'Mister Motley' #11 is out! This latest issue focuses on the theme of Light. This Motley issue is an invitation to experience light as a language; a foreign language that you may not always understand, that you will eventually learn, that may whisper to you or, indeed, snap at you.
Light takes place in the darkness, which is reflected by all the neon signs that convey their messages in the nocturnal city, transforming the latter into a landscape charged with meaning.
Light is also a matter of perception. On the television, an Afghan girl announces that she can finally return to school. This is a very important event for her since she can, as she explains move from the darkness and towards the light’. Light symbolizes perception as well as the higher values of life. In the past, light even signified a manifestation of God, which can be read about in Holy Light. Indeed, when light shone through a figure on a stained-glass window, ‘double enlightenment’ was the result since the figure itself could also bring enlightenment to its beholder. But when one is moving from the darkness and towards the light, where does one eventually end up? At enlightenment?
Naturally, in art light also functions as a material, albeit one with strange qualities that include elusiveness and immateriality.
(Excerpts from the introduction What is it that there is something and nothing by Hanne Hagenaars)
Various artists displayed large white surfaces to signify an emptiness of light. Saskia van Kampen will explain this in more detail. In Licht, lucht, liefde en paracetamol (light, air, love and paracetamol), Nina Thibo turned a visit to a commune into a conceptual work. And Cornel Bierens writes about the most interesting artists who like to do the impossible, such as portraying black light. Mister Motley dazzles with a wink of the eye and sheds light on visual arts.
Mister Motley is a magazine that’s accessible to everyone who is curious about contemporary visual art. The licht (light) issue will be available from 1 December 2006 at bookstores, AKO magazine shops and museum shops.
