(Uerdingen 1912–1990 Krefeld)
Optogon (optical glass stele), c.1982, optical lenses, glass, Plexiglas, 206 x 36 x 50 cm (incl. plinth), in Plexiglas frame, (PS)

Certificate:
Magdalena Broska, Adolf-Luther-Stiftung, Krefeld, 2.12.2013
The work is registered by the Adolf Luther Foundation under the catalogue number Opt/82/011.

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

“Still adhering to the construction principle of light sluices, Adolf Luther filled the interstitial spaces in his optogons with optical lenses or plastic lenses in an arbitrary and casual manner. (...) These optogons shine out as the first precision instrument to work with light – yet Luther succeeds in using them to make visible the concrete laws of light, what one might call the virtual-real partial moments of its figurative nature, in an equally concrete manner. While the lenses bend light, within the prism light is broken; both variations on the mimetic adaption of light; little by little, reflection and refraction encourage detailed knowledge about ourselves to be revealed. (...) The doubled qualification of light, the maturing of theoretical concepts and their artistic application heralds the last step on the path to the “object”, to an energetic sculpture in light. The ability of the lens to reflect images of light conceals the key to its secret. (...) It is not the lens but the image in the lens that constitutes perception.Thus the optogon marks the concrete start of a shift in the location of the art, with overwhelming consequences.(...) The mode of light is movement – the place of light is the space – and the lens becomes a significant setting for movement in the space. Consequently, the direction of the optogon’s movement is clear: away from introspective encapsulation in artificial interior spaces, and out into the concrete world; away from the closed, non-functionalised visual accents, to become the hermetically functional instrument.” (Ralph Merten, Adolf Luther – Am Anfang war das Licht, Stuttgart 1987, p.182f)

“Light consists of images”
(Adolf Luther)