Hanging Around at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Sunday, I took some time to check out the Hanging Around exhibit of permanent collection of modern and contemporary lighting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Here are a few of my favorites from the exhibition:

First, I love the Lüster Chandelier, a tongue-in-cheek 2D LED chandelier by German Ingo Maurer.

Also by Ingo Maurer is this 2003 lamp called “Wo bist du, Edison?” (“Where Are You, Edison?”). It is a hanging pendant that features a 360-degree holographic image of a light bulb projected onto a transparent cylindrical shade. The actual source of light comes from a halogen light above, hidden in a socket in the shape of Thomas Edison’s profile. Hard to get good photos of this one, but it was amazing.

My other fave was this Tears of The Fisherman light sculpture by — you guessed it — Ingo Maurer. Clearly, he was the highlight of my visit. This piece was inspired by a trip to Venice during which Maurer admired how the sun reflected off of droplets of water hanging from fishermen’s nets.

Other pieces included Ross Lovegrove, George Nelson, Marcel Wanders, Rody Graumans, and Poul Henningsen.

On the way out, I took a photo of a 1992 untitled light sculpture by Felix Gonzalez-Torres featuring a waterfall of endless light bulbs, one seeming to power the next.