(Uerdingen 1912–1990 Krefeld)
Concave mirror object, 1984, on the reverse signed, dated Luther 84, with the red stamps “Sehen ist schön”, “Energetische Plastik”, “Festival Mondprojekt 2000”, 12 x 12 square, concave mirrors, plexiglass plate, nails, small wooden spacer for each mirror, black wooden plate, 76.5 x 76.5 x 12 cm, plexiglass box, (PS)

The work is registered by the Adolf Luther Foundation, Krefeld, under the archive no. HSP 84-009

Provenance:
Private Collection, North Rhine-Westphalia, directly from the artist

The distinguishing feature of the 12 x 12 concave mirror object lies in the arrangement of the small concave mirrors, each of which is positioned in a subtly different manner, facing the viewer. This generates a dynamic space around the mirrors in a variety of ways. When the viewer changes position, the placement of the various concave mirrors enables the work to appear simultaneously both more confusing and more fascinating: not only changes in position, but also changes in lighting conditions allow Luther’s artwork to be viewed anew.

“The characteristic feature of the serial sequence of identical parts is simplicity: Luther proposed a sense of simplicity in order to exclude any intrinsic aesthetic value, determined by such an individual composition. This is because the concave mirrors serve, in the first instance, as instruments. They face the room in front of them, which they – in contrast to all hermetic structures – reflect as well as optically dynamise. On the one hand, the instrumental function of the concave mirrors consists in the multiplication of a given reality into a multiplicity of unreal, often inverted phenomena that irritate the spectator, and, on the other hand, in the creation of a kind of pure phenomenality within the space, thereby transforming the space itself into an otherwise invisible, light-flooded realm of energy. The concave mirror objects create their phenomenality prior to the materiality of the object.“
Max Imdahl, Bemerkungen über Luthers Spiegelobjekte, in exhib. cat. Luther Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1974, p. 5