Biennial of the light culture in Frankfurt a.M.
Frankfurt am Main, 2014 – On the occasion of LUMINALE 2014, the international biennial dedicated to light culture [Biennale der Lichtkultur], the Italian artist Gio Montez was invited by curator Mirek Macke to carry out **Action No. 7 – Illumination at the new headquarter of the Kunstverein Familie Montez e.V. located at the Honsell Bridge area in Frankfurt am Main.
a monumental candle
For the occasion, Montez arrived in Germany with 60 kilograms of beeswax, a wick, and a chisel in his pocket. At the time, the artist had just begun his studies in sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. He conceived and built a monumental candle in the shape of a rectangular parallelepiped, intended to be sculpted with a chisel while lit. The result was a performance in which the artist and fire jointly determined the form of the artifact, which was carved continuously until the wick was completely consumed.
a reminder of artistic craftsmanship
During the biennial’s opening—an event celebrating light culture, technological innovation, and avant-garde lighting systems—Montez presented a handmade, classical, and deliberately nostalgic candle. This gesture stood in stark contrast to the other artistic positions at LUMINALE, functioning as a reminder of artistic craftsmanship and exposing the labor and time required for humans to produce energy.
sculpting a melting candle
The proposal proved provocative and singular within the context of the exhibition. Throughout the exhibition period, while visitors moved through the space, Gio Montez remained on site, sculpting a candle as it slowly melted, foregrounding the act of work and his own presence rather than the finished object.
the poetics of the unfinished
Consequently, the artwork remained unfinished. At the end of the five days of public opening scheduled by LUMINALE, the exhibition was dismantled and *Illumination* was acquired and preserved in the Montez Collection in Frankfurt am Main. In the following years, on a biennial basis, when LUMINALE reopened, Gio Montez returned to Frankfurt to resume work on the candle, further developing the piece during the 2016 and 2018 editions.
a never ending artwork
As LUMINALE took a hiatus in 2022 during the Covid-19 pandemic, Montez’s work has remained temporarily incomplete, awaiting the next opportunity to continue and potentially conclude the process. The fact that the LUMINALE was definitively abolished, before Gio Montez could finish the work, or rather before the candle finished burning has suspended the working process in a never ending story.
human agency matter and fire
Action No. 7 thus stands as a process-based work, grounded in duration, energy, and the relationship between human agency, matter, and fire, in which illumination is not merely a technical condition but a physical, symbolic, and temporal experience.
illumination n. [from Late Latin illuminatio, -onis]
- Litterally
a. The act of illuminating; the fact of providing light to an environment, that is, giving light to a space, and the amount of light, natural or artificial, by which the space itself is lit: the illumination of a hall, a theater, a runway, a square. In a more concrete sense, the set of means used to provide artificial lighting: electric illumination, neon lighting, gas lighting; public lighting; poor or inadequate illumination; coastal illumination, meaning the system of lighthouses, beacons, lightships, lighted buoys, and all nighttime maritime signaling devices used to guide coastal navigation.
b. An arrangement of lights for public festivities; illuminations: this evening there will be illuminations in honor of the patron saint.
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Figurative.
a. An extraordinary light that suddenly opens the intellect or conscience to the perception of truth or gives rise to an inspiration, an idea, or a feeling: his mind had a sudden illumination; by divine illumination.
b. In early Christian liturgy, baptism, understood as a rite of liberation from the darkness of evil and error.
c. In the history of philosophy, the theory of illumination: the Augustinian epistemological doctrine according to which, within the human being (in interiore homine), the divine Word—the inner Teacher—operates by illuminating the mind and providing it with the principles (or regulae) of judgment. -
Physics.
Illumination, and intensity of illumination, terms sometimes used, especially in lighting engineering, as synonyms for illuminance.
Action n°7 – Illuminazione
3. April 2014, Frankfurt am Main
Curator: Mirek Macke
Actor: Gio Montez
Video: Christine Leibrock
