MATRIX X
Erwin Redl
May 9 - 12, 2003
Chicago Navy Piers
Photo © 2003 CharlieSamuels.com
Artist Erwin Redl continued his MATRIX series in 2003 with his light installation MATRIX X for Art Chicago 2003 at the Chicago Navy Piers. Each version in this series consisted of a different, large-scale manifestation of the archetypical grid structure. Pure light emitted by tiny electronic LED components used in those pieces became the perfect medium to transfer the mental space of abstraction into sensual architectural installations.
MATRIX X used three grids of LEDs, each of them employing 9,000 red lights in 200-foot long and 35-foot high curtains of LEDs hanging from the dark, vaulted ceiling of the Chicago Navy Piers. These three light curtains with a total of 27,000 LEDs were positioned in the three perpendicular cross-sections of the large exhibition hall. Embedded in the structure of this enormous architectural volume the installation focused and redistributed the inherent spatial energy of the exhibition hall. The installation’s light curtains floating in the empty space between ceiling and gallery area held the spatial integrity of the hall, fragmented by numerous temporary gallery walls, together.
Erwin Redl's large-scale light installations have been shown extensively in North America, Europe and Asia. Creative Time presented the MATRIX series at the 2002 Whitney Biennial, covering the facade of the Whitney Museum in New York, at Calvin Klein in a commission for his Madison Avenue flagship store in Manhattan, and at the Brooklyn Anchorage in an exhibition produced. The artist holds an MFA in Computer Art from School of Visual Arts, New York and a BA in Composition and Electronic Music from the Music Academy, Vienna, Austria. He has lived and worked in New York since 1993.
