Sunset Noir, 2005
Information about the artwork
- MaterialOil and acrylic on canvas, UV light
- Dimensions215.9 x 279.4 cm
- Year of acquisition2013
- Inventory numberUAB 1126
- On viewOn view
- Copyright© Jaqueline Humphries. Courtesy the artist and Greene Naftali, New York. Photo: Johannes Haslinger, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich
More about the artwork
The American artist Jacqueline Humphries is known for her abstract painterly oeuvre, which traces the influences of pop culture and digital technology. The series “Black Light Paintings” from 2005 presents radiant compositions with sweeping gestural brushstrokes and expressive traces of color. At Museum Brandhorst, the paintings are displayed under the same conditions in which they were created: in darkness, under black light, which makes the fluorescent pigments glow. In fact, the images only gradually become visible as they are painted. The more color Humphries applies, the brighter the studio becomes. Her works themselves thus illuminate the surrounding space, reminiscent of how screens light up workspaces and private living rooms today—or, in the form of advertising, entire cityscapes. In this way, Humphries addresses a fundamental theme of painting—the staging of light—transforming it from a question of depiction into one of materiality. That the black light evokes nightclubs more than exhibition spaces is intentional. She revives gestural-abstract painting—the epitome of modern art—under the visual language of the club culture of those years, when black light and neon colors defined the aesthetics of raves and nightlife.
