PROVOKING MAGIC: Lighting of Ingo Maurer

“Provoking Magic” at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum is a site-specific installation cum retrospective survey of 40 years’ worth of works by German designer Ingo Maurer. Equal parts clown, engineer, and poet, Mr. Maurer creates works that exist somewhere between intangible expressions of pure light and the practical objects required for lighting.Fully realized works, prototypes, photographs, films, and sketches populate the museum’s entire second floor, showcasing not only the broad range of materials Mr. Maurer calls into service, but also displaying how his peripatetic mind is always on the prowl for new ways to ferret out various personalities and emotions found in and produced by light. And by attempting to create players for his theatrical performance, Mr. Maurer’s work encourages anthropomorphic associations, such as bestowing a light bulb with qualities like friendly or agitated or fat.In works such as “Rose, Rose on the Wall” (2006) — a thoroughly futuristic domestic environment built around the use of light to evoke mood — and “LED Wallpaper” (2007) — a smart play on traditional decorating ideas combined with 21st-century technology — Mr. Maurer thumbs his nose at the timeworn distinction between form and function by positioning these works squarely, and without apology, in the camp of both decoration and fine art, placing himself alongside contemporary artists such as Virgil Marti and Andrea Zittel.With “Holonzki” (2000), a hologram of a light bulb that appears to be screwed into a socket, Mr. Maurer treads into purely conceptual territory, eliminating any actual illumination and making the idea of light the subject of the piece. “Lucellino” (1992), one of Mr. Maurer’s more recognizable designs, consists of a single light bulb sprouting goose-feather wings. Displayed either resting singly on a table or grouped as a flock on a wall, this piece is as simple and expansive as a haiku, encapsulating the full range of Mr. Maurer’s wit and intelligence.Until January 27 (2 E. 91st St. at Fifth Avenue, 212-849-8400).

PROVOKING MAGIC: Lighting of Ingo Maurer

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