As one of the most celebrated contemporary architects, Frank Gehry’s inspiring buildings and fascinating designs are hallmarks of today’s urban landscape. In addition to architecture, Gehry is also known for his forays into sculpture and furniture. Titled Fish Lamps, Frank Gehry’s newest series of dynamic light sculptures will be shown at Gagosian Hong Kong.
Gehry’s Fish Lamps were born from a 1983 commission by Formica Corporation to create objects from their then-new plastic laminate ColorCore. After accidentally shattering a piece, Gehry was inspired by the plastic shards and their resemblance to fish scales. The first Fish Lamps, created between 1984 and 1986, consisted of individually glued ColorCore shards onto fish-shaped wire molds. Since the inception of his Fish Lamps, the fish has become a recurrent motif in Gehry’s work, due to its natural, curvilinear form, and iconographic attributes.
This exhibition sees Gehry’s revisit his earlier Fish Lamp designs, and his resulting works range from life-size to outsize pieces, with bolder, jagged use of ColorCore elements. Some pieces are fixed to pedestals, while others are intricate chandeliers. With fish curled and contracted in gestures of simulated motion, the pieces emit a warm, incandescent light, and represent a symbiosis of form, function and material.
Frank Gehry: Fish Lamps. Image courtesy of Gagosian Gallery
Frank Gehry: Fish Lamps opens on 16 January 2014 at Gagosian Hong Kong.
by Louise Lui