Current and permanent exhibits of neon art in Munich, Germany.
Thoughts of a big city bring visions of bright lights — street lights, traffic lights, neon signs, flashing marquees. Although Munich has nothing like Times Square, it sparkles nonetheless with a number of permanent light installations by world-famous artists. And, until November 30, a temporary display by Italian artist Maurizio Nannucci at the European Patent Office (EPO) will make the city shine even more brightly. Entitled Where to Start From, Nannucci’s installation at the EPO consists of seven brightly colored, illuminated Plexiglas texts. Six of these encircle the building’s exterior; the remaining text, located in the lobby, is visible from outside through the glass entrance. Written in English, German and French, the three official languages of the EPO, the works resemble commercial signage. In fact, one skeptical viewer wrote in the visitor’s book, “patent office or supermarket?” Despite their resemblance to store signs Nannucci’s texts are far from banal. Maurizio Nannucci’s career began in the late ’60s, a time when many artists began to experiment with neon and fluorescent light tubes. Pop artists, interested in incorporating objects from everyday life in their works were attracted to neon advertisements. For Minimalists favoring industrial materials and striving for formal purity, neon and fluorescent light offered a way to include color in their art. Conceptual artists, fascinated by language and its power to shape experience, often used neon, a type of light associated most commonly with advertising. Although often linked to Conceptual Art, Nannucci’s work defies categorization. Unlike Conceptual artists, who typically attach more importance to conveying an idea than to producing a permanent object whose materials serve merely to communicate an idea, Nannucci remains committed to the object and fascinated by the sensuous and aesthetic qualities of his material, colored light. He uses neon and light like paint, buildings and gallery walls like canvases. Words take the place of figures — words that at first appear easily intelligible, but that disguise their true, deeper meaning. Just as with the figures in a traditional history painting, the viewer must consider the various allusions, references and associations evoked by the words, as well as their setting, in order to understand a work by Nannucci. His goal is not to present pat meanings, but to inspire contemplation and spur the imagination. Nestled in lush, green ivy and silhouetted against concrete, steel and glass, Nannucci’s bright blue, yellow and red texts draw attention to the EPO itself, a building most passersby would not otherwise notice. Grouped around the theme of creativity, the artist’s sentences focus on the activity that goes on inside the building, the registering and recognition of inventions as products of fertile minds. Visitors are required to walk around the building if they wish to read all the texts and understand their true meanings: “‘The possible plan of the impossible / The impossible plan of the possible,’ ‘Ein anderer Begriff des Möglichen,’ ‘Découvrir des differentes directions.’” In motion physically and mentally, viewers of Nannucci’s work are drawn into the creative process. One of the EPO light texts has provided the title of the entire installation: “Where to start from.” Only when the viewer considers the text’s location does the process of deciphering this statement’s deeper meanings begin. It is sited not, as one might expect, at the building’s entrance, but at a back corner, near the loading docks. Obviously, this is not “where to start from” if you wish to enter the EPO building. Neither is the EPO the starting point, but rather the last step in the invention process. Creative individuals, scientific inventors or artists, do not generally follow the beaten path. Taken to unexpected places by the creative process, they do not start where others start, and certainly not where someone tells them they should. another work by nannucci marks the beginning of a visit to the Lenbachhaus. The words “You Can Imagine the Opposite” (1992) are scrawled across the entrance to a museum that houses an impressive collection of light installations as well as one of the world’s most important collections of German Expressionist art. Here, Nannucci is paying homage to the unconventional thinking that produced the works displayed in the museum and urges visitors to use their imagination. Before entering the Lenbachhaus, visitors might wish to retrace their steps in order to examine Minimalist artist Dan Flavin’s 1994 untitled outdoor installation that leads from the Königsplatz subway station to the museum’s main gate. The seven columns, each comprising four gold fluorescent tubes, echo