Christian Herdeg: Neon Delight

21 November 2019—25 January 2020

The works of Christian Herdeg oscillate between function and impression, making the optical and physical properties of light sensually tangible with large-format colored light fields and geometric forms.

Christian Herdeg is a pioneer of light art – for more than forty years he has dealt with the different properties of light and harmonizes the medium’s affinity for minimalism with a unique color poetry. In search of a new aesthetic, Herdeg stages light and color in all its facets, parallels and contrasts. In doing so, Herdeg works with the natural property of light to expand, skillfully contrasts, yes, shapes the light itself, locks it in, opening up new freedom for it.

Herdeg makes impressive use of its formative power and its painterly qualities in the prominently placed “Lichtarbe I” and “Lichtgarbe II” of argon and neon tubes. The light tubes bundled like stalks amaze with their irregular arrangement, which seems to slightly break out of Herdeg’s sober formal vocabulary. However, if attention is turned to the diffuse atmospheric effect when the light hits the wall, the creative aspect of Herdeg’s work becomes visible, creating a painterly color gradient on the wall surface.

Herdeg impressively combines neon and black light tubes with monochrome colored surfaces in the “Micro” works as well as in “Nightcrawlers”. The planar surface acts expanding or limiting and creates a balance between emanation and absorption of the light.

The imagery of these objects oscillates between material object and immaterial color lighting design. The optical color spaces created in this way look as picturesque as a painting. Christian Herdeg sums up this extremely present quality when he says that the tubes are his pencils.

Once again, this is illustrated by his black-light work “Icon” and “Launch Pad”. The strictly geometrically arranged black light tubes give the work a dark, linear frame and stand in strong contrast to the monochrome color surfaces of fluorescent color. The lighting of the color areas with black light creates a unique visual plasticity that looks a bit surreal, but is visually as well as haptically attractive and simply captivatingly beautiful.

Christian Herdeg (* 1942) lives and works in Zurich. His works have been shown regularly in solo and group exhibitions worldwide since the early 1970s, such as Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich Switzerland (2016); Centrum Kunstlicht in de Kunst, Eindhoven, Netherlands (2009); Kunstmuseum Celle, Celle, Germany (2007); Gewerbemuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland (2007); ZKM, Center for Art and Media Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany (2005); Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland (1982).

In addition, numerous light objects by Christian Herdeg were installed in the public space, among them Canton Hospital Graubünden, Chur, Switzerland; University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Roche Diagnostics France, Meylan, France; Nydalen High School, Oslo, Norway; St. Moritz, Switzerland; Yongsan family park, Seoul, South Korea; UBS, Luxembourg; Allianz Versicherungen, Munich, Germany.