Streams of Light: Selections from the Permanent Collection

From projected light and illuminated language to shifting shadows and luminous networks, Streams of Light explores light as an active force rather than a passive source of illumination. Here, light carries information, creates images, reveals hidden structures, and transforms perception. Across different media and decades, these artists demonstrate that seeing is not simply the act of looking. It is the experience of light in motion.

Streams of Light reflects the Butler's longstanding commitment to collecting, preserving, and presenting innovative artistic practices. The exhibition also celebrates the legacy of the David Bermant Collection, one of the most significant private collections of light art in America. Through David Bermant’s pioneering support of artists working with light, technology, and perception, works such as Otto Piene’s Light Ballet have found an enduring home at the Butler, helping to establish the museum as an important center for the appreciation of light-based art.

At the center of the exhibition is Entangled Attraction, 2024 by Sally Weber and Craig Newswanger, with a soundscape by Jonathan Crawford. Recently acquired for the Butler’s contemporary new media collection, the immersive installation surrounds visitors with suspended strands of illuminated points that continuously rotate and reverse. Through the interplay of light, movement, and sound, the work encourages viewers to slow down and experience a space beyond the rhythm of everyday life. As swirling patterns of light trail overhead, the installation offers a moment of quiet reflection, inviting visitors into a space of calm, wonder, and contemplation.

Surrounding Entangled Attraction are three works from the Butler’s permanent collection that investigate light in remarkably different ways. Otto Piene’s Light Ballet, 1969, originally from the David Bermant Collection, transforms projected light into luminous forms that gracefully twirl through darkness, creating a mesmerizing choreography of movement and illumination. As a founding member of the influential ZERO movement, Piene helped redefine light as an artistic medium, opening new possibilities for art that exists through time, space, and perception.

Jenny Holzer’s Truisms, 1983 represents an early work by one of the most influential voices in contemporary art. Long before LED displays became commonplace, Holzer transformed electronic signage into a powerful artistic medium. As concise statements stream continuously across the illuminated display, language itself becomes a moving material, prompting reflection on the ways words shape personal and collective understanding.

Larry Kagan’s CEO, 2011 demonstrates that light can be as much a sculptural material as steel. Precisely arranged metal elements cast a shadow that resolves into a recognizable image, revealing a work that exists only through the interaction of object, light, and viewer. Kagan’s work reminds us that perception is an active process, dependent upon shifting relationships between material form and projected light.

Though each artist approaches light from a different perspective, together they reveal its remarkable versatility as a medium. Bringing historic and contemporary works into dialogue, Streams of Light traces a lineage of experimentation that connects the technological innovations championed by artists such as Piene with the immersive possibilities explored by artists today. The result is an exhibition that bridges science and art, technology and imagination, movement and stillness, while highlighting the Butler Institute’s unique role in preserving and advancing the legacy of light-based art.