Since 2010, I have had the good fortune of working with many excellent curators, designers and lighting specialists setting, and in some cases designing, the lighting for over 100 exhibitions.
lighting
Selecting the most effective and appropriate lighting is vital when considering the protection of your artworks. Not only is this important for creating the best design and display outcomes, but it will also ensure the protection and conservation value of your artworks. Ultraviolet and infrared radiation - which naturally come from the sun - can cause artworks to deteriorate quickly. Avoiding direct sunlight should always be a priority when it comes to selecting the display location of your artwork - minimising indirect sunlight and UV, and reducing overall light levels (intensity) should also be an important consideration for the display of photographs, watercolours and other artworks that have been made with light sensitive materials.
selecting lights
Light fixtures (in the museum and gallery worlds they are referred to as luminaires) come in many different shapes, sizes, functionality, quality and affordability. There are also a dizzying number of products on the market.
The majority of light fixtures manufactured today use LED (light emitting diode) technology, and have taken over the market from incandescent and fluorescent lights. LEDs have a number of great benefits for use in lighting artworks:
they don’t emit any (or negligible) UV
are far more energy efficient than older generation lights
don’t become hot to touch (a major benefit when it comes to setting up exhibition lighting!), and
can be dimmed without the colour profile changing (incandescent lights become yellower the lower they are dimmed).
At the upper end of the lighting market are DALI and DMX-enabled light fixtures, which combined with a digital control system and interface, offer a range of integration and flexibility that was not possible with older lighting technologies. Essentially, this means that each individual light can be dimmed up or down to suit your lighting design and conservation needs. Before the introduction of these control systems and fixtures, lights could only be dimmed via:
individual track - i.e. if 2, 3 or 10 lights were attached to a light track, they would all dim at the same rate, or
an individual light could be dimmed manually via a dimming dial (i.e. for lights with that feature)
track lights, recessed lights, picture-lights….
Lighting an artwork, or an entire exhibition, can be complex - it can also be easy. When entering a major art gallery, it is common to see a wide range of lighting methods and products used, from wall washers, which create an even ‘wash’ of light over a wall, to framing luminaires used to sharply delineate an artwork with sharp edges (and a myriad of other techniques and luminaires in between!).
But…, selecting an effective lighting method can also be relatively straightforward by taking into consideration the type of artwork/s being displayed, the space, and the existing infrastructure (electrical/building).
For the home or commercial environment, it might be as simple as replacing the LED lights in your ceiling fixtures with a different colour profile - most commonly, 3000K (warm), 4000K (cool), 5000K (daylight) - that better suit the artworks (and the atmosphere you are after).
Residential and commercial
As mentioned above, an effective lighting choice can be as cheap as changing the colour profile of your LED lamp. If you are willing and able to spend more, the options are wide open, from simple switch controls to fully automated systems and to lights mounted on or in ceilings, tracks or on walls.
ceiling-mounted lights are attached to ceiling surfaces or recessed, and placed to provide the correct angle and distance from artworks to avoid irritating glare. A range of beam and fixture ‘types’ are also available to suit the artworks and your design ideas, such as:
spots and floods, which provide a tight beam designed to illuminate only the artwork surface (i.e. none of the surrounding walls and other surfaces), and
wall washers, that provide a gentle all over ‘wash’ of light across artworks and surrounding surfaces.
track lights offer greater flexibility where changing light fixtures and positions is desired. Today’s market offers a wide range of products to suit budgets and design ideas.
picture-lights, like today’s track lights, come in a wide range of styles and types. A picture-light is either attached to the frame or to the wall directly above an individual artwork.
beam types
After choosing the type of attachment for your light fixtures (recessed ceiling, track, etc), selecting the beam type is next. A range of lights and lenses are available that create different types of light distribution.
spots are characterised by a tight, circular beam of light
floods distribute light across a larger area than spots, and distribute light in a circular of oval shape
framing light fixtures enable the user to create sharply delineates edges
wall washers are designed to ‘wash’ large sections of wall with an even and subtle spread of light
spots, floods, framers and washers
All four types of light distribution were used when lighting the exhibition, Body Language, a National Gallery of Australia touring show which I worked on for both the installation and lighting.
Due to the relatively small space and wide range and types of artwork displayed, it was a challenge finding the most effective combination of lights and lenses.
washing and accenting
For this section of the exhibition, Body Language, I used a combination of wall washers, framers and floods.
A series of wall washers were dimmed to a low low light level (measured as lux) so as to avoid ‘dead’ areas - especially in the corner. Framing lights were used to ‘cut’ in around the edges of the two paintings, seen on the left, so that they appear to be illuminated from behind. Framing also allows illumination without creating an excess of ambient light. A flood was used to illuminate the sculptural works and in the case, creates a soft, restful effect.
top and bottom left: both paintings by Arthur Koo'ekka Pambegan Jnr 1936 – 2010
Wik-Waya/Chaa-Ngkoth/Wik Mungkan/Winchanam peoples
Untitled XXXXI (Body Paint Design - Three Ancestral Figures) 2010
Untitled XXXX (Body Paint Design — Two Ancestral Figures) 2010
collection of the National Gallery of Australia