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Keith Sonnier Light Installations (1969-70) |
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From September 7th until October 31st 2009, EL SOURDOG HEX e.V. will be showing Light Sculptures by Keith Sonnier (b. 1941; Mamou, Louisiana, USA). Keith Sonnier studied at the University of Southwestern Louisiana from 1959 to 1963, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts, then going on to do a Master of Fine Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick from 1965 to 1966. Sonnier's sculptures and neon-tube art installations won him international acclaim, and he helped pioneer new movement in sculpting. In the 1970s, he started to film his art performances. Years after, he won numerous public art and architecture commissions such as: Lightway (Lichtweg, 1989 to 1992) at the Franz Josef Strauss Airport in Munich, Germany; Red and Blue (De rouge à bleu, 1994) at the Joffre metro station in Rouen, France; and Miami Heliotrope (1996) for the heliport at the Miami International Airport, USA. Today, Keith Sonnier lives and works in New York City and Bridgehampton, New York.
"Neon and fluorescent lighting has been a constant in Sonnier's work for the last 30 years. Still, what sets his work apart is its
formalistic and thematic complexity, as well as his varied implementation of the medium."
"His most spectacular work is Lightway (1992), a kilometer-long installation connecting two terminals at the Munich Airport. Indeed,
Sonnier has been broadening the concept of sculpture ever since the late 1960s by breathing life into cheap materials (e.g., fiberglass, lead,
fat, latex, wire, neon, aluminum and glass) that had been virtually ignored in art."
"Those light and glass pieces remind me a lot of driving in Louisiana ... about the most ‘religious‘ experience I've ever had in
Louisiana: coming back from a dance late at night and driving over this flat land and, all of a sudden, seeing these waves of light going up and
down in this thick fog."
Cited works and further reading: |