b. Globe, Arizona, 1939
Eindhoven, Environmental Light Installation
1969
Steel, plaster, latex paint, magnetic transformers, and UV light
144 × 192 in. (365.76 × 487.68 cm)
Installation view 2008–2009
Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 2007. The Panza Collection (07.74)
Ⓒ Doug Wheeler. Photo: Lee Stalsworth
Ascribing his longstanding interest in working with light to time spent in the Arizona desert, Doug Wheeler creates room-size environments that thwart viewers’ assumptions about the nature of both art and perception. Eindhoven, Environmental Light Installation, a project initially created for the Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands, comprises an enclosed room whose focal point is the far wall, where four coves trace the edges where the walls, ceiling, and floor meet. While the coves contain neon fixtures, only the light (rather than the hardware) that floods them is visible, creating a disembodied, glowing frame of reflected light. Wheeler’s mesmerizing installations, like those of other California Light and Space artists, reject the Minimalist predilection for objects in favor of intangible artworks that encourage viewers to become conscious of their own perceptual processes.
