Summer Spaces of Perception
The Contemporary Relevance of Light and Space and the Art of Sali Muller
In the work of Luxembourg conceptual artist Sali Muller, we encounter a continuation of the aesthetic approach that, in the 1960s, developed an entirely new artistic language on the American West Coast under the term “Light and Space.” The movement emerged within a singular cultural and technological climate. In Southern California—shaped by sunlight, expansive landscapes, new materials, and the spirit of the aerospace industry—a group of artists turned away from the narrative and gestural modes of expression that had defined previous decades. Instead, they placed light itself, space, and perception at the centre of their practice. Artists such as Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Doug Wheeler, and Mary Corse experimented with transparent plastics, acrylic glass, reflective surfaces, and precisely directed light—materials previously associated more with industrial production—and used them to create a new form of spatial art that did not seek to be an object, but an experience.
This movement was not understood merely as a formal or aesthetic innovation, but as a radical reconfiguration of the relationship between viewer, space, and artwork. One was no longer meant simply to look at an artwork, but to enter it—physically and mentally. In this context, Californian sunlight played a decisive role: it was not only a medium, but a constitutive element of the work itself. The shifting light conditions across the day and the seasons made these works feel like living, breathing entities, resisting reproducibility. Particularly in the summer months, this artistic approach unfolds its full force: intense daylight, long shadows, and the warm shimmer of the air become natural extensions of the work.
Sali Muller takes up these principles within her contemporary practice and translates them into a new conceptual framework. For her, too, light is not merely a means to an end—it becomes an active agent. Her installations of mirrors, glass, transparent surfaces, and LED elements create spaces in which the gaze is reflected back onto itself. Viewers are never only observers; they are always part of the work—held in a field of tension between visibility, reflection, and presence. Through her use of light and transparency, Muller generates a kind of poetic uncertainty that can be experienced both physically and intellectually.
This experience intensifies in summer: natural light heightens reflections, refracts more sharply across surfaces, and continuously alters the perception of depth, space, and volume. Where Turrell worked with the sky, Muller works with the human being—with our bodies in space, our mirrored images, and our position in relation to others. These temporary rooms, filled with light and silence, take on a timeless quality that—much like in California—foregrounds not the object, but the act of perception itself.
From an art-historical perspective, Muller’s work demonstrates that the ideals of Light and Space have lost none of their relevance. On the contrary: in a present shaped by digital imagery and constant visual overstimulation, her art calls for attentive perception. It reminds us that space is not only physical, but psychological—and that light can be more than illumination: it can become a carrier of insight. In this way, Sali Muller extends one of the most poetic movements of postwar art, bringing it into the present with quiet precision.
