Light

This summer, Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz presents ‘Light,’ a group exhibition exploring how artists engage with the phenomenon of light across media, form and concept. Curated by Angeliki Kim Perfetti, the show features works by Larry Bell, Frank Bowling, Martin Creed, Jenny Holzer and Pipilotti Rist. Each artist offers a distinct perspective, highlighting light’s continued resonance in contemporary artistic practice.

Perfetti’s curatorial approach is shaped by her upbringing in northern Swedish Lapland, where extreme shifts between summer brightness and winter darkness — often punctuated by the Northern Lights — made light a defining element of daily life. She notes, ‘Light continues to symbolize knowledge and transformation — from yin and yang in Chinese philosophy to the Enlightenment in the West. The artists in this exhibition use light to shift perception, ignite emotion and question authority.’

Light has long played a central role in art history. From Vilhelm Hammershøi’s atmospheric interiors and William Turner’s explorations of luminosity to the Impressionists’ studies of perception, artists have continually examined how light shapes visual experience. Frank Bowling carries this tradition forward through layered abstraction, influenced by the landscapes of his native Guyana and the treatment of light in works by Gainsborough, Constable and Turner. His painting ‘Untitled’ (ca. 1978), a vibrant acrylic and collage on canvas, evokes the warmth of a sunset — its layered colors capturing fleeting light in motion.

Larry Bell approaches light as a physical phenomenon shaped by material and space. A coated glass sculpture on view exemplifies this, transforming light into a dynamic perceptual experience. ‘Although we tend to think of glass as a window,’ Bell explains, ‘it is a solid liquid that has at once three distinctive qualities: it reflects light, it absorbs light, and it transmits light all at the same time.’

Pipilotti Rist engages light on a different register — emotional, immersive and metaphorical. A pioneer of spatial video art, she creates installations that flood environments with saturated color and glowing projections. Her new work for the St. Moritz exhibition, ‘Tine füllt das Öl nach <Tine refills the oil>’ (2025), features a glowing vertical screen set in sanded red acrylic glass within a mirrored frame. Radiating saturated color and scattered with translucent forms, the piece immerses viewers in a sensory field where light, reflection and surface blur the boundaries between technology and nature, perception and the subconscious.

Jenny Holzer is renowned for her text-based works — often in public spaces — which use words to expose systems of power. The redaction paintings on view in St. Moritz continue this critical approach. The metallic leafed surfaces of these works are built over enlarged tracings of heavily redacted government documents, marking the latest phase in Holzer’s painting practice, which explores the ongoing and interconnected tumults in American politics from the era of George W. Bush to the present. Balancing erasure and exposure, these works ‘shed light’ on what is otherwise hidden.

Martin Creed‘s ‘Work No. 2204 DON’T WORRY’ (2015), a multicolor neon sculpture, transforms a casual phrase into a bold visual statement. Part of a series begun in 1999, these illuminated texts hover between irony and sincerity — offering fleeting comfort while asserting a commanding presence. ‘No one can really tell you everything is going to be alright,’ Creed reflects, ‘but I have been very comforted by people saying something like that to me.’

Through varied materials — glass, mirror, paint and projection — the works on view at Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz explore the emotional, political and perceptual dimensions of light in art. In staging the exhibition within the distinct summer light of the Engadin valley, Perfetti extends this theme beyond the gallery walls, allowing the natural light of St. Moritz to become an active extension of the exhibition.

Gallery hours Tue-Sat 11 am – 6 pm

Exhibition Duration 12 July – 30 August 2025

www.hauserwirth.com

Location:
Hauser & Wirth
Via Serlas 22
7500 St. Moritz
Switzerland