'The history of light is essentially the history of human perception', the introduction to "Light" (the exhibition) declares, and that's probably a good 50 per cent of why I'm so drawn to art that's specifically about - or of - light. Of all art's subjects, perceptions of the world might be the one that most consistently resonates with me, tied up with that everlasting interest in phenomenology and equally everlasting seeking out of art - of all kinds - that is able to render experiences of the world in a way that (aptly) illuminates. The other 50 per cent would be the sensory and aesthetic attraction of light as subject/object and medium/form - an appeal that's immediately accessible, as well as deep. So I wasn't surprised to really enjoy this exhibition, given its combination of theme and source - ie the Tate.
It starts at the end of the Enlightenment, and explicitly plays out the competing - and sometimes mingled - forces of religion, science, the spiritual and the aesthetic (notably more or less wholly missing is the political) that can be traced from that time on, moving more or less chronologically forward but with a couple of anachronistic placements, notably the Yayoi Kusama piece, "The Passing Winter" (2005) - you look through the small circles cut into its reflective surfaces, to see yourself and others reflected and refracted over and over.
For me, it was a fast forward through several of my absolute favourites (Monet - "The Seine at Port-Villez", 1894 - Kandinsky, Eliasson, Turrell) interspersed through others whose quality I well know (Turner, Constable, Sisley, Pissarro, Albers, Bridget Riley, Kusama) which together provided most of the highlights, along with a few discoveries, most notably the Liliane Lijn piece and Tacita Dean's 14 minute video piece "Disappearance at Sea" (1996) which has a churning quality in which light and density coexist and struck a chord that I haven't felt for a while but was unmistakeably the real thing.
(w/ R)
