Below is the 3-minute “Spectral City” video by Lumonics’ Marc Billard that ran for the month of January, 2020. at the Clocktower Building (Daniels & Fisher Tower) at 1601 Arapahoe St. on the 16th Street Mall. It was commissioned by Night Lights Denver.
“Night Lights Denver is a permanent way for The Denver Theatre District to support innovative artists with an experimental platform while attracting people downtown to experience a free, unique, surprise-and-delight experience.” https://lumonics.net/night-lights-denver/
Photos (1974) of sections of the first Lumonics Light and Sound Theatre, Miami, FL that opened in 1969.
section of the Lumonics Light and Sound Theatre Miami, FL
section of the Lumonics Light and Sound Theatre Miami, FL
section of the Lumonics Light and Sound Theatre Miami, FL
The intent of this transformative total art experience that Mel and Dorothy Tanner originated in 1969 and that continues to evolve is to create an atmosphere for people to relax and energize, provide fresh insights, release latent creative abilities, and make it possible for powerful shifts in consciousness. It has been described as “the cross between a yoga retreat and an acid trip.”
Since Dorothy’s passing in 2020, we have restored many of the light sculptures in these photos that got damaged in traveling, and all needed to be converted to LEDs while keeping the integrity of the original lighting. These works play a prominent role in our Saturday evening performances of Lumonics Immersed.
Keith Sonnier was part of a group of artists who challenged preconceived notions of sculpture in the late 1960s by experimenting with industrial and ephemeral materials. In Sonnier’s case, materials ranged from latex and satin, to found objects, transmitters and video. In 1968, the artist began creating wall sculptures using incandescent light and sheer fabric. Frustrated by the standardized forms of incandescent light, he started experimenting with neon. Using copper tubing as a template, Sonnier began sketching lines, arches and curves ultimately realized in glass tubing enclosed neon. The linear quality of neon allowed Sonnier to draw in space with light and color while colored light interacted with the surrounding architecture. https://www.keithsonnier.net/biography.html
November 23 2019 – January 11 2020 Kasmin, 509 West 27th Street, NYC
“I think everyone at some point comes up against a wall. Curiously, though, if you continue working, you might readdress that idea from another direction. If you didn’t try something, you’d never have anything; if you didn’t make an attempt to make the work, it wouldn’t exist. There have been times when I could not work, and I would just go and sit down in the studio and wait to see what might happen. You can’t always just go and take an exotic trip and come back and make something.”
“Sculpture, for me, provides that environmental discipline where you actually move in and around it”.
“This is New York. You gotta work from upstairs to downstairs! You gotta work both ends of the street to have a career. Because it’s not just fabricating an artwork. Your works have to go out into the world; they have to go to market. This art on the hoof has to be moved; it’s got to go to the slaughterhouse at some point.”
“A lot of artists are good cooks as I’m too, but coming from a culture that was very concerned with food, I was very interested in that from the start. If you’re interested in food, you’re interested in lots of different aspects of culture. And it’s like being interested in the music from a certain area, or writing, or whatever–food is part of that, too.”
Keith Sonnier
November 23 2019 – January 11 2020 Kasmin, 509 West 27th Street, NYC
Dis-Play II with Videos. 2018 DIA/Dan Flavin Art Institute Bridgehampton, NY
