Lot 423 D

The artwork will be auctioned in support of the Verein der Freunde und Förderer der Clara-Schumann-Musikschule e.V., Dusseldorf.

Adolf Luther is regarded as one of the main protagonists of kinetic art and optical art. However, the artist who was born in 1912 did not experience his crucial artistic moment until the beginning of 1960s: when smashing bottles, the light is captured and refracts repeatedly in the shards of glass. Thus, in glass, Luther discovers the “immaterial element for the visualisation of light” (Ralph Merten, Luther, Magie des Lichts, Stuttgart 1990, not pag.) and in doing so a way to break away from conventional panel painting. First experiments with objects made of sheet glass, lenses as well as concave and convex mirrors ensue and gradually he succeeds in making light tangible for the viewer.
While his glass sculptures, the so-called light locks, merely trap and reflect light, his concave mirrors reveal the peculiar essentiality of light and make reference to its graphic quality. In the interplay with space, light is transformed into a detectable energy and into its very own decisive phenomenon.
Luther's concave mirror sculptures, however, are initially planned merely as instruments that only develop into a single unit as the result of the interaction between the recipient and the artistic idea thus manifesting themselves as an energetic sculpture. Hence, the viewer is an indispensable factor, implemented to actively visualise the spherical pre-pictures. Thus, Luther's art is not about the object itself but primarily about striving for insight, as a possibility to gain wordly wisdom and expression.