Scott Rosenfeld, American Art's lighting designer, lets us in on the challenges of lighting an artwork.
Lighting Mike Wilkins's Preamble
At American Art we do our best to provide lighting that allows visitors to fully experience our artworks. We succeed much of the time by lighting artworks to help reveal the significance of the piece while eliminating nasty distractions like glare (whether it's the somberness of August St. Gauden's Adams Memorial, or the golden glow of J. William Fosdick's Adoration of St. Joan of Arc).
Sometimes, however, it just can't be done. A great example is Mike Wilkins's, Preamble. Preamble is constructed of license plates, which are ideally illuminated at an angle perpendicular to your eye, much like a car's headlights or a miner's helmet. If lighted in this ideal way, the license plates brighten magnificently and the background dramatically darkens and recedes. Perfect when you're driving. Unfortunately, without handing out flashlights, parking a car in the gallery, or blinding visitors with a strange shadowy light, there is no way to show this unique component of Wilkins's artwork. Thankfully, even without this added dimension, the artwork looks fine and visitors love working out the Preamble to the Constitution with the abbreviated script that Wilkins spells out with vanity plates.
So while we provided you with the light that allows a dynamic experience for many of our artworks, with Mike Wilkins's piece I could use some help. Next time you visit, bring a flashlight and hold it between your eyes, or try taking a flash photograph to get a fresh look at Wilkins's sculpture (located off the G Street lobby near the museum store). Upload your photos to American Art's Flickr group. And lets see if we can get this problem solved!
