The emotions of light from the TARGETTI LIGHTART COLLECTIONon show at New York’s Chelsea Art Museum

New York, 6 May – 8 June2003: the poetry of artificial light will be switched on in the heart of Chelsea, the city’s coolest neighborhood insofar as art, design and trends are concer- ned. The invitation was issued by the Chelsea Art Museum whose president, Dorothea Keeser, selected the Targetti Light Art Collection as one of the shows to open the exhibition calendar for the 3,000 square meter building that overlooks the most famous art gallery in the city and the Hudson River. It is an impressive as well as prestigious setting for the thirty-two pieces in the collection which are shown together for the first time since the beginning of the 1996 traveling exhibit. Amnon Barzel has designed a luminous and intriguing “itinerary” to put visitors in touch with the magic of light that metamorphoses into feeling and creativity and to allow them to embrace with their eyes all of its myriad declinations developed by the participating artists.There is no doubt that the New York museum’s interest in the Targetti collection was triggered partly by the successful union of the worlds of art and industrial production and partly by the importance of the artists who created the light works. The list includes: Gilberto Zorio, internationally renowned represen- tative of the Poor Art movement, Anne and Patrick Poirier, icons of contempo- rary French art; Olafur Eliasson, the young artist from Iceland who, in a just a few years has become an undisputed protagonist on the international contem- porary art scene, and Kristin Jones & Andrew Ginzel the New Yorkers who recently completed the most costly public project ever financed in the United States in Union Square.The exhibit, that is part of Targetti’s seventy-fifth anniver-sary celebrations was opened in concomitance with the Light Fair, the most important North American event dedicated to industrial production related to lighting that was held just twelve blocks from the Chelsea Art Museum. The exhibition is a priceless opportunity for Targetti to convey the importance of the emotional value of light to its favored reference audience (contractors, design architects and lighting designers). It is an added value that does not end with the fascination engendered by a work of art, but it extends to experimentation in both lighting design and other products. “Targetti Collection at the Chelsea Art Museum” therefore, is not merely an art exhibit: it is an invitation as understated as it is fascinating, to dedicated increasing attention to the vast sensory interface that
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