Neon Show Hums With Idiosyncrasy

The Museum of Neon Art celebrates its 20th anniversary with “Luminous Beginnings: Neon Art From the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.” This judiciously selected survey brings together 18 glowing sculptures, flashing wall works and Minimalist installations that hum and buzz with the presence of the illuminated gas. As much a history lesson as an art exhibition, it also includes 10 displays in which photographs with wall texts document performances and pieces by artists who have used neon.

Well-known works by famous artists stand alongside obscure works by artists whose audiences are generally limited to art historians and people with a passion for the artistic possibilities of neon.

Just inside the entrance hang two legendary pieces Bruce Nauman made in 1967. “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths” consists of these words written in baby blue neon and inset in a pink spiral. Here, truth in advertising is uncomfortably aligned with truth in art, making you wonder whom to believe.

“My Last Name Exaggerated 14 Times Vertically” is exactly that, a distended version of the artist’s signature. To read it, you must move your head up and down ever so slightly, as if unconsciously nodding approval. What begins as a playful gag becomes a participatory demonstration of advertising’s capacity to pit your body against your mind. When it’s effective, art does the same thing.

Across the gallery, two sheets of plate glass the size of store windows lean against the wall, catching the icy reflections of three neon tubes. As the bright primary colors draw you toward Keith Sonnier’s “Ba-O-Ba” (1969), the precariously balanced glass alerts you to impending danger.

In contrast, Laddie John Dill’s untitled 1971 installation is a hedonistic romp on the beach. Scattered in a sand pile, its dozen neon tubes cast pretty shadows that recall the splendor of sunsets and tacky glamour of stage shows.

Despite significant differences among these pieces, they all appear to be cut from the same cloth when juxtaposed with the quirky, experimental sculptures in the rest of the exhibition. Generally speaking, these lesser-known works embrace extremes much more openly.

Some, like Jeff Olson’s plumply symmetrical “Square Rectangle” (1970), Paul Seide’s gorgeously trippy “Voluminoids” (1982) and Mundy Hepburn’s Space Age flower arrangement are unabashedly decorative. Taking baubles beyond your wildest dreams, they wouldn’t be out of place in a gift shop.

Others, like Willem Volkersz’s abstract “Waterfall” (1969) and illustrative “Drawing Lesson” (1970), are too big for the home. Along with Michael Hayden’s “Spin” (1973), which combines flashing lights and a huge mirror, they are animated by the excitement (and please-everyone blandness) that accompanied the construction of the first shopping malls.

Much grittier is Cork Marcheschi’s “Oasis” (1975), a pedal-activated contraption that looks as if it belongs in a post-apocalyptic arcade. The independent ethos of a backyard tinkerer drives this clunky gizmo, as does an American fondness for theatrical danger.

Brian Coleman’s wall sculptures from the mid-1970s stand out for the sheer weirdness of their beauty. Made of handblown, multicolored glass, these twisting tubular forms come in pairs that resemble mutant chromosomes. Some are adorned with translucent spheres as big as soap bubbles, inside of which neon writhes like a gaseous snake.

The photographic component of the show provides historical background and a kick or two of its own. Seeing a picture of a 1951 installation by Lucio Fontana and images of sculptures by Dale Chihuly, Christian Schiess and Chryssa makes you yearn to see the originals in person.

This isn’t the case with Fred Tschida’s “Light in Motion” (1980), a performance that works just as well in reproduction. Having attached a 22-foot pillar of light to the roof of his Impala, the artist drove slowly across the Bonneville Salt Flats. His do-it-yourself attempt to travel at the speed of light is as corny and out-of-step as some of the most engaging works in “Luminous Beginnings.”

There’s a profound difference between artists who use neon and neon artists. The former treat the material like any other, using it when suitable. The latter, despite their desire to be independent, often behave like old-fashioned formalists, sticking to a particular medium mostly for its own sake.

“Luminous Beginnings” stands out because it gives both attitudes ample play. Too often, exhibitions like this seek respectability by glossing over the oddness of art made outside the mainstream. That’s not a problem for this insightful show, in which goofiness is an asset and idiosyncrasy a virtue.

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“Luminous Beginnings: Neon Art From the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s,” Museum of Neon Art, 501 W. Olympic Blvd., downtown L.A., (213) 489-9918, through Dec. 23. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.