Holiday displays have already begun to light up around the country, but lighting exhibits of a different sort are currently being featured at two museums in the Boston area. The work of Cerith Wyn Evans, a Welsh installation artist, is being featured this winter in dual exhibitions at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the MIT List Visual Arts Center.
Rather than the traditional canvas and paint, or even other conventional methods of creating three-dimensional artwork and installations, Wyn Evans prefers to work in light and mirrors. Many of his projects involve neon tubing, inventive illumination and refracting light, meaning his creations involve the eye that views them as much as they do the artwork that he designs.
The two shows that are currently displaying Wyn Evans' artwork in Boston this month are complimentary in their own way. The exhibit at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, entitled "Thoughts unsaid, now forgotten ...," presents a unique look at the world of scholars and scholarly achievement, along with a sense of appreciation for the finer moments in thought.
Upon entering the exhibit at MIT, visitors are confronted with a doppelganger version of themselves, reflected in one of Wyn Evans' complex mirror sculptures. A tape recording plays the sounds of "The Slide Rule Man," a
scientist in the 1960s who traveled from university to university inscribing students' names on their slide rulers.
The effect is somewhat disconcerting, a startling entrance that shocks visitors into leaving their preconceived notions at the door. They will soon discover that the work of Wyn Evans is far from the usual; even though all of it utilizes commonplace items, like mirrors and light bulbs, very little of it is mundane enough to meet prior expectations.
The largest piece in the MIT collection consists of an enormous neon sign that reiterates the exhibition's name. "Thoughts unsaid, now forgotten" (2004) shines outwardly over an open courtyard, stealing the eye away from the other pieces in the room, including a chandelier that was designed by Wyn Evans.
Born in Wales in 1958, Wyn Evans studied at St. Martin's School of Art in London, where he first began to use unorthodox materials in his artwork.
Wyn Evans began his career as a filmmaker - it wasn't until the 1990s that he turned his attention to installation artwork as well. Looking at his creation, his background in the visual becomes extremely obvious. Much as a director uses light and darkness in his movies to create a desired emotional response, the Welshman plays with refracting mirrors and flashing lights to guide his audience's reaction to his work.
At the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, "Cerith Wyn Evans," the self-titled exhibit, is much more understated than its counterpart. There are no scratchy recordings here; the centerpiece is a room filled with enormous chandeliers, each of the seven blinking at its own pace.
With the recent first snow of the year, stepping into Wyn Evans' room of lights is akin to entering a winter wonderland. The lights suspended overhead seem almost like a ghostly holiday display. At night, they are even visible from the road outside.
In what is typical Cerith Wyn Evans, there is a pattern to the chandeliers' beauty. Each construction blinks in a set pattern, flashing out an inspirational message of the author's choosing in Morse Code.
With that knowledge in hand, the chandeliers that look like they come from a ballroom dance floor and coded messages that seem more fitting in some late-90s war movie (or perhaps divine inspiration), oppose each other in the viewer's mind, creating a dichotomy of questionable themes.
Wyn Evans' art is unique because he himself physically created none of it. The Welshman is a design artist; though he comes up with the plans for his artwork, the projects themselves are commissioned and left for other glassblowers to create.
Cerith Wyn Evans has never before had his art comprehensively displayed in the United States, although he has been featured in shows at the Scuola di San Pascale in Venice and the British School in Rome. In a 2001 installation created by the artist for the Tate Museum of Modern Art in London, a computer translated the poetry of William Blake into Morse Code and flashed it off a revolving disco ball.
There is no other artist quite like Cerith Wyn Evans, and when viewing his artwork no other feeling becomes clearer. His creations make viewers question their preconceived notions about artwork and perception.
But whether they're looking upon bright neon lighting or translated versions of philosophical questions, Wyn Evans' audience will be left with a sense that art, truly, is whatever one wants it to be.
