Exhibition puts new spin on night light

From starlight to sunshine, from candles to bonfires, humans have always been drawn to light.

“It’s as essential to us as air, food and water,” says Steve Feren, professor of art at UW–Madison. “We’re hard-wired to be attracted to light.”

Consequently, Feren says he expects thousands to attend the free light art exhibition on Friday and Saturday, April 16 and 17, at the UW–Madison Stock Pavilion, 1675 Linden Drive. Exhibition hours are from 7-11 p.m. both days.

Feren has been organizing the shows every other year since 1988. “They keep getting bigger,” he observes, noting that the 2004 edition will offer about 125 pieces from 100 artists, fully half of them UW–Madison students.

Feren says that this year about 30 professional artists from around the country will exhibit, as well as students who are attending UW-Stevens Point, the Chicago Art Institute, the Pratt Institute, the New York State Institute of Art and Design, Salisbury State College in Maryland, the Kansas City Art Institute and more. Feren says exhibitors will work in holography, neon, projection, lasers, candles and other media. Feren and colleagues who teach similar light art courses at other institutions chose the pieces.

In a sense, this show will be the last hurrah of the art department’s old glass lab on Monroe Street, across from the UW Field House and Camp Randall. Along with the university’s Sculpture Foundry, the glass lab next fall will move to new space on Bedford Street where the UW Surplus building used to be located.

Meanwhile, Feren says that students exhibiting in this show will have an opportunity to follow their work out into the real world and see how their pieces play to other people.

“Exhibiting your work brings a sense of connection to others,” he says. “After all, art is about communication. You shouldn’t keep it to yourself.”

The show has moved from its traditional Library Mall venue to the Stock Pavilion, in recognition of Wisconsin’s erratic spring weather, Feren says. For more information, contact him at (608) 262-2963 or 262-1660, or sfferen@wisc.edu.