How could something make you feel so serene, meditative, peaceful–something that’s made of fluorescent tubes? Is there something about light that makes things look ethereal? I even remember sketching the works to see if there were any patterns. But they were all just a few types of ordinary fluorescent tubes put together. But they were beautiful.
I asked a staff member there, who told me that in fact, yes, they will expire someday in the future. According to what he’d heard, people who purchased the work received a couple of spare tubes, which I guess was part of the idea because they were mundane objects at the time. Now, ironically, those tubes are becoming harder to find. So a body of work that most likely raised questions about mass production is now something akin to a candle. It is literally burning away its finite resources, as long as it is being exhibited.
And so the works now possess a unique quality of being static, yet finite. Unlike traditional paintings and sculptures. I found this to be an interesting example of how context changes the meaning of things.
