Akron Art Museum embraces the light with new exhibit

There’s an odd sound coming from one of the galleries at the Akron Art Museum. Standing in another room away from the noise, it sounds like a rushing gust of wind or waves crashing against rocks. But move closer to the noise and it sounds like hundreds of hand-clapper noisemakers all moving at once.

The source of the noise is “Falling Angel,” a massive mixed media piece by Los Angeles artist Max Hooper Schneider. It consists of fluorescent light tubes suspended from chains connected to a wrecked helicopter carcass. Below is a fiberglass pond filled with Tesla coils and vintage neon signs that appear to be floating in water — or in this case, mineral oil.

As curator Wendy Earle explained, when the 15 Tesla coils send out energy, it creates a sound in the tubes. The overall effect is unsettling yet captivating. 

“It’s a little bit like nature reclaiming technology, but it feels very ethereal too,” Earle said. “But then when it activates, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, what is that?’”

She continued, “I think people are gonna have a lot of different reactions to it, hopefully positive. But some people might be a little bit disconcerted.”

“Falling Angel” is one of 23 pieces in “GLOW: Neon and Light,” a new exhibit at the Akron Art Museum, which opened today and is on view through Feb. 9, 2025. It is also Earle’s first solo exhibit for the museum since joining the curatorial staff one year ago. “GLOW” is inspired by a previous project she worked on at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland where she helped create a 16-foot outdoor neon piece.

“In doing that, I worked with this local manufacturer, and I learned so much about neon: how it’s made, the fact that it cannot be mass produced. It cannot be mechanized in any way. So every single piece of neon that you see anywhere, whether it’s a bar sign … an open sign, that is handmade, because it’s glass,” Earle said. 

Initially, Earle considered an exhibit focused solely on words made from neon, but nixed that idea over concerns of creating a “word salad” effect in the galleries. Instead, she decided to “think about it from a sculptural perspective.” 

The result is a light-filled exhibit that ranges from trippy (“Bombombomb” by Iván Navarro) to ominous (“Electric Caverns” by Alissa Eberle) to tranquil (“Frost Line” by Keith Lemley). The pieces are wildly different, yet each is striking. 

Channeling the natural world

“GLOW” is made for meandering and lingering when something catches the eye. The pieces are spread across 2,000 square feet, giving each artwork plenty of space to breathe. 

The aforementioned “Frost Line” by artist Keith Lemley consists of six large trees — all from his Ravenna property — spread across an entire room. Around each tree are rings of white neon. None of the rings are perfect circles, but are rather organically formed, giving the entire room a forest-like feel. 

Earle said Lemley’s inspiration for “Frost Line” came after a bad ice storm.

“All these trees were covered in ice. And then it warmed up a little bit, but these ice rings stayed around the trees, kind of hovering in the air,” she said. “So he thought, this is a natural phenomenon that looks so unnatural. And so he’s trying to recreate this almost icy feel.”

Another piece that channels the natural world — but in a completely different way — is “Hot Spots” by Mona Hatoum. The piece, which resembles a globe, is a smaller version of a work Hatoum made in 2008, Earle said. The frame is made of stainless steel, and the continents are outlined in tubes of reddish-orange neon that emit a faint buzzing sound.

“It’s this idea of global conflicts, or areas that are unsafe, but it’s the whole world. The whole world is unsafe. And she keeps making editions of this piece because it keeps being relevant,” Earle said. 

She hopes “GLOW” will activate the senses of museum visitors and encourage guests to be mindful of themselves in the space. What do they hear? What do they feel?

“I want to show people something new, certainly, but I also am interested in thinking about things from just a different perspective,” Earle said. “We don’t want to repeat ourselves, and we want that sense of discovery.”