Light Show
Past exhibition
30 JAN – 6 MAY 2013
Hayward Gallery
Exploring how we experience and respond to illumination and colour through sculpture
Light Show brought together sculptures and installations that used artificial light to transform space and to influence and alter perception.
Featured artists
David Batchelor, Jim Campbell, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Bill Culbert, Olafur Eliasson, Fischli and Weiss, Dan Flavin, Ceal Floyer, Nancy Holt, Jenny Holzer, Ann Veronica Janssens, Brigitte Kowanz, Anthony McCall, François Morellet, Iván Navarro, Philippe Parreno, Katie Paterson, Conrad Shawcross, James Turrell, Leo Villareal, Doug Wheeler and Cerith Wyn Evans.
Light Show toured to Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland (11 Oct 2014 – 8 Feb 2015), Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (16 Apr – 5 Jul 2015), Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (19 Sep – 5 Dec 2015), and CorpArtes, Santiago (17 May – 11 Sep 2016).
The exhibition was accompanied by a large-format, fully illustrated hardcover catalogue featuring essays by art historian Anne Wagner, science writer Philip Ball, and Hayward Gallery curator Cliff Lauson.
The exhibition explored how we experience and respond to illumination and colour. Many of the works drew attention to the fact that vision is the least reliable of the senses. What we see, or think we see, is not always how things are.
Making use of materials ranging from off-the-shelf fixtures to computer-controlled lighting, the works in this exhibition stimulated many different – and often surprising – responses. Visitors were invited to wonder at, contemplate, investigate and, in some cases, interact with illumination as both a phenomenon and a versatile artistic medium.