Kolker’s art addresses that digital culture in which we are immersed and barely notice because it has become an autonomic part of how we now perceive the world around us. In this show, he makes us aware of the new ways by which we see things through the new looking glass of our digital age with glass, mirror, light emitting diodes… and of course, the light itself!
Kolker made his first light sculptures in 1973; his bathroom vanity mirror in which he shaves almost every day, repeatedly reflects an image of the viewer, the contents of the counter top, and the round soffits of the overhead lights; and also that same year, a wall hanging made of triangles of mirror forming pyramids, mounted on board, and scattering spots of light on to an opposing mirror towards infinity.
In 1975, his Advent three tube front end projection television became the laboratory instrument for his then developing art theory, self educating himself in optical color practicalities while using the calibrating grids to focus each of the R, G, B projected images of colored dots. The top of the cabinet housing the projector had a piece of glass on it, which mirrored the projected image. Animated reflections became exciting to him, so he built from parts a satellite receiver, erected a dish antenna and in 1979 outfitted a media room in his home with beveled mirror strips covering the walls, reflecting the images of the room and of the television screen ad infinitum. In 1989 he began using LED message screens, one with ‘Good Shabbos’, and in another ‘The Truth is….’, scrolling out towards infinity in colored dots.
Let There Be Light!, 2011, installation views, New York, NY
Since 2008, Kolker has mainly used LED lighting in his infinity light works, which he calls ‘fractal boxes’. As in his painting style, which he calls ‘fracolor’, founded in the repetition of dots in a grid matrix pattern, like that of a television, computer or cell phone screen, his light sculpture is also founded in that new geometry of repetitive forms and shapes mathematically explained through the fractal geometry of the late Benoit Mandelbrot.
Featured in the show are: ‘Through the Looking Glass: Turn On the Light, Turn off the Dark’, an installation in which a painting by the artist is reflected towards infinity within a super sized fractal box; and a series of Euclidian geometric shapes of LED light sculptures, some displayed in a group exhibition of works of light artists at the recent ‘Big Light Show’ at Anderson Ranch Art Center, Aspen, CO depicted (above) as installed in the artist’s studio.
Paul Kolker: Let There Be Light! — March 10, 2011 through May 5, 2011.