(Uerdingen 1912–1990 Krefeld)
Concave mirror object, 1967, on the reverse signed, dated and dedicated Luther 67, 5 x 5 square concave lenses, Plexiglass frame, mirror plate, wooden plate, 91.5 x 91.5 x 3.4 cm, in Plexiglass box

Provenance:
From the estate of Fritz Becker, Düsseldorf

The works of Adolf Luther render light as an immaterial, complex reality that does not exhaust itself. The light is therefore object and predicate of the work. The concave mirror-objects serve as instruments, whereby their instrumental function consists in their optically multiplying the existing reality with the help of many identical concave semi-transparent mirrors or lenses, which are backed with a black plate or other mirrors. The mirror is a serial reflection medium of the light, only open in one direction, which “centrifuges the flection of the images from its interior, whose focal point lies outside itself, briefly stated, which projects the pictures back where they come from: into the three-dimensional real space.”
(Ralph Merten, Adolf Luther - Am Anfang war das Licht, Stuttgart 1987, p. 194)

According to one’s position, the viewer sees the ‘fore image’ as a reverse appearance, both irritating and fascinating at the same time. The instrument of the mirrors reflects and interacts with every moving appearance that it takes up from the exterior, and which it projects back as a bundled reverse image into the room. The object can only perform its function when viewed by the observer. Adolf Luther’s mirror object is arranged in 5 x 5 series of semi-transparent concave lenses. The viewer is expected to move in front of the object, for only in this manner is the complex experience which the artist intended conveyed: that of conceiving light and the surrounding space in repeatedly new ways. A special feature of this mirror object by Adolf Luther is its very small structural depth, measuring only 3.4 cm. This immediacy, combined with the fact the the lenses are coated with a delicate layer of gold by a vapour deposition process, lead to an even more fascinating optical effect.