Stephen Antonakos: Proscenium
On View Now
Created in 2000 by light artist Stephen Antonakos, Proscenium animates the vast, darkened space of the Museum’s Theater Gallery with vibrant, saturated color, glowing light, and calligraphic line.
Antonakos (1926–2013) was a pioneer in the use of neon as a fine art. In a career that spanned over five decades, he created illuminated works for indoor rooms and outdoor spaces around the world including the United States, Greece, Japan, Germany, France, and Israel. As the artist observed, “For me neon is not aggressive, but it has certain powers. I simply thought so much more could be done with it abstractly than with words and images. I had a feeling that it could connect with people in real, immediate, kinetic, and spatial ways.”
Antonakos’s neon installations are classic studies in light, space, and form. Using a simple, minimal vocabulary of straight and undulating lines and incomplete circles and squares, his luminous environments are both tangible and transcendent. According to Antonakos, “Visual experience is inner experience. What I hope to do is offer access to a more intense, heightened kind of experience. One that is more conscious, more open.” Of course, the essence of this experience is light, which from time immemorial has been associated with spirituality and the divine presence.
The formal, radiant beauty of Proscenium evokes this mystical relationship.
Stephen Antonakos: Proscenium is organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY. This monumental site-specific neon installation was commissioned for the Museum twenty-five years ago. Generous support for this exhibition is provided by the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art.