Silberne Frequenz / Silver Frequency

Otto Piene’s “Silberne Frequenz” was installed at the then newly built “Westfälisches Landesmuseum” in 1972. Today a revised version can be found at the same location on the façade of the museum which was reopened in 2014 under the name “LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur” (LWL Museum of Art and Culture). This light art piece has therefore had a checkered history and the fact that it has exerted a fascination defining its site in both its original and new version speaks for its timeless quality.

In its first version, the work, which consisted of 639 aluminium spheres at the time, extended in two elongated rectangles across the whole front and part of the side of the building’s corner. Then as now, the lights integrated into the spheres illuminated the façade so that the reflections formed changing shapes of light.

When the 1970 building had to make way for a museum extension, the work was dismantled, which created the unusual situation of being able to plan a revised version together with the artist. Its dimensions were adapted to the new architecture so that the rectangles, their height now extended, accentuated the corner of the building and no longer stretched across the whole façade. The material of the new version’s now reduced number of 406 spheres is highly polished steel instead of aluminium, and the new LED lights can be digitally and individually controlled, which makes complex light patterns possible. The integration of the LWL log into the artwork met with some criticism.

Photo of the earlier version: https://de.wikipedia.org