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Zden\u011bk Pe\u0161\u00e1nek. Torsos of Men and Women (1936)<\/em>\u00a0 [1]
<\/p>\n “Artificial Light Art pioneers such as the Czech artist Zden\u011bk Pe\u0161\u00e1nek illustrate the great attraction that artifical light has held for artists for almost a century. It is impossible for me to look at Pe\u0161\u00e1nek\u2019s work on display without thinking of his contemporary Siegfried Kracauer who conceived of electricity and light as pure flows \u2013 part of a modernity\u2019s machinic libidinality. Long before Dan Flavin discovered the fluorescent tube Pe\u0161\u00e1nek was using neon and other artifical media to make Light Art. He projected light using what he called a spectrophone Zden\u011bk Pe\u0161\u00e1nek. Kinetic Sculpture for Prague\u2019s Edison Power Station <\/em>[1]
<\/p>\n “Pe\u0161\u00e1nek shows us an entirely new way to understand the formal qualities of Russian Constructivism in the shapes which merge to make the Edison sculpture. From its origins Light Art showed that it could be both interesting and artful by using artifical light and technology.
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and was asked by the organizers of the 1937 Paris World Fair to make two fountains of light using neon tubing. He was also hired by the Prague electric utility to make light sculptures. Among these were his abstract Torsos of Men and Women<\/em> a work in which the illusion of movement is created by the electric circuitry alternating power to the light tubes. It is an unusual type of kinetic light work for its time that soon descended into the predictable in the hands of advertisers. Paris would endure the kinetic banality of the \u201cCitr\u00f6en\u201d logo on the Eiffel Tower for many years. Pe\u0161\u00e1nek also made the kinetic light sculpture which adorned the roof of Edison Power Station in Prague.” [1]<\/p>\n![](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/u14\/1243069061.jpeg\")
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\nTechnology is however a double-edged sword for Light Art. While it can be used to deploy artifical light in artistic ways, it is also possible that the technology overwhelms the artwork producing neither illusion nor interest. Pe\u0161\u00e1nek set Light Art on a higher course than it would always find itself. Before examining these failures it is important to look at some of the other successful (artful) uses of artifical light for making art.” [1]<\/p>\n
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