SCULPTURES
Finch, Spencer
U.S. (1962 - )
The Light at Lascaux (Cave Entrance) Sept 29, 2005 5:27 PM
2005
38 fluorescent light fixtures and lamps with filters and gel filters on clear acrylic tubes
21 1/4 x 192 x 3 1/8 in. overall
Gift of William and Ruth True
FA 2014.300

Spencer Finch is interested in the shifting nature of human perception with specific regard to light. To create this piece, Finch meticulously recorded the quality of light at the border between the bright entrance of the famous Lascaux caves in the Dordogne region of France and their shadowy interior. The position of the light tubes exactly mirrors the angle of a mountain that is positioned across the valley from the cave’s entrance. The tubes’ colors have been chosen to reference the tones of the surrounding landscape as well as the pigments of the cave’s Paleolithic paintings, which are believed to be more than seventeen thousand years old. The artist utilizes light to make an abstract version of a site-specific experience in an apparent attempt to recreate an illuminated landscape, but also to evoke a specific time of the day and place.

Spencer Finch was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1962. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn. Finch received his MFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and his BA in comparative literature from Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He spent two years studying at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, which greatly influenced his interest in the perceptual effects of light. Finch’s work has been a part of numerous group exhibitions and is currently the subject of a solo exhibition at the FRAC Basse-Normandie in Caen, France. -- Guidebook copy for The Ghost of Architecture, July 13 to September 29, 2013.