PREVIEW: Brigitte Kowanz-Light Is What We See

Ever since her major appearance at the Austrian Pavilion of the Venice Biennial 2017, Brigitte Kowanz is internationally widely known. Her œuvre, begun around 1980, combines light and language into memorable pictorial formula, visualizing the potential to submit information of these two basic components as well as the formal aesthetic value of language and the autonomy of the phenomenon of light.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Albertina Museums Archive

Brigitte Kowanz’s work occupies a singular space at the intersection of conceptual art and visual poetry. At the heart of her practice is light—not merely as a physical phenomenon, but as a philosophical and aesthetic principle. For Kowanz, light is the origin of all life, the carrier of information, and the designer of both space and time. Since the 1980s, light has served as her primary material, explored in relation to language, symbols, codes, and spatial experience. Light, in Kowanz’s hands, becomes a medium for transcending boundaries and rethinking the relationship between image, object, and viewer. Her work interrogates the conventions of painting and representation, replacing the pictorial surface with illuminated signs that speak to the digital, the immaterial, and the unseen. As she poignantly observes, “Light is what we see”—a paradox that underscores its elusive nature. Light enables vision, yet remains invisible; it defines place, but occupies none. It is both form and formlessness, presence and absence. The retrospective “Light Is What We See” at the ALBERTINA offers an expansive journey through Kowanz’s oeuvre, charting her decades-long engagement with light as a material of thought, perception, and communication. The exhibition places particular emphasis on the immaterial qualities of light—its ephemerality, ubiquity, and fluidity—qualities that allow it to mirror the very conditions of contemporary existence. Many of Kowanz’s installations are presented in mirrored environments, which multiply the light infinitely or reveal its presence through ultraviolet illumination. These works create immersive, often disorienting spaces where perception is continually challenged. The viewer becomes both observer and participant, drawn into a shifting field of reflection and refraction. Kowanz’s use of light is inextricably tied to language. Throughout her career, she has explored light as a vehicle for encoding and transmitting information. In early works like “More L978t”, light is treated as a medium of communication and cognition, conveying knowledge through abstraction. Later pieces such as “Away”, “Secret of Courage”, and “Motivation” incorporate the viewer more directly, using mirrors to create virtual environments where viewers confront coded texts—texts that reveal themselves only in reflection, and only through the viewer’s presence. This interplay between message and medium continues in “Unspoken”, a suspended, floating work, and in her “Acronyms” series—“asap”, “omg”, “wywh”, and “fyi”—where LED tubes are partially masked to generate sequences of Morse code. These pieces reflect Kowanz’s ongoing inquiry into the transformation of language in the digital age, where brevity and abbreviation shape new modes of expression. The acronyms themselves, so familiar in digital communication, are translated into patterns of light, turning everyday language into spatial experience. This fascination with encoded light continues in Kowanz’s “Discs” series, where partially obscured neon tubes are affixed to circular stainless-steel plates. The mirrored surfaces reflect fragmented messages and glowing patterns that dissolve the boundary between object and space. In 2021, she reimagined some of these works as tripod-mounted installations, expanding their sculptural dimension. These pieces, previously unexhibited, reveal Kowanz’s enduring commitment to evolving the spatial dynamics of her work. Serving as a conceptual bridge across her series, the work Delight explores diverse manifestations of spatiality, uniting Kowanz’s inquiries into light, reflection, and linguistic form. It articulates the connective tissue between her investigations into language, perception, and immersive space. Among the most iconic works in the exhibition are “Morsealphabet” and “Email 02.08.1984 – 03.08.1984”, which presciently address the themes of digitization, virtual communication, and the emergence of the information society. These early pieces demonstrate Kowanz’s foresight in recognizing the cultural and conceptual significance of digital language long before it became ubiquitous. Through her profound engagement with light, Brigitte Kowanz offers not only a redefinition of artistic media but also a reorientation of how we see, understand, and inhabit the world. Her work invites us to think about the invisible structures that shape our reality—structures made visible, if only momentarily, through the poetics of light.

Photo: Brigitte Kowanz | 1×8, 1988 | The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna – Family Collection Haselsteiner © Estate Brigitte Kowanz / Bildrecht, Vienna 2025 | Photo: Stefan Altenburger

Info: Albertina Modern, Karlsplatz 5, Vienna, Austria, Duration: 17/8-9/11/2025, Days & Hours: 10:00-18:00, www.albertina.at/