Light Artwork Herman Kuijer
Painting with Light supports Herman Kuijer's Light Artwork on new Dutch Collection Centre building
CATEGORIES Specials
During these dark wintertime, the Dutch Collection Centre (CC NL) switches on the light art installation that Herman Kuijer has made especially for their new building. The installation comprises a large number of light beams that create slowly evolving, ever-changing patterns on the building in Amersfoort, next to the A28. The CC NL is where the Holland Open Air Museum, Paleis Het Loo Museum, the Cultural Heritage Agency of The Netherlands, and the Rijksmuseum manage a large proportion of their art collections.
Herman Kuijer (b. 1953) has been making light installations around the Netherlands since the late 1970s, often for public or semi-public spaces. His best-known works include the Marstunnel in Zutphen, Westpoint in Tilburg, Parktheater in Eindhoven and the A2 underpass connecting Meern with Utrecht. Various private and corporate collections include work by Kuijer.
Vidisquare and Painting with Light supported the light artist to 'shine his light' over the new building. Herman Kuijer’s artwork comprises 28 movable light sources placed around the upper part of the building, producing beams of soft white light that move very slowly in completely random directions over the building’s exterior. Variations in the direction and intensity of the light, as well as the expanse of the beams and the speed of their motion, give rise to new and subtle, ever-changing compositions. Painting with Light managed the visualisation and programming of the light and show control system, tested in advance in WYSIWYG simulation sessions with the artist.
As the (white) light slowly moves, it reveals every time a new composition. This is however not so easy as it looks, the artist explains: "I used complicated systems to create something very simple at first sight. Yet it's a process of several years and studying the building very thoroughly."
"The light casts a soft shroud over a hard building. Inside, cultural institutions are freezing time by carefully conserving their collections; outside, intangible time slips by." Herman Kuijer.
