Contemporary artist Spencer Finch.
GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet: What are you working on?
Spencer Finch: I just finished a piece for the Art Institute of Chicago. Titled Lunar, it harnesses the power of the sun, gathering energy during the day and releasing that energy after dark. I used a colorimeter, collecting data during the July 2011 full moon in Chicago. The solar-powered sculpture now glows with the exact color of moonlight throughout the evening hours, transforming sunlight into moonlight on the Bluhm Family Terrace. The base of the sculpture is based on the Apollo Lunar Module, used by the United States on space missions in 1969–72, which carried astronauts from the spacecraft’s Command/Service Module to the moon’s surface and back. The top of the module is an enlarged version of a Buckminster Fuller’s buckyball. I figured that there were probably enough literal pictures of the moon, so I began thinking about the form of moonlight and how it is actually reflected sunlight. This led me to explore the use of solar power to generate the light of the moon.
GLASS: How does glass function in your work?
Spencer: It’s a physical medium that allows me to manipulate the immateriality of light which is my real interest.
Spencer Finch, production drawing for Lunar, 2011. courtesy: the artist and production plus/phil huber. © spencer finch
GLASS: What have you seen lately that inspires you?
Spencer: Larry Bell, Bruce Nauman, and Robert Irwin works in the “Phenomenal” exhibition currently up at The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
GLASS: Where can we see your work?
Spencer: Lunar is open at the Art Institute of Chicago. I have a solo show opening October 19th in Rome at Erica Fiorentini Gallery a solo show opening in February 2012 at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Museum of Art, Providence, Rhode Island, and a solo show opening at Lisson Gallery in London in March 2012.
—Kim Harty