Color in Focus

July 13, 2018

Light and color: two related but distinct aspects of the way we experience the world, and the core thematic elements of Lévy Gorvy’s Summer 2018 programming in New York and London, SUMMER LIGHTS.  Not content simply to bask in the glow of the extraordinary presentations on view in our galleries, we wanted to dive a little deeper and refine our appreciation of the wonderous science (and sometimes, alchemy) behind our experience of color, so we headed to the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York to view “Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color.”

Richly laid out and full of brilliant insights, the exhibition considers how our understanding of color has impacted on and evolved alongside design history. Organized in seven thematic groups, color emerges as a reflection of our psychology, and a potent signal of cultural evolution and social order.

One of the more curious paradoxes the exhibition suggests is how the natural world can be so resplendent with color, and yet throughout history our efforts to capture or recreate the intensity of the hues we see around us have proven incredibly difficult.

In the 3rd and 4th centuries, the Romans were producing aquamarine-colored glass by adding copper and other materials such as cobalt to a core mixture of soda, silica, and lime. In the larger historical timeline, the difficulty of producing a dark blue glass flask of the sort included in the exhibition [above] signaled the Romans’ incredible technological and artistic ingenuity. Within the framework of Roman society however, owning an object of such deep blue was a social signal indicating that one was wealthy enough to pay for the expensive materials and skill required to create an object that color. Seven hundred years later, artist Yves Klein sought to create (and eventually patent) an incredibly precise hue of ultramarine. Achieving the perfect, most transcendent hue of blue, for Klein, marked a spiritual and artistic apotheosis. Two decades after that, ceramist Elsa Rady, maker of the Pebbled YKB Bowl, 1980, [below] used the same color to signal an affinity with Klein.

A particularly interesting section of the exhibition deals with color optics. A pithy quotation by artist Josef Albers, author of the 1963 book “Interaction of Color,” provides a key to this particular section, and the problem continually faced by artists and designers the world over: “In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize that color deceives continually.”

One example of color’s potential for “deception” may be seen in the offset lithograph poster [below] designed by Niklaus Troxler. Clever and compelling, the image depicts two musicians through alternating vertical stripes in contrasting red and green. Why so clever? Visually we are incapable of reading both figures at once—the alternating use of red and green effectively short-circuits our optical processing mechanism, causing us to look back and forth between the two figures, a visual experience that the designer intended to mirror the syncopated rhythm of jazz.

While larger presentations of opposing colors [as seen above] apparently bolster the vividness of each hue, at smaller scales such proximity can have a neutralizing effect. A 1948 textile sample by German artist and designer Anni Albers [below] illustrates simultaneous contrast—an effect in which the proximity of two contrasting colors neutralizes the potency of each.

But enough of neutrality: if you’ve ever wondered why fluorescent colors appear to glow, it’s because they are converting wavelengths of ultraviolet light, which is not normally visible to the human eye. A pair of fluorescent green Nike running shoes on display—the dye is called “Volt”—speak to the enhanced functionality fluorescents may offer. The shoes’ apparent glow increases wearers’ visibility, enhancing their safety when moving about at night. As an added bonus for the company, who released these shoes ahead of the 2012 Summer Olympics, their high visibility against the red Olympic tracks boosted the profile of the brand during one of the most watched events of the year.

Perhaps the greatest visual sleight of hand occurs when we look at an object that is iridescent. Iridescence is also referred to as “structural color” because the color we perceive is not the result of pigment at all. It is the result of minute structures on the surface of the object causing light waves to combine with one another in a phenomenon known as “interference.” This explains why iridescent colors appear to change depending on our position in relation to the object. Again, nature outdoes herself, and up until quite recently, we have been left at a loss to replicate the effect.

As may be seen on the Indian textile sample [below], where one has direct access to the source, imitation is quite unnecessary.

Nevertheless, if you want the effect at scale, a little science comes in handy. While the iridescent wings of the rose chafer beetle are created through an unusual type of light polarization, the iridescent appearance of the “Beetle” wallpaper designed by Don Flood is engineered by using translucent inks on the highly reflective, polyester film, Mylar. As the light reflects off the Mylar and through the inks an iridescent appearance is created that allows one to admire nature, without inviting her inside.

There is plenty more to see and to learn as part of this exhibition and we think it makes a fantastic complement to our SUMMER LIGHTS programming.

“Saturated: The Allure of Science and Color” is on view at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum through January, 2019.

This text was organized in the spirit of our SUMMER LIGHTS programming, which includes
“Neon in Daylight: François Morellet”,
“Depth Perception: James Turrell”, and “Johannes Girardoni: Sensing Singularity.”