Beam me up! Take your lamps to a new dimension

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Lights in their various forms – suspended from the ceiling, freestanding or sitting on a surface – have transformed how society moves, sleeps, communicates and more. Unsurprisingly, then, artists are often rethinking how we approach lamps and chandeliers, making them occupy a space between object and art. 

Sadie Coles channelled this in her group show in Mayfair, Shine On, this spring, which included works by Gelitin, Isa Genzken, Urs Fisher and Sarah Lucas. Many of these electric pieces radiated humour and playfulness. “We had a painting of a light store by Alex Da Corte that inspired the show,” says the gallerist. “It reminded me of the lamp shops on the King’s Road and how jolly they always look. We are wired to associate light with warmth, joy, spirituality, transcendence; sometimes also with cosy domesticity, or as a setter of louche atmospheres.” There is, she thinks, “a lot of possibility for experiment and interpretation”. 

We are wired to associate light with warmth

In Coles’s show, artist Anicka Yi’s hanging illuminated kelp sculptures looked like the cocoon cousins of Isamu Noguchi lanterns, containing animatronic insects spinning like moths. “Beneath the shimmering green and gold light, each textured kelp surface reveals a narrative of an embattled oceanic existence,” Yi says. “The scratches and scars adorning the kelp sculptures mirror human history – a journey that began in the ocean and now faces the potential of an untimely return due to rising sea levels.”

Japanese ceramicist Takuro Kuwata also references Noguchi, specifically his Akari lamps. He was among 24 artists commissioned for Loewe’s presentation at Salone del Mobile. “I thought about making a lamp that I’ve never seen before,” says Kuwata. “I took inspiration from the techniques of Japanese tea ceremonies.” His “stone explosion” series was made with Ozeki, a company that has produced paper lanterns since 1891. “It is interesting to make the distance between art and life closer by being functional,” he says.

Amsterdam-based duo Drift have taken light to an increasingly operatic level, incorporating drones and choreographed robotics into their work. Their breakthrough was Fragile Future, an installation made from LED-dotted dandelions that glow through a network of bronze wires. They appear to cluster organically on floors, walls and ceilings. “Light is such a beautiful way of translating energy,” says Drift’s Ralph Nauta. “You create a sense of something coming to life. It’s an energy that you can react to.” 

Spanish artist Nacho Carbonell’s functional, textured light sculptures range from freestanding lights resembling glowing trees to sprawling ceiling pieces like Big Cocoon Chandelier, which is on permanent display at Ladbroke Hall in west London. These creations are organic in both shape and material. “I grew up on the Mediterranean,” says Carbonell of his inspiration. “You always need to be able to shelter yourself from the heavy sun. There’s something inside this protected shape – a glimmering light through the leaves.”

Light, since it affects us both physiologically and emotionally, is the perfect art medium. These artists are using it to continually surprise us: just think of Sarah Lucas’s light in Shine On, a chaotic amalgam made up of buckets, clothes hangers and bulbs. The results are otherworldly.