Lou Jaworski, L.A., 2021

2021

Medium

Handcut and polished marble and aluminum

Dimensions

125 × 3 cm

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-156232

At first glance, Lou Jaworski's wall piece L.A. (2021) resembles standard neon fluorescent tubes; only upon closer inspection is it apparent that they are actual pink marble columns. Jaworski often explores the limits of materials in his work. In L.A., he cuts thin cylinders out of Portogallo Rosso, giving the solid materiality of the stone the fragile quality of glass. With a light shimmer, a delicate pink stain runs through the marble, which, coming from the Portuguese coastal region, hints at the rising and setting sun. The horizontal arrangement of the five tubes creates the impression of an illuminated space and focuses attention to the surrounding architecture directly impacted by L.A.. The advent of neon lighting had an impact – primarily in public buildings and in the cityscape – on the perception of spaces and how they were designed, through a blanketed, colored lettering. The perceptive influence of neon light on daily life has been utilized by artists in their creative processes and is part of a long material-aesthetic tradition. Jaworski references these and transfers the serial industrial product of the fluorescent tube back into the most traditional sculptural material, stone, thus creating a perceptive ambivalence between materiality, value and industrial progress.