Adolf Luther

Using light as a material and overcoming the conventional forms of artistic representation are the characteristics of the work of Adolf Luther, one of the most important exponents of Op Art, Light Art and Conceptual Art in Germany. In the wake of the ZERO movement, his distinctive mirror objects, sculptures and light installations not only widened the conception of art in the late sixties and early seventies, but completely reinvented it. Adolf Luther’s works, as severe as they are poetical, still exert a special fascination, not least because, through his preoccupation with light, the artist wanted to formulate a new concept of reality and open our eyes to a view beyond the world that can be perceived with the senses. In its exhibition, Galerie Thomas Modern is presenting not only a number of light and mirror steles, but also one of Adolf Luther’s earliest Laser Rooms, which were ground breaking at the time.

“The entire paradox of light is that it includes everything that is visible, but is invisible itself.” (Adolf Luther)

Adolf Luther was born in Uerdingen in 1912 and, at first, studied jurisprudence in Bonn. While still active as a lawyer and judge, he was already artistically active, predominantly with painting. From 1958, he concentrated on light and movement as working material, and abandoned his bourgeois profession to concentrate entirely on art. Adolf Luther became one of the main representatives of Light Art, Op Art and Conceptual Art in Germany. Numerous exhibitions, important orders for public works of art, and his inclusion in important museum collections testify to his importance for the development of the art of his age and to the present day. Adolf Luther died in Krefeld in 1990.