the Classical columns of the Propyläen, the Antikensammlungen and the Glyptothek — imposing 19th-century buildings on the Königsplatz across the street. Flavin’s columns light a path to Munich’s temple of modern art by cutting through the visual tumult of traffic signs and advertising pillars at the corner of Luisenstrasse and Brienner Strasse. More typical of Flavin’s work are two untitled pieces from the early ’70s, one in the Lenbachhaus, the other in the Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst. Flavin composed the works entirely from colored fluorescent tubes and industrially manufactured fixtures. Like other Minimalists, he sought to reduce art to its simplest, purest form, devoid of subject matter and of all traces of the artist’s hand. Hung in corners, the pieces explore the tensions between sculpture and painting. While the light tubes and fixtures are three-dimensional, they cast colored light on the walls, floor and ceiling of the galleries, and thus resemble paintings. Such works, with their perfection of form and simplicity, inspire quiet contemplation. the opposite effect is created by artist Jenny Holzer’s untitled LED (light emitting diode) display in the Lenbachhaus. Flashing information and advertisements, LED signs are a familiar sight in banks, subway stations, sports stadiums and even shop windows. Holzer’s work, installed in a dark, hallway-like gallery, comprises 16 small, rectangular LED signs, each displaying a different scrolling text in German. The texts, composed by the artist, consist of terse one-liners and clichés, bits of psychobabble and stories with stereotypical plots that seem as if they have been lifted straight from the afternoon talk shows. They are intended to draw the viewer’s attention to prejudice, violence and ignorance in modern society: “Sometimes it’s better to die than to go on,” “You are either on top or nowhere,” “Romantic love was invented in order to manipulate women.” The artist adopts these expressions of greed and power, of a bitter feminism, of naive American Pollyanna optimism without allowing her own voice to play a part in them, by simply presenting her texts on LED screens as alternative, even subversive, public service messages. It is up to spectators to reflect on the different points of view, draw their own conclusions and make their own moral judgments. After experiencing Holzer’s dizzying work, museum visitors will likely welcome James Turrell’s installation Side Look (1992). Viewers are led through a black hallway into a dimly lit room. Once your eyes have adjusted to the light, you notice what appears to be a painting hanging on the wall opposite the entrance. While searching for some sort of visual reference point, you come to realize that the “painting” is really just a panel of blue light. A combination of natural and fluorescent light from a hidden source, the panel takes on ever stronger spatial qualities the longer the eye focuses on it. By manipulating the viewer’s environment in this way, Turrell draws attention to the process of seeing, hoping that this will lead to further thought about visual and sensuous perception. No list of light installations in Munich would be complete without Keith Sonnier’s Lichtweg (Light Path, 1992), located on the walls beside the moving sidewalk on Level Three at the Franz-Joseph-Strauß Airport. Visitors hustling through the airport, their thoughts on luggage, connecting flights, gates and destinations, may ride right past this work and barely register its presence. Yet, Sonnier’s installation is more than mere decoration, engaging in a dialogue with the architecture and the viewer. Light cast by neon and colored fluorescent tubes bounces off mirrors, walls, floor tiles and metal fixtures to enliven the stark white architecture of the airport and bathe spectators in different colors as they pass by. Lichtweg can offer the harried traveler a much needed pause for observation and reflection, and the art enthusiast a visual feast and transforming experience. So, during the last warm nights of summer, the European Patent Office makes a perfect destination for an evening bike ride or stroll. And on the first rainy, cold, gray days of autumn, a visit to the Lenbachhaus or the airport can provide some much needed light therapy. Munich residents should be grateful to Maurizio Nannucci for his thought-provoking installation at the EPO, as it helps draw our attention to some often neglected art installations throughout the city. <<< Maurizio Nannucci, “Where to Start From,” European Patent Office, Erhardtstrasse 27, until November 30. Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Luisenstrasse 33, Tues.-Sun., 10-18. Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, Prinzregentenstrasse 1, Tues.-Sun., 10-17.