Light and Space Movement 1960s

I recently wrote a paper about the Light and Space movement in Southern California during the 1960s and 70s. This movement was characterized by a fascination with the way light interacts with sculpture and environment, and artists who worked primarily in sculpture sought to explore and understand the nature of light. I wrote the paper about a sculptural artist from Pasadena named Helen Pashgian, who worked in that movement and is still working today. In 2014, Pashgian created a sculptural exhibit for LACMA that was made of 12 molded acrylic ellipsoidal columns. The exhibit was called Light Invisible. Pashgian's work is concerned with the way light interacts with her work, the way light can reveal what is hidden. Displayed in a black room, the columns stood in succession, lit from above with a hooded spotlight. One of her contemporaries says of her work “I worked with light and sort of materialized it. Bob Irwin worked with material and de-materialized it into light aspects. [Pashgian] was the one who as a sculptor spiritualized the material world. You can sort of materialize the spiritual, but she was coming from the other direction, and I thought that was really interesting and beautiful in her work.”(James Turrell) Artists since before the Renaissance have used light as a source of inspiration, to create depth and movement, to symbolize spirituality, to reveal. This is essentially what light does - it allows us to see. It creates motion and depth. Caravaggio knew this, and his paintings are so dynamic in part because of his interest in direct light sources that created shadows and shifted the tone of an environment. Pashgian knows this too, and her art is a direct attempt to harness light to make beautiful revelations.