Spencer Finch, Rose Window at Saint-Denis (morning effect), 2022. LED fixtures, LED lamps, filters, diameter: 108 inches (274.3 cm). Photo: Matthew Herrmann.
So Spencer, the show is called Lux and Lumen, and as far as I understand its title is inspired by the concepts of an abbot who wrote about light several hundred years before the stained-glass window by Valentin Bousch was created. And this abbot believed that stained glass turned lux, which was secular, into lumen, which was sacred. In your own thinking about light, how do you understand that relationship between the secular, scientific approach to light and the metaphysical character of color and light, and our experience of them?
Spencer Finch:
I’m not really a religious person, but I’m interested in the idea of how light can be transformed from one thing to another. For me, it can be landscape, taking the light from one place and re-creating it somewhere else. So for example, the LED light piece that’s now downstairs is actually based on the rose window at St. Denis in Paris, which was where Abbot Suger developed his ideas of Gothic architecture and this theory about light. I measured the light there; then, using colors that match those of Gothic stained glass, combined them to re-create the average light of that rose window. In that way, it’s like taking light from one place and bringing it to another place, changing the quality of the light from New York City to a cathedral in Paris.
MG:
You say you’re not religious, but are there times that you yourself experience light and feel that there’s more to it than something that you can measure?
SF:
Yes.
MG:
I’m not religious either, but there are times when a sunset or something like that makes me feel that it’s more than simple light reflecting off the sea or the clouds.
SF:
I think light can also transcend time in a way. For me, the first time this happened was when I first measured light, which was about twenty years ago. I measured the light at ancient Troy at dawn for my first light piece, which is called Eos (Dawn, Troy, 10/27/02) (2002). And for me, that was a magical moment. I felt some weird connection to Achilles–Seeing what he saw. It sounds like bullshit, but I felt there was something really special about that, a connection to the time of the Illiad. And I think light does have this quality that it can be, I guess, special. Maybe not sacred, but special and different from the everyday..
MG:
The Christian idea that Abbot Suger developed… Was he saying something that didn’t exist at the time or in other religions?
SF:
I think it was a new approach to thinking about illumination in a church. And it also had to do with light coming through images of the gospel. So it wasn’t just the glass itself that shifted meaning, but it was light passing through the pictures of the gospel.
MG:
So it was a kind of a technological and artistic revolution, plus the ability to produce stained glass and make pictures of the gospel, that prompted the abbot to come up with his theory?
SF:
Yes. I don’t know what inspired him, but I guess it was probably a mixture of technical and theoretical, religious ideas.
MG:
This show was in part inspired by the acquisition of this stained-glass window by the Hill Art Foundation. Did they invite you to gather these works together as a response to that acquisition, or was it just in combination with it?
SF:
Well, the idea was that it would be in combination, and I wanted it to be a response with a thematic connection. Because I’ve done a lot of work with glass in different ways, I thought that would be a good way to organize the show, limit it, and start thinking about works that would go together and have a conversation with the stained glass by Valentin Bousch, so that it didn’t seem totally arbitary.
MG:
But there’s a range of work from different time periods here. You’ve gathered them to make some very clear connections.
“A Celebration of Glass”
Spencer Finch in conversation with Mark Godfrey
Hill Art Foundation, September 9, 2022
Mark Godfrey:
So Spencer, the show is called Lux and Lumen, and as far as I understand its title is inspired by the concepts of an abbot who wrote about light several hundred years before the stained-glass window by Valentin Bousch was created. And this abbot believed that stained glass turned lux, which was secular, into lumen, which was sacred. In your own thinking about light, how do you understand that relationship between the secular, scientific approach to light and the metaphysical character of color and light, and our experience of them?
Spencer Finch:
I’m not really a religious person, but I’m interested in the idea of how light can be transformed from one thing to another. For me, it can be landscape, taking the light from one place and re-creating it somewhere else. So for example, the LED light piece that’s now downstairs is actually based on the rose window at St. Denis in Paris, which was where Abbot Suger developed his ideas of Gothic architecture and this theory about light. I measured the light there; then, using colors that match those of Gothic stained glass, combined them to re-create the average light of that rose window. In that way, it’s like taking light from one place and bringing it to another place, changing the quality of the light from New York City to a cathedral in Paris.
MG:
You say you’re not religious, but are there times that you yourself experience light and feel that there’s more to it than something that you can measure?
SF:
Yes.
MG:
I’m not religious either, but there are times when a sunset or something like that makes me feel that it’s more than simple light reflecting off the sea or the clouds.
SF:
I think light can also transcend time in a way. For me, the first time this happened was when I first measured light, which was about twenty years ago. I measured the light at ancient Troy at dawn for my first light piece, which is called Eos (Dawn, Troy, 10/27/02) (2002). And for me, that was a magical moment. I felt some weird connection to Achilles–Seeing what he saw. It sounds like bullshit, but I felt there was something really special about that, a connection to the time of the Illiad. And I think light does have this quality that it can be, I guess, special. Maybe not sacred, but special and different from the everyday..
MG:
The Christian idea that Abbot Suger developed… Was he saying something that didn’t exist at the time or in other religions?
SF:
I think it was a new approach to thinking about illumination in a church. And it also had to do with light coming through images of the gospel. So it wasn’t just the glass itself that shifted meaning, but it was light passing through the pictures of the gospel.
MG:
So it was a kind of a technological and artistic revolution, plus the ability to produce stained glass and make pictures of the gospel, that prompted the abbot to come up with his theory?
SF:
Yes. I don’t know what inspired him, but I guess it was probably a mixture of technical and theoretical, religious ideas.
MG:
This show was in part inspired by the acquisition of this stained-glass window by the Hill Art Foundation. Did they invite you to gather these works together as a response to that acquisition, or was it just in combination with it?
SF:
Well, the idea was that it would be in combination, and I wanted it to be a response with a thematic connection. Because I’ve done a lot of work with glass in different ways, I thought that would be a good way to organize the show, limit it, and start thinking about works that would go together and have a conversation with the stained glass by Valentin Bousch, so that it didn’t seem totally arbitary.
MG:
But there’s a range of work from different time periods here. You’ve gathered them to make some very clear connections.
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