
I especially liked the two large lenses at the recent show by Helen Pashgian, an early member of the 1960s Light and Space Movement. Instead of the more diffuse light effect in the Light Art of Turrell and others, the sixty inch in diameter lens is meant to capture and hold light and attention to light in the form of a material object. Works like these trade on the idea of presence and the presence of presence. A close look reveals the edge of the lens, standing on a column, that supports the light in place like some illuminated ritual installation. As per this statement here at Lehmann Maupin, the carefully crafted “industrial epoxies, plastics, and resins….are characterized by their semi-translucent surfaces that appear to filter and somehow contain illumination.”