Over five decades, Doug Wheeler has pioneered the art of light and
space. His work powerfully explores the way we perceive "empty"
space--the way light can affect our perception and make emptiness feel
full and dense. From his early experiences flying across the desert with
his father, a doctor in Globe, Arizona, Wheeler developed a passion for
the intensity and stillness of vast expanses, seeing in them a whole new
set of possibilities for visual art.
Although Wheeler began his career as a painter, his wall-mounted
artworks soon began incorporating light as a medium and quickly gave way
to an unprecedented art-historical breakthrough: his construction of an
absolute light environment, crafted in his studio in 1967. Since that
unparalleled moment, Wheeler's work has been exhibited widely all over
the world; in the past decade, with numerous major gallery and museum
installations, his reputation as the definitive light and space artist
has been solidified.
This volume, featuring new scholarship by renowned art historian Germano
Celant, traces the entire course of Wheeler's career to date, from his
first mature paintings to his immersive installations. Writing on
Wheeler's intense and direct engagement with the absoluteness in the
optical fields he creates, Celant provides a detailed account for
Wheeler's development as one of the most original and influential
artists of his generation. Wheeler's work not only changes how we
encounter reality after we see it, but also how we envision what is
possible more broadly in visual art.
