The role of light in contemporary art.
James Turrell's environments with their colourful auras, Dan Flavin's minimalist sculptures with their fluorescent tubes,
Jenny Holzer's messages on their illuminated displays—all of these pioneering artists of the second half of the 20th century were noted for their use of light. A few decades later, what role does light play in contemporary art as a fluctuating element—as a wave or a stream of particles? The current issue, Light, explores this question and reveals a shift in our cultural perception of light, once associated with goodness, truth, and knowledge in the Western imagination. Instead, contemporary artworks—whether sculptural, urban, performative, or scenographic—emit a blinding light that produces deceptive illusions or draws the gaze toward the margins, where other truths lie, hidden in the shadows.
