[Gallery Walk] A Space Where 'Art Meets Light' Shines

'Light: Tate Britain Special Exhibition'

Olafur Eliasson's 'Cosmic Dust Particles' (2014).

A spherical polyhedron with a diameter of 1.7 meters, made of glass and rebar, hangs from the ceiling. This structure, imbued with white light emitted by spotlights, sparkles and rotates like a mirror ball. At the same time, countless geometric patterns of light reflected on hundreds of glass surfaces spread across the walls, orbiting around the sphere. It feels as if one is witnessing a white dwarf star and asteroid fragments orbiting it somewhere in the universe.

This work is "Cosmic Dust Particle" (2014) by Olafur Eliasson, a world-renowned contemporary artist from Denmark. He has mainly engaged in artistic activities that incorporate the physical properties of light to allow viewers to experience changes in space and time. He believes that such experiences become a power to change the world beyond the individual. Eliasson first presented this work at his solo exhibition "Contact" held at the Louis Vuitton Foundation Museum in Paris in 2014. He says, "Contact is about reaching out to others and, furthermore, the ability to see from their perspective." To him, others are both humans and nature.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775?1851), 'Light and Color (Goethe's Theory) - Morning after the Deluge'

"Cosmic Dust Particle" is currently exhibited at the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, part of the Seoul Museum of Art. It is featured through the special exhibition "Light: British Tate Museum Special Exhibition," held in collaboration between the Seoul Museum of Art and the 100-year-old British Tate Museum, running until May 8. Here, visitors can see 110 works by 43 artists who have explored light over the past 200 years, from modern art masters such as Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775?1851), John Constable (1776?1837), Claude Monet (1840?1926), and Wassily Kandinsky (1866?1944) to contemporary artists like Anish Kapoor and James Turrell.

For some artists, light was a creation of God. "The Creation of Light" (1826) by George Richmond (1809?1896), displayed at the entrance of the first floor of the exhibition hall, depicts the fourth day of creation in Genesis Chapter 1, where "God made two great lights," as mentioned in the Bible. William Blake's (1757?1827) "Good Angel and Evil Angel" (1795?1805) places the sun behind the good angel, conveying the idea that light and goodness are equivalent.

Claude Monet's 'Poplars on the Epte River' (1891).

19th-century Impressionist painters focused on capturing the hues and textures that change moment by moment under light rather than the inherent colors of objects. In this exhibition, visitors can directly experience Monet’s "Poplars on the Epte River" (1891) and "The Seine at Port-Villez" (1894), representative works of Impressionism. To paint the "Poplars on the Epte River" series, Monet modified the bottom of a boat to be flat for floating on the river. When the trees he depicted were threatened with being cut down, he even paid money to save them. The insurance value of this single work reaches 50 billion won.

James Turrell's 'Raemar, Blue' (1969).

There is also a space where one can experience "bitmyeong" (a state of gazing at light). Standing before "Raimar, Blue" (1969) by American artist James Turrell, known as the "Magician of Light," one is captivated by the strange sensation as if tiny blue air particles fill the entire space. The fluorescent light installed on the inner partition creates the illusion that the square wall is floating in midair. Turrell, who was also an aircraft pilot, has mainly attempted to capture atmospheric environments spread across the sky in his works. He says, "My works have no objects, images, or focus. When these are absent, what are you looking at? You are looking at yourself looking."

Art, in a way, is a process of capturing light rather than color. This is because all visual information perceived by humans is transmitted through light. The two pillars of modern physics, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, were also born from the process of uncovering the secrets of light. Light has always been central in philosophy and religion as well. Even today, various "variations of light" continue across different fields. Baek Ji-sook, director of the Seoul Museum of Art, said, "Through this exhibition, visitors will experience a diverse spectrum of light encompassing the history of civilization, humanity, and science."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.