Tag: lights

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer at Pace Gallery

In the middle of Chelsea’s bustling Pace Gallery, it comes as a surprise to hear your own heartbeat filling the cavernous room housing Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s interactive installation ‘Pulse Topology.’  Placing your hand under one of three small monitor suspended from the ceiling not only broadcasts the sound of your heartbeat but translates it into flashing lights in one of thousands of lightbulbs suspended in an undulating pattern from the ceiling.  Though essential to life, we often take our beating hearts for granted; making them the focus of an artwork not only flips interior functions to the exterior, it speaks to something visitors have in common.  (On view in Chelsea through Oct 22nd).

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Pulse Topology, 2021, 3,000 LED filament lightbulbs, DMX controllers, custom-made photoplethysmography sensors, computers, covers any area between 1,000 and 5,000 square feet.

Keltie Ferris at Mitchell-Innes and Nash

Brooklyn-based painter Keltie Ferris is known for abstract paintings that recall the city grid, so you’d think she’d relish LA’s road systems on her recent residency there. Instead, she turns her eye skyward in pieces like ‘oRiOn,’ a canvas that hints at a celestial hunter, outlined in vivid color and decorated in a shower of shooting stars. (At Chelsea’s Mitchell-Innes and Nash through Oct 17th).

Keltie Ferris, oRiOn, acrylic and oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches, 2015.

Josh Smith in ‘Marlborough Lights’ at Marlborough Gallery, LES

Given that Marlborough Gallery’s first show in its Lower East Side space was themed on pizza, an exhibition titled ‘Marlborough Lights’ had to happen sooner or later. Here, Josh Smith’s jack o’ lantern basketball lights the way back to Sadie Laska’s magically glowing, alien-like creature and Oscar Tuazon’s blocky, street-light-like lamp. (Through Aug 1st).

Josh Smith, Illuminated Jackal Lantern Basketball, ceramic, wooden stool, light bulb, socket and wire, ceramic: 8 ½ x 8 ½ inches, 2015.

Jeff Zimmerman at the Museum of Art & Design

Jeff Zimmerman, Unique Serpentine Wall-Hung Light Sculptures, hand-blown and hand-shaped glass, 2009.
Jeff Zimmerman, Unique Serpentine Wall-Hung Light Sculptures, hand-blown and hand-shaped glass, 2009.

Elegant and sinister at the same time, Jeff Zimmerman’s hand-blown and hand-shaped glass light sculptures from 2009 are now on view as part of the Museum of Art and Design’s ‘Playing with Fire:  50 Years of Contemporary Glass.’  If you enjoy learning and sharing about contemporary art and design, consider volunteering as a MAD Docent; training begins this spring.