innovations of their time presenting a window into new modalities of perception through high tech aerospace materials. Reacting to the machine hegemony in an era of precision, these artists sought handiwork, ingenuity and physical labor to achieve what the machine age threatened to polarize- the human crafted object. The new “Jet Era” spawned by an explosion in new synthetic material sciences saw LAX as a product of this moment. In the case of Valentine the artist innovated new compounds that radically influenced casting processes. These artists were given engineering and casting challenges that required scientific investigation and rigorous research into industrial processes.
Science and The Space Age
Many of these artists were participants in the sciences which engineered the Space Age. In the years that Nasa sent astronauts to the moon LACMA curator Maurice Tuchman’s Art and Technology radically paired artists to collaborate with physicists and scientists.
Pashgian and Alexander did residencies at Cal Tech while Irwin teamed up with James Turrell to work with NASA. Irwin worked with Nasa to explore habitability in space as well as collaborating while Alexander and Pashgian did residencies at Cal Tech in a program to bring art and science together.
Hap Tivey was introduced to Ed Wortz through James Turrell, the Rand scientist who both Irwin and Turrell worked with during their Art and Technology research. Tivey and Turrell collaborated on several light installations creating Ganzfeld chambers, which effectively presented field of homogeneous infinite light.
Eversley, an engineer in the aerospace industry constructed testing facilities for NASA where he sought to distill energy in parabolic forms. Likewise, Laddie John Dill whose stepfather James Melvin Dill worked in aerospace also took the industrial approach to explore ancient hermetic value systems. He works in the process of distillation encompassing gases into segmented colors erstwhile transmuting the industrial approach in what may be argued a modern alchemical tradition.
The subject of space itself is also a constant exploration in these artists’ work. The cosmic phenomena of the Nebula Borealis and galaxy clusters are infused into the ancient totemic forms of Colón’s sculpture. Inclusion of star dust reflects this, giving her surface a reflection that recalls the aurora borealis and dense galaxies as one makes sight adjustments in their viewing.The Space Age may also be experienced in John McCracken who was notably suspected of posthumously creating the Utah monoliths that recalled Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space
Odyssey.
Sustainability
Although artists of the Light & Space movement explored the innovations of the aerospace industry in the 20th century, the installation encourages a new generation of artists to use sustainable materials and renewable energy.
Colón works are casted with pure carbon fiber, an elemental fiber of the earth and uses the cleanest urethane which is UV resistant. Dill’s work with argon and the artist’s preference to work with less toxic materials reflect the demands of our time to sustain the planet. This installation signals the landscape for a new era which will work towards sustainability and diminished carbon emissions. The installation will present the pioneers of a powerful movement that repurposed the technological zeitgeist of their time. It embodies a message to encourage future artists to explore alternative energy and recyclable materials on projects moving forward.
Portals Into the Unknown
Although the Light and Space movement has been absorbed into the commercial canon this installation approaches it from a closer ontology permitting the artists’ cohesive language and shared ideologies to convey portals into the persisting enigma of the unknown. The installation presents a platform of experiential possibilities that marry ancient rites to encounter the ineffable through the phenomenology of light and shadow.
The message begets consolidation and unity at a time of so much dissonance and discord through highlighting totemic, platonic and atavistic forms as an inclusive language of geometry. Collectively it presents a salvific message of hope and reconciliation uniting us through the wonder of our perceptual faculties and the ability to see the world anew.
What to Expect
As a collective, the artists of this installation encompass vastly different approaches and theoretical constructs. The shapes one will experience in this composite altar reference the lost language of form activating our collective psyche. Pashgian’s sphere recalls the ancient modalities to prophesize the future through gazing as her sphere’s offer unexpected perceptual vistas.
Laddie John Dill’s Light Sentences recall ancient totems distilling representational forces into the primal elements of light and color. McCracken and Bell present cubes offering mathematical idealizations of higher consciousness in the tradition of Henri Bergson while Alexander presents a pyramid offering meditations on the role of its ubiquitous form. Colon and Eversley’s concave parabolic sculpture hearken to ancient ideals of a universal proportion at the heart of creation. Valentine’s arch representing a gateway to the divine and a central motif of classical architecture.
The works also have kinetic effects as passengers walk by allowing an interactive experience of perception. The forms immediately attract the eye and draw visitors to engage and pontificate meaning in front of the vitrine where benches are offered for those to take a moment to rest and ponder. This optical spectacle recalibrates the processes of perception seeking to ease the demands of travel, encouraging moments for rest and reflection and bringing wonder to weary and overwhelmed children.The spectrum of color energizes and invigorates the viewer and the spectacle of light creates a calm and serene atmosphere welcoming the traveler to what is internationally known as the City of Angels. Its Utopian message hopes to permeate the unconscious of future generations who have experienced an age of unease and dread offering an aesthetic allegory to the sublime while experiencing the human hand in the impending age of AI.
Civic Significance
The LAX international tunnel installation has a unique opportunity to present on an international stage and conduit to the world that is LAX international airport. The first installation of this series organized by dublab and the LAX Art Program seek to establish a future of museum quality installations that are distinct and separate from the airport’s art programming. These minimal forms which celebrate the endemic experience of Southern California have also particularly informed the architecture of the City of Los Angeles. This project extends the existent aesthetic atmosphere of LAX in accordance with the architectural design of the airport and the phenomenology of its pylon entrance, by Paul Tzanetopoulos which engages a shifting spectrum of light. This installation and the literature associated seeks to extend and examine the influential roots of the existing beacon pylons exploring how this shifting monolithic light entrance is the outcome of an art movement that explored such phenomenology.
Featured Works
Robert Irwin
Light + Shadow + Reflection + Color
#3 x 6′ D Four Fold
2016
Courtesy of Pace Gallery & Robert Irwin Studio
Fred Eversley
Untitled (parabolic lens),
Cast Polyester
1993
Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery
Peter Alexander
Turquoise Wedge
Cast Polyester Resin
2014
Courtesy of Private Collection
De Wain Valentine
Portal Blue
Cast polyester resin
1979
Courtesy of De Wain Valentine Estate
Helen Pashgian
Untitled
Cast Epoxy with Resin
2018
Courtesy of Lehmann Maupinn & Helen Pashgian Studio
John McCracken
12-III
Polyester Resin, Fiberglass, and Plywood
1971
Courtesy of David Zwirner Gallery
Hap Tivey
Modification on Flame
Aluminum, LED, Ballast, 25 volts DC
2021
Courtesy of the Artist
Fred Eversley
Untitled (parabolic lens)
Cast Polyester
(1974) 2019
Courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery
Peter Alexander
Pyramid
Cast Polyester Resin
1969
Courtesy of Private Collection
Larry Bell
Untitled Maquette Mink/Lagoon
Laminated Glass
2019
Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth
De Wain Valentine
Disc Green Amber
Cast Polyester Resin
1967
Courtesy of Private Collection
Gisela Colón
Parabolic Monolith (Borealis)
Aurora Particles, stardust, cosmic radiation, intergalactic matter, ionic waves, organic carbamate, gravity and time.
2021
Courtesy of Gavlak Gallery
Laddie John Dill
Light Sentence
Argon, mercury gas, glass tubing, hand coated glass, hand welded electrodes, transformer wire.1971
Courtesy of the Artist
