Yuki Nakamura

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• Jasper Johns
• Dan Flavin
• Yuki Nakamura
• Thomas Edison

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Making art of light bulbs is nothing new (see: Dan Flavin and Jasper Johns). But local artist Yuki Nakamura adds a witty few watts to the old form in her “Illuminant” collection. At first glance, some of her wall-mounted fixtures appear to be painted over—bulbs deprived of purpose, dark inside the white paint. But they’re actually cast in porcelain, incapable of current. Other installations, however, you can plug in. A glowing red light box supports a cross-shaped array of her inert bulbs; the frame supplies the light and visual interest, while the projecting orbs become dark spots of relief. In the long, broken tunnel of Filament Structure, C-shaped porcelain arches rest over LED light tubes. Each vault is perforated, yielding little doodles—a flower, a crown, a heart—rendered in pin-pricks of light. The stenciled shapes suggest filaments, which LED lights actually lack. Thomas Edison would not approve. BRIAN MILLER
Tuesdays-Saturdays, 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Starts: Jan. 7. Continues through Jan. 30, 2010