Review: Robert Irwin's virtuoso light art, minus the light
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Knight, Christopher. “Review: Robert Irwin’s virtuoso light art, minus the light.” Los Angeles Times. 28January 2021. Web.
1201 SOUTH LA BREA AVENUE LOS ANGELES, CA 90019
T (310) 586-6886 F (310) 586-6887 KAYNEGRIFFIN.COM @KAYNEGRIFFIN
Review: Robert Irwin’s virtuoso light art, minus the light
Robert Irwin, “Fargo,” 2018, shadow + reflection + color.
(Robert Irwin)
In a body of work from 2018, artist Robert Irwin, an originator in the 1960s of the distinctive genre known as Light
and Space art, did something simple but surprising: He switched off the lights in his art.
Irwin has been using fluorescent lights in his work for many years. The so-called “unlights,” however, pull the plug
on them.
What got left behind is remarkable. See for yourself at Kayne Griffin, where five riveting examples of Irwin’s “unlights”
are on view — by appointment with social distancing protocols and face masks required.
Knight, Christopher. “Review: Robert Irwin’s virtuoso light art, minus the light.” Los Angeles Times. 28January 2021. Web.
1201 SOUTH LA BREA AVENUE LOS ANGELES, CA 90019
T (310) 586-6886 F (310) 586-6887 KAYNEGRIFFIN.COM @KAYNEGRIFFIN
Each wall relief is composed from 15 ordinary, 6-foot electrical fixtures in white enamel, the kind you might get at a
big box store. They are installed vertically side by side but without any wiring. No juice is running to the 12, 16 or 20
fluorescent tubes that are set in place.
Robert Irwin’s “unlights” are made from fluorescent tubes wrapped in colored gels and electrical tape (Kayne Griffin)
Think of stripe paintings by artists like Gene Davis or Bridget Riley, except three-dimensional and made from
hardware instead of acrylic and canvas.
The tubes are wrapped with colored gels or lined with precise strips of electrical tape, some matte and some shiny.
“Mozambique” is mostly in shades of green, while “Balboa” is greens and blues. “Mesquite” features a metallic gold
with black and white.
In the narrow vertical spaces between fixtures, the gallery wall is left exposed. Most of the visible wall is white, but
some is painted gray in various shades. The flat side or narrow edge of a fixture might also be painted gray or black
— or, in one instance, a dark navy blue. Most of the light fixtures accommodate a single tube but some feature two
and a few are blank. The human scale makes each work approachable.
Knight, Christopher. “Review: Robert Irwin’s virtuoso light art, minus the light.” Los Angeles Times. 28January 2021. Web.
1201 SOUTH LA BREA AVENUE LOS ANGELES, CA 90019
T (310) 586-6886 F (310) 586-6887 KAYNEGRIFFIN.COM @KAYNEGRIFFIN
What risks being a gimmick — a master’s light art without the light — turns out to be unexpectedly gorgeous and
deeply absorbing.
Your eye sees electrical fixtures and glass tubes, and your mind naturally expects them to light up. When they do
not, anxiety rises. Is something wrong?
Nope. Everything is just right. In fact, you slowly start noticing the ambient light that is all around them.
Robert Irwin‘s “Mesquite,” 2018. (Pablo Mason)
Colors glow. Reflections sparkle. Movement out on the gallery patio makes interrupted light indoors flicker.
The fixtures cast shadows — or are those lines and rectangles gray paint, not cast shadows? Or shadows cast on
gray paint, changing dimensions imperceptibly as daylight moves? Is the gray color flat, or is it atmospheric? Matte
gels absorb light and soften the space the tube occupies, while shiny gels are vivacious and energetic.
Color across the visual field is stable but not static.
Knight, Christopher. “Review: Robert Irwin’s virtuoso light art, minus the light.” Los Angeles Times. 28January 2021. Web.
1201 SOUTH LA BREA AVENUE LOS ANGELES, CA 90019
T (310) 586-6886 F (310) 586-6887 KAYNEGRIFFIN.COM @KAYNEGRIFFIN
In the double-fixture at the center of one work, a pair of side-by-side tubes wrapped in black is lined with white tape
and turned slightly inward. The result is an illusion of impossibly deep space, which draws in your perception through
a narrow slit.
The center fixture of another reverses the equation, which yields an optical swelling of space that pushes outward.
The placement of electrical tape can warp visual space.
One practical angle of the “unlights” even engenders a smile. These light bulbs will never burn out, unlike a
Minimalist fluorescent sculpture by Dan Flavin, or even Irwin’s own earlier work. Technology moves on, so someday
those wired fluorescent sculptures will be obsolete — but here it will not matter one bit. Here it is the viewer, not
the art, that needs to be plugged in.
Robert Irwin‘s “Muscle Shoals,” 2018. (Philipp Scholz Rittermann)
The “unlights” sharpen perception to a keen edge, an experience of acuity that blissfully lingers long after you leave
the show. On the gallery checklist, the materials that Irwin employed is revealing. Instead of fixtures, tubes, gels and
tape, these works are identified as being made from “shadow + reflection + color.”Knight, Christopher. “Review: Robert Irwin’s virtuoso light art, minus the light.” Los Angeles Times. 28January 2021. Web.
1201 SOUTH LA BREA AVENUE LOS ANGELES, CA 90019
T (310) 586-6886 F (310) 586-6887 KAYNEGRIFFIN.COM @KAYNEGRIFFIN
This is virtuoso Light and Space art. Orchestrated when Irwin reached the ripe age of 90, such command is to be
expected. Unplugged “unlights” have an inescapable elegiac quality, but even that is more incandescent than
mournful. In these dark times, they light up the room.
—Christopher KnightYou can also read
