The Light Project

If you haven't yet seen the Dan Flavin show at the Pulitzer Foundation and the Light Project works (Chapel is pictured to the left), I would highly recommend that you do so before they end. I was unable to attend the opening event, but am glad that I have since taken the time to check out these exhibitions between last night and today. I am hoping to see the Flavin exhibition, Constructed Light, again after dark, perhaps tomorrow evening or sometime during its last week.

Constructed Light is very intimate and the works so well integrated into Tadao Ando's architecture that the end result is rather spiritual with the influence of Flavin's work causing subtle changes in light and shadow that seem to transcend the space. I have never been a huge fan of Flavin's work, but this exhibition showed that my lack of appreciation was more a matter of context than anything. These pieces really need their own space and should not just be come upon between one museum display and another, even if that museum has tried to set them apart in their own spaces. The Pulitzer Foundation keeps short hours so there were a lot of people present to view the show when I went, which is both good and bad because there are a lot of people who are then exposed to the work but the crowds can interfere with its intimacy.

Some of the Light Project pieces also reflect upon this same sense of spirituality and space, most notably Chorus by Rainer Kehres & Sebastian Hungerer which even utilizes a church, transforming the husk of the charred and neglected building. This piece is wonderful because it has created a new seemingly religious experience within the abandoned place of worship using everyday objects (lamps and light fixtures) that are often taken for granted and ignored. The other Light Project works were intriguing and thought-provoking in their own ways. Like Chapel, Jason Peters' Untitled artwork encourages the viewer to look at everyday objects anew, this time focusing on the plastic bucket. For all that I don't know just how accurately and exactly the colors of ice cream match the St. Louis sunset, Spencer Finch's Sunset ice cream stand offers a different interpretation of light, encouraging the viewer/participant to think about its life-giving and environmental effects since the ice cream stand is run by solar panels. And Ann Lislegaard's Crystal World is very subtle and beautifully rendered.

So definitely try to check out these artworks before they come down. The Light Project is doing a lot to enliven the Grand Center area and to incorporate art into the streets where everybody, artist and non-artist, patron and passerby, can enjoy it. Constructed Light runs through Oct. 4 and the Light Project runs through Oct. 17.