The Blue Hour

Athenaeum Music & Arts Library

In this exhibition there are three components–artist’s books, light sculptures and a Tyvek sculpture. Conceptual and physical threads connect the artworks, including luminosity, color, and materiality. All of these works were created over the past two years specifically for the Athenaeum to provide viewers a moment of pause, contemplation, and awe.

Through my work, I address today’s world by challenging isolation, loneliness, and disconnection through activating color and light in artwork. Light and color are connected. They are central tenets in my artistic practice and are often what engages viewers at first glance. The works in exhibition have a powerful ability to engage viewers on multiple levels–physically, emotionally, and intellectually. By exploring the interplay between light, color, movement, and materiality, I have created a space for introspection and emotional connection in a world that often grapples with darkness and isolation.

The Blue Hour is the period of twilight (in the morning or evening) when the sun dips below the horizon. During this time, the remaining sunlight can take on a mostly blue shade. Because the moment before sunrise and sunset evokes impressions, memories, contemplation, and moments of reflection, the artworks in the exhibition are tied to the natural world and can be read as landscapes. I often walk or swim before sunrise and I love the quite moments before, during, and just after sunrise. It is magical. For me, light is a medium, a reflection of time and place, and a metaphor for life. The notion of the blue hour is more than a time of day, it is a state of mind; of calmness and feeling. Color is a life force.

Materials play an important role in my work. Tyvek is a malleable, flexible, paper-like, non-porous material that I create into 3-dimensional forms. Metallics and iridescent paints are used for their lustrous quality. I utilize intuition and gesture as powerful tools that come from years of experience. My work iterates from one body of work to the next; concepts and ideas overlap, intertwine and connect there is a thread running through. For example there is an exploration in scale between the intimate, personal hand-held Libraries connect both color and rhythm with color saturation of the larger, more public Luminous Flux with its large swaths of color and rhythm of up and down. And the more activated light from within LightWindows share materiality with the Luminous Flux both in tyvek, color pallet, and a physical transformation when lit from behind. All of the works highlight light as a metaphor for life.

In this way, the artworks reflect years of research into the work of Viktor Frankl. Color and light become a state of mind, of calmness, emergent energy, and feeling. Frankl says ”Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” In The Blue Hour, light and dark become metaphors for transformation, optimism and pathways forward.

Luminous Flux

Luminous Flux reflects Labovitz’s large-scale response to the idea of ‘the blue hour’. Creating artwork at this scale requires full-bodied engagement, which incorporates the artist’s physical movement, purposeful composition, and intense color saturation. Labovitz painted both sides of a 4-foot-wide Tyvek surface over 476 feet long. Autobiographically, the artist uses this work to document her process, in this case over the course of one year. Iridescent paint is used for its enchanting and mesmerizing qualities. There is an unfolding narrative found in Luminous Flux, written in horizontal loops and undulating folds—a metaphor for life, highlighting its pleasures, moments of ease, and challenges.

Blue Hour LightWindow I- III

Drawing on earlier exploration with light, these three Blue Hour LightWindows are part of a larger series and reflect Labovitz’s latest investigation into light. Conceptually, there is a harnessing of light emanating from within, instead of utilizing external sources such as gallery lights. In this way, the light becomes a medium and is integral to the work. The LightWindows are created by wrapping painted Tyvek around a custom-made plexiglass box and illuminated within by hundreds of LED lights. The works are painted on both sides, providing a sense of transformation: magical luminosity, depth, and luster. When the lights are off they are deeply saturated textural works.

Libraries Series

Anne Labovitz’s Libraries series features artist-made books which reflect the interconnection between light, color, and materiality on an intimate scale. The libraries consist of 500 books and were created over this past year, directly reflecting the marking of time, experiences, and places through the artist’s life and travels. The titles refer to each location and latitude where Labovitz painted the books. Each book is unique, individually painted and meticulously hand-folded. Held in plexiglass bookshelves designed by the artist, the libraries are presented as volumes. Labovitz has been working with artists’ books since her previous Athenaeum exhibition in 2010, Passions. “I love the intimacy of turning the page,” she says, “with each turn of the page our physical action changes our perception.”

Blue Hour I (Selections of Luminous Flux)

These works are fragments from the larger work Luminous Flux. Taking components from larger works and encasing them in plexiglass is a recurring process that I employ. The larger works are monumental and these works are intimate, and so this process changes the viewer’s perspective of the works. They were encased in plexiglass and mounted five inches from the wall to allow for light to interplay with the object.