The Light Show

Overview

When you think spring, you think lambs and flowers and sun. And this spring is promising to be brighter than ever. With the annual Diwali festival and the celebrated Art in the Dark show being accompanied, this year, by The Light Show. The popular international exhibition ventures to the country after its sell-out season at the Hayward Gallery in London, and makes its first stop in Auckland before heading over to Aussie, UAE and Greece.

As its title suggests, The Light Show is a show of everything shining, glittering and glowing. The art is created using only the medium of electricity and bulbs, including neons, fluorescents and strobes. The exhibit showcases art through the ages, starting with classic light art, the oldest works being created by Dan Flavin, artistic lighting pioneer who has made a glowing Greek temple from fluorescent poles. The exhibition delves into the 70’s with James Turell’s optical illusion show, where galleries disappear and space becomes infinity through clever use of geometry and coloured hues. Then, maybe most impressively, is Anthony McHall’s film-like exhibit, where cinema is pared back to its skeleton, with no screens or graphic images, but solely a projected light that somehow engulfs audiences in an unreal illusion.

The show is a technological wonderland, containing a sample of every light ever known to man. Definitely more interested in the beauty of illumination and the evolving technology of light than delivery a pointed political message, gallery-goers can put aside the thinking hats that are generally required for exhibitions, and let themselves be wowed by the lighting phenomenons.

Winter might seem like an endless darkness at the moment, but at least for Aucklanders, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Ha…