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The sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Museum鈥檚 鈥淟ight, Space, and the Shape of Time,鈥� takes an art movement associated with the clean lines and shiny surfaces of postwar Los Angeles architecture and turns it inside-out, showing how generations of Light and Space-inspired artists, including women and Indigenous artists, have used this seemingly cold, prefab language to communicate personal and historical truths.

Near the entrance of the exhibition, a green and orange photocollage by Michael Namingha (Tewa/Hopi) depicts the ruins of a Chaco Canyon great house, whose ancient builders positioned the structure to light up during astronomically significant events, such as solstices. In the context of this show, Namingha鈥檚 image serves as a reminder that the desire to make light visible in a prescribed geometric configuration predates the Light and Space movement by at least a thousand years.

Similarly, Neal Ambrose-Smith鈥檚 (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation of Montana) neon wall piece, 鈥淎bstract in Your Home,鈥� turns an abstract triangle into a representational teepee with just a few extra lines of neon tubing. Teepees are elegant and efficient minimal dwellings whose central skylights reveal the changing patterns of clouds or stars, as in a James Turrell installation.

By placing these works in the front gallery, curator William Gassaway not only highlights contemporary local Indigenous artists but shows how ideas associated with the Light and Space movement were already present in Indigenous cultures long ago.

Sharing the front room with Namingha and Ambrose-Smith is a softly pulsating light sculpture by Leo Villareal, whose work I had seen at art fairs and museums on the East Coast for years without realizing until now that the artist was born in sa国际传媒官网网页入口 or that he produced his first major light installation for the 1997 Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. I鈥檒l admit I had been quick to dismiss Villareal鈥檚 work in the past as something of a one-trick pony, but reconsidering it now as part of a distinctly Western landscape of neon signs and big, open skies made me appreciate it more.

What separates gimmicky art from great art, or even good art? It鈥檚 a fine line, particularly when we鈥檙e talking about Light and Space installations, which often hinge on simple optical phenomena, like making viewers aware of their own reflections in a piece of mirrored glass (as in Larry Bell鈥檚 1981 masterpiece, 鈥淭he Cat鈥�), or showing them how identical colors of fluorescent lights look different when arranged in an alternate configuration (e.g., Dan Flavin鈥檚 pieces).

These works are more than hollow exercises in form or notable feats of electrical engineering. As Bell explained during a recent studio visit for a forthcoming episode of my 鈥淲ork in Progress鈥� Journal podcast, 鈥淢y work is about feelings.鈥�

Bell鈥檚 sincerity comes through, even when his specific feelings are hard to pin down. There is often a sense of wonder, but it may be mixed with something else 鈥� sadness, perhaps. Between these poles of feeling lies a whole world of inner experiences.

鈥淟ight, Space, and the Shape of Time鈥� puts paid to the notion that Light and Space art is cold and unfeeling. It also pushes back against claims that Light and Space art is nonreferential. Bell鈥檚 鈥淭he Cat鈥� may only be called that because it can be installed nine different ways (like a cat鈥檚 nine lives), but, by titling it so, Bell imbues the sculpture with a strong dose of feline mystery, as beguiling as the Cheshire Cat鈥檚 fabled disembodied grin.

Robert Irwin, who was always a more nuanced colorist than Flavin, named the specific colors of his fluorescent tubes after avocados, violets and other species of Southern California vegetation. So, Gassaway encourages visitors to interpret Irwin鈥檚 piece as an abstracted landscape, as opposed to the traditional interpretation that places the work in a realm beyond the visible.

Gassaway takes care to ground all the works in real-world references, showing how even the most ethereal and transcendental sculptures are not beamed down to us from outer space but are made by people with thoughts and feelings about the times in which they live.

Perhaps the exhibition鈥檚 most significant corrective to the standard art historical narrative of the Light and Space movement is its inclusion of women. Of the 16 artists in the show, six are women, nine are men and one 鈥� LaTurbo Avedon 鈥� is a nonbinary digital avatar. That鈥檚 still not gender parity, but it鈥檚 better than the all-male Light and Space shows that used to be the norm.

Helen Pashgian, a long-overlooked founding member of the movement, gets her own room, and it鈥檚 the most transfixing installation in the show. I could easily spend half a day staring at Pashgian鈥檚 illusion of a pink orb dissolving into a foggy pale nothingness without tiring of it.

Compared to the hard-edged steel sculptures of the Minimalists who preceded her, Pashgian鈥檚 use of soft, rounded forms and the color pink represent a triumph of 鈥渇eminine鈥� aesthetics whose power to hold the viewer surpasses that of most of her male peers.

Barbara Bock鈥檚 wall installation of curved strips of paper, which she created in the early 1970s, is another revelation. Dating from roughly the same era as Robert Morris鈥� hanging felt sculptures, Bock鈥檚 curved paper forms are even more elemental than his. Yet, like most of the other works in the show, they point to real-world referents. Bock, who had modeled professionally before becoming a full-time artist, was inspired by the curved white paper backdrops used in modeling studios, and used that same kind of paper for her wall hangings. Her work infuses the most pedestrian of materials 鈥� paper 鈥� with the glamor of fashion, while omitting her own body and the camera鈥檚 objectifying lens.

In the exhibition鈥檚 final gallery is a new installation by Korean American artist Soo Sunny Park. Park鈥檚 floating cloud forms are made from bent sections of chain-link fencing, fitted with fish scale-like pieces of treated Plexiglass that change color from purple to yellow to green as you walk under them. The artist does not attempt to conceal the cables and hanging mechanisms, nor the fact that her primary material is a chain-link fence. It鈥檚 unpretentious and anti-illusionist in that sense, just like a Flavin. But knowing what the materials are does not quite prepare you for what they do, nor the feelings they evoke.

鈥淟ight, Space, and the Shape of Time鈥� may sound like a show about physics, but it鈥檚 really a show about feelings. Spanning generations, geographies and genders, the selected artists reveal clues to their own lived experiences. And despite the seemingly affectless industrial materials they employ, including Plexiglass, fluorescent lights, flat sheets of glass and chain-link fencing, all of the work feels remarkably personal.

sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Museum show rewrites the Light and Space narrative