Spectacular. An exploration of light by Vera Lutter at MAST

The MAST Foundation hosts the exhibition SPECTACULAR. An exploration of light by German artist Vera Lutter, curated by Francesco Zanot.

Overview

The exhibition brings together for the first time in the world, in a unified path, a wide selection of photographs, made from the 1990s to the present, on the themes of industry, work and infrastructure for the movement of things and people.

The MAST's Photo Galleries host 20 large-scale works - unique pieces because of the particular technique with which they are made - from museums and private collections, as well as an installation and a series of largely unpublished materials documenting the photographer's creative process, set up in a path that allows visitors to traverse her entire career.

All the images in the exhibition are made with the help of large darkrooms the size of an entire room, which are specially constructed each time and set up in front of the subjects. A small hole is cut in one wall of the darkroom through which light penetrates inside, while on the opposite wall one or more sheets of sensitive paper are hung to capture the image of the outside world. Here the exposure times are extremely prolonged and can last from a few minutes to entire days, sometimes even months.

Curator Francesco Zanot says, “These are spectacular works because they focus on the experience of the public by transporting them to a dimension that transcends the ordinary.”  

Through her work, Vera Lutter highlights the monumental character of the places and objects she represents. It is not just a matter of scale, but of temporality. Among the subjects on display: the Zeppelin (the largest flying machine ever built), the Effelsberg radio telescope (with a record diameter of 100 meters), the Pepsi Cola factory on Long Island. 

A darkroom has been set up at the top of the entrance ramp to the Photo Galleries at MAST as an atelier space for the public and for educational activities for children in order to illustrate the technique used by Vera Lutter to create her works.

SPECTACULAR. An Exploration of Light is accompanied by a catalog, published by MAST Foundation, containing more than forty images, including all the works on display, which is a fundamental and comprehensive tool on the relationship between Vera Lutter's work and the industrial subject. The catalog is available for purchase at MAST.Point.