ART REVIEW : All Is Bright, yet Meaning Remains Shrouded : Mechanics Overpower Visual Ideas in ‘Theatre of Light and Motion’

Considering the extraordinary art made with light by James Turrell, Robert Irwin, Doug Wheeler and others, why is so much contemporary neon art banal and disappointing? Take, for instance, “Theatre of Light and Motion,” a show of work by members of the Coalition of Light Artists, at the Brea Gallery through Oct. 20.

Although the exhibition doesn’t include Keith Sonnier, the internationally known light artist who works with neon, it is a representative survey of nationwide trends in art made with light-producing gases. Unfortunately, what that means is a preponderance of perky “decorator” art, some earnestly technological creations and a few overwrought messages of social concern.

Most of the artists use arcs, lines and squiggles of colored light as the equivalent of three-dimensional brush strokes. Some use washes of colored light as the equivalent of mood rings. A few invoke the original, commercial use of neon in lettering and numerals. Still others seem primarily concerned with the characteristics of certain gases under particular conditions.

What’s missing in all of this is a sense of wit and inventiveness or a truly all-embracing sensuality. Far too much of this work simply involves attaching a light source to a pedestrian notion of art.

The only piece in the show that has a plausible conceptual hook is John Bannon’s “Soft Light,” in which a squiggle of light appears to have oozed from a reading lamp to plop on the pages of an open Braille book.

The interchangeability of a purely visual characteristic (in normal parlance, a “soft” light bulb is one that emits a more muted glow) with one that can be felt as well as seen (the “melting” light bulb) echoes the way Braille writing turns the printed word into a textural phenomenon.

In a different spirit, Karl X. Hauser attempts in “Artificial Deceased” to subvert the usual associations of growing things with a yellow happy-face flower “planted” in a pot filled with unplugged transformers. It’s too bad Hauser didn’t push the kitsch content of the piece further; as it stands, his project is too pat and contrived.

Larry Albright’s pieces tend to feature lightning-like streaks of light in glass tubes that zap back and forth or twist upward like a skein of cigarette smoke. While there sometimes is a gentle strain of humor at work (in “Arthur Jr.,” the “spark” of inspiration is literally visible inside the mad-scientist figure’s schematic head), these pieces seem to be more about mechanical craftsmanship than visual ideas.

None of the works transports the viewer into a realm of unusual sensory experience, with the possible exception of Korey Kline’s “Speed of Life.” A stack of monitors displays the rhythmic movements of kinetic plasma, charged particles that exhibit some properties of a gas but also are affected by electrical voltage.

The effect of watching purple vein-like shapes rippling upward in various configurations on quivering orange blobs is quite eerie, rather like glimpsing the internal organs of some otherworldly creature. Yet the piece seems to exist in some nether world between art and science. There’s still too much emphasis on the means and not enough on the meaning.

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When you think about it, most of the memorable works involving light were conceived on an environmental scale: Dan Flavin’s subtle arrangements of colored fluorescent tubes on gallery walls; Sonnier’s painterly use of neon, glass and mirrors; Wheeler’s explorations of sensory perception in room-sized spaces.

What sets these wizards of light apart from the crowd is that, rather than being mesmerized by the mechanics of light, they used it to reinvent the evocative nature of art.

It’s no coincidence that the early work in this genre coincided with the so-called death of painting and widespread interest in paring away all but the most minimal effects from the work of art.

Contemporary art now is preoccupied with a clutch of other matters: irony, pop culture and the nature of beauty. Perhaps there also is room for a new generation of innovative light works that substantially rethink the potential of luminescence to fit the temper of these times.

* “Theatre of Light and Motion” continues through Oct. 20 at the Brea Gallery, 1 Civic Center Circle, Brea. Hours: Noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays; noon to 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays. General admission: $1, free for those under 18. On Thursdays between 5 and 8 p.m., admission is free for people who live, work or attend school in Brea. (714) 990-7600.