About the Exhibition
The shimmering, shifting spectrum of color emanating from the nine-story interior solarium is Astrid Krogh’s Lightmail, a three-part fiber optic tapestry woven on a loom in the artist’s Copenhagen studio. Renowned as a leading innovator in the intersecting fields of textile design, technology, and architectural intervention, Astrid Krogh anchors her designs to new technologies by weaving lengths of optic strands into iridescent tapestries that glow and illuminate in a rainbow of colors. The fibers are connected to monitors that radiate the lights in sequence, creating an ever-changing flow of colors, which are further enhanced and altered by changes in atmospheric light in the surrounding environment. Krogh designed Lightmail in response to the dramatic vertical space of the solarium, as well as to the patterns of sunlight and darkness to which the work is directly exposed.
“I begin each commission by traveling to the site to look at existing light, the flow of human traffic, and the general buzz around it,” says the artist, “I set out to truly integrate my work into the space so that it becomes a part of it. Each building has a unique atmosphere; every space has its soul. My work is born out of feeling, yet, takes shape according to the physical characteristics of the space.”
Lightmail is one of Krogh’s most ambitious site-specific works; it both transforms and connects the building’s spaces—both vertically and horizontally—and heightens viewers’ awareness of the natural and built environments. Krogh reinterprets an ancient craft with new materials and techniques to create an array of ever-shifting, interactive experiences that are both magical and mysterious.
About the artist
Born and educated in Denmark, Astrid Krogh lives and works in Copenhagen. Krogh’s work has been featured in exhibitions and galleries in the US and Europe. Since 1998, Krogh has completed commissions and architectural collaborations commissioned by the Danish State Railways, the Government of Norway, the Danish Parliament, the Royal Danish Library, the Netherlands National Health Authority, Maersk, Velux, and Coloplast. Lightmail is Krogh’s first architectural collaboration in the US.
