Birthdays, Whales and DebