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On September 30 in the Petit Salon, internationally acclaimed light artist Grimanesa Amorós shared insights into her innovative practice. Renowned for her monumental LED light installations, she explores the intersection of art, light, and technology.

To learn more, visit the Baccarat Hotels event page.

(0:00) Grimanesa Amorós is a Peruvian-born American artist and pioneer of monumental LED light installations. Since 2002, she has used light as material and language to create shared moments of perception. Please join me in welcoming Grimanesa Amorós.

(0:34) Thank you Carolina and Alex and the Baccarat team for organizing this wonderful event. And of course, thank you dear Robert for your kind introduction. All my light sequences are uniquely programmed as a custom lighting sequence created for each piece individually.

(0:56) …Film a lot of empty seats because we could only film a certain amount of time. This video will also provide a better perspective on the scale of AMPLEXUS. The creative thinking that comes along when doing this type of work.

(1:12) It took three years for completion and three weeks for installing and one entire month just to do the lighting sequence. I thought that I really wanted to utilize those steel coins.

(1:29) So how do you balance what you would bring to any piece with honoring the site that you’re working with?

(1:37) I’m the daughter of an engineer. So I think that kind of probably embedded me in certain kind of practicalities that have served me very well being an artist. So I think that you just have to be creative. I always say if I get two seconds of your time then I’m being successful.

(1:53) You’re working in a source production with people that speak different languages. How do you manage to tell them what to do and they actually accomplish what you imagine?

(2:05) Thanks to my Latin skills that we are both with the hands. So I’m able to communicate for example. I tell them up, down, left, right. It’s challenging physically because I have to go 360. Basically it’s like drawing on the air. So with these kind of tools and you cannot make really a mistake.

(2:28) Layers of color and light like one through the fiber optic and then projected with the theatrical lighting.

(2:34) The strength has to be such to be able, you can imagine to go through all the fibers.

(2:41) What was, speaking of inspiration, your first piece that you made and what was the inspiration behind that?

(2:48) That was my first painting that I actually loved and I did in New York. But the first public piece that I did with neon lights and then right afterwards with LEDs. Which they’re still working and functioning and I have not even changed one light.

(3:00) Amazing. I was just wondering, especially these larger pieces that you get commissioned for. What’s the timeline for just even coming up because they’re so intricate?

(3:11) The budget is quite important because that mandates how quickly I can get the work to be produced. I would say the shortest would be maybe four months. Yet we have this ephemeral setup. Thank you so much.