LONDON.- Let There Be Light, Revisited, features works by pioneers Peter Alexander, DeWain Valentine, Mary Corse, and Helen Pashgian, as well as new generation artist Anthony Pearson. Referencing ‘California Minimalism’* at its core, the exhibition explores the 1960s/70s Light and Space movement in both its natural and artificial form. Intercepting and modifying the conversation between gallery and audience, the reactionary light works and sculptures transform the gallery into an ethereal, immersive space, which explores the physical and spiritual connotations of Light Art and Space.

Through cast urethane wall-sculptures and freestanding works Peter Alexander –renowned for his involvement in the Light and Space Movement–subtly plays with translucency, luminosity and graduating colour hues to alter the gallery environment, providing the viewer with an insight into his ongoing exploration of the effects of the changing properties of light and colour. Anthony Pearson’s signature mixed media monochrome surfaces address the obscure, the status of the image and its relationship to authorship as well as the art object itself. DeWain Valentine provides a historical context, through his cast polyester resin ‘Circle Sepia to Rose,’ (1970) and obstructs the audience’s viewing space; asking one to alter their path around the object and experience an evolving perspective of colour, shape and form. Mary Corse banishes colour from her mixed media wall sculptures, and seeks the complexity of light and space through obstruction, shadow and reflection as she mixes polyester resin, acrylic, glass, clay, canvas and light. Helen Pashgian - a key figure from the movement- plays with refraction, translucency and opacity to create an ethereal atmosphere within the gallery’s surrounding.

Bridging the gap between these significant Los Angeles based artists and the European art audience, Let There Be Light, Revisited connects the past and present of the influential art movement, and provides an interpretation in the context of the European art world of 2015.

Peter Alexander (b. 1939, United States): Among the pioneering California-based Light and Space artists, Peter Alexander has spent the course of his career focusing intensely on light and its manifold effects in his sculptures, paintings, drawings, and prints. From 196572, Alexander worked with resin, producing subtle, luminous, pastel-hued sculptures that seemed to be crafted from light itself. In the early 1970s, he turned to painting, drawing, and printmaking with an almost Impressionistic handling of light, suffusing the works with color and a palpable sense of atmosphere. Some selected Museum exhibitions include California Art Award 2014, by the Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California, 2014, “Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future”, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, 2013, “Peter Alexander: In This Light”, a retrospective exhibition, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California 1999. Public Collections include: Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington,Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Minneapolis Institute of Contemporary Art, Minnesota, Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House (formerly The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu), Hawaii, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York Public Library, New York, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California, Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, California, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Stanford University Art Museum, Palo Alto, California, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Santa Barbara, Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia, Canada, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Mary Corse (b. 1945, United States): Corse’s work was recently exhibited in several historically significant exhibitions including Venice in Venice, a collateral exhibition curated by Nyehaus in association with the J. Paul Getty Museum at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011); Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950-1970, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the MartinGropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany (2011); Phenomenal: California Light and Space, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2011). Her works are in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Fondation Beyeler, Basel; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation Collection, Los Angeles; Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Orange County Museum of Art at Newport Beach; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and other institutions public and private. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Some selected Museum exhibiitions include Reductive Minimalism: Women Artists in Dialogue, 1960-2012. University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI, 2014. Surface, Support, Process: The 1960s Monochrome in the Guggenheim Collection, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York, 2011. Collection: Moca’s First 30 Years, Museum Of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA Primary Forms-Annenberg Foundation Acquisitions, Museum Of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA, 2009. Selected Public Collections include : Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles; Foundation Beyeler, Basel; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; among others.

Anthony Pearson (b. 1969, United States): Anthony Pearson lives and works in Los Angeles, USA. He was the subject of a 2012 solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, USA, as well as a 2008 show at Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, USA. Recent group exhibitions include ‘Second Nature: Abstract Photography Then and Now’, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, USA; ‘The Anxiety of Photography’, Aspen Art Museum, USA; ‘At Home/Not at Home: Works from the Collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg’, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York, USA. Public Collections include : The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, Art in Embassies, Washington, DC, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA.

Helen Pashgian (b. 1934, United States): American visual artist who lives and works in Pasadena, California.[1] She is a primary member of the Light and Space art movement of the 1960s. Pashgian creates sculptures made of industrial materials such as resin, fiberglass, plastic, and coated glass. The luminous properties of these materials reflect her longstanding interest in the effects and perception of light.The artist has focused primarily on cast resin, “creating intimately scaled, translucent objects that incorporate vibrant colors and precisely finished surfaces. The perception of these works shifts as the viewer moves around them, and they seem at times to be solid forms and at others to be dissolving into space. In the 1960s and 1970s, Pashgian, along with the artist Mary Corse, was one of only two female members of the California-based Light and Space movement.

Some selected Museum exhibitions include Light Invisible, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, 2014. Working on Light, Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA, 2010.Palm Spring Art Museum, Palm Spring, CAW, 2007. Public Collections include: the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD); Palm Springs Art Museum; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Orange County Museum of Art; Pomona College Museum of Art; Laguna Beach Museum of Art; and Portland Art Museum; Andrew Dickson White Museum, Cornell University; among others.[11] Other public collections with holdings of Pashgian’s work include: Koll Corporation, Newport, California; Nestle Corporation, Glendale, California; Bank of America, Los Angeles; Bank of America, Singapore; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, Seattle First National Bank, Seattle, Washington; Walker Associates Inc., Los Angeles; Agnew Miller & Carson, Los Angeles; Progressive Savings, Los Angeles; Atlantic Richfield Company, Dallas, Texas; and River Forest State Bank, Illinois.

DeWain Valentine (b. 1936, United States): A key member of the Light and Space movement, Valentine is distinguished in particular by his in-depth understanding of synthetic materials and his ability to transform these industrial products into artworks that reveal his fascination with light, transparency, reflection, and surface. The artist is best known for his translucent glass (such as Diamond Column in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art). He was an early pioneer in using industrial plastic and resin for making monolithic sculptures, though he also frequently employs glass, stone, bronze, and steel. His works are characterized by sleek surfaces, minimalist forms, translucence, and hues that shift in the light. The inspiration for many of his works comes from the sky and sea, capturing what Valentine refers to as “transparent colored space”.

Selected Museum exhibitions include “From Start to Finish: De Wain Valentine’s Gray Column (1975-76), presented by The Getty Conservation Institute, Getty Center/J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, 2011, The Artist’s Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, 2010, DeWain Valentine, Museum of Design Art & Architecture. Culver City, CA, 2009 . Selected Public Collections: Museum of Modern Art New York, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Denver Art Museum, Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Honolulu Museum of Art, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA, USA , Bank of America Collection, Atlantic Richfield Corporate Art Collection, Los Angeles, Anaconda Corporation, Denver, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM, USA, Saxe Collection, San Francisco.