Keith Sonnier

Keith Sonnier ( born 1941 in Mamou, Louisiana) is an American painter and sculptor who became famous for his light installations.

Life and work

Sonnier graduated in art and anthropology at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette in 1963 with a bachelor's degree. He then went to Paris, where he painted. He returned back to the U.S., made in 1966 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, his master's degree and moved to New York. Since the late 1960s he moved into neon lights and glass, but also other materials such as fiberglass, lead, grease, latex, wire, and aluminum, in his work, and expanded so that, together with Dan Flavin, James Turrell and Richard Serra the traditional concept of sculpture. He sat down, however, in the consequence of the radical forms of the minimalists. As early as 1968 he had his first solo exhibition at Galerie Ricke in Cologne, 1969, he was represented at Harald Szeemanns legendary exhibition When Attitudes Become DOCUMENT Live in your head at the Kunsthalle Bern. One of his early Neonobjekte Ba -o -ba # 3, Neon with transformer and glass, 230 x 311, 60 cm, is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Since 1970, he moved into film and video art in his work.

In 1999, he transformed during the retrospective " Environmental Works 1968-1999 " with a colored facade installation, the Kunsthaus in Bregenz in a highly visible piece of art. One of the most spectacular works Sonnier in Europe is about 1.2 km long Neonkunstwerk light path at the connection level 03 of Terminal 1 at Munich Airport. Due to the constantly changing light colors, the plane appears as a space of experience. Another work in public space in Munich passage between Angerhof Red Blue and the Jewish community at St. - Jakobs-Platz.

Sonnier took 1971 Szeemanns Documenta 5, and at the Venice Biennale and in 1977 at Documenta 7 in Kassel part. The artist lives and works in New York.

Solo exhibitions (selection )

  • 2008 Häusler Contemporary, Zurich: Keith Sonnier. Shelf Works 1975
  • 2002 New National Gallery, Berlin: Ba -Ba -o Berlin
  • 2001 Overbeck society Lübeck: Drawings and neon works
  • 1999 Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz: Environmental Works 1968-1999; Marlborough Gallery, New York: Sculpture 1966-1998
  • 1989 National Gallery, Washington, DC: Keith Sonnier: Neon; Municipal Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach: Expanded File Series: 1969-1989
  • 1981 Portland Center for the Visual Arts, Portland
  • 1979 Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld: BA -o -BA Sel Series
  • 1971 Museum of Modern Art, New York: Projects: Keith Sonnier
  • 1970 Leo Castelli Gallery, New York (hereafter regularly); Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
  • 1968 Galerie Rolf Ricke: Keith Sonnier (also 1971, 1978, 1981, 1987)
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