Author:   Heike Borowski  
Posted: 15.12.2005; 22:05:30
Topic: Sections | D | Light kinetics
Msg #: 24 (Erste Nachricht zum Thema)
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  Section D Light kinetics


After 1920, the term kinetic art no longer referred to sculptures or pictures, but instead, to mechanical objects that actually moved, usually supported by technology. The light and movement objects, which were especially popular in the 1960s, had to be activated by moving one’s position or pushing a button, which brought in the viewers as an indispensable component of the work. Through virtual or real movement, light and moving objects also bring the fourth dimension – time – into art. Forming in Europe almost simultaneously were various artists groups that experimented in the area of kinetic art. Gruppo T was founded in Milan in 1959; the same year, in Padua, Gruppo N [enne] was founded by Alberto Biasi and Manfredo Massironi. Together with Gruppo T, they formed the conceptual core of Italy's kinetic art. In 1960 came the founding of GRAV [Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel] in Paris, including artists such as Hugo Rodolfo Demarco, Julio Le Parc, François Morellet and Horacio Garcia-Rossi. The artists experimented with the effects of color, light and movement. Moreover, the group took their works into the public space. At the beginning of the 1960s in Austria, Holland and Germany, artists such as Marc Adrian, Gerhard von Graevenitz, and Karl Gerstner created kinetic light objects, as did Vladimir Bonacic in Croatia. Real movement [kinetic art] and actual, artificial light first came together as kinetic Light art in light boxes, illumination boxes [still echoing panel painting] and, finally, in light environments or ambient light spaces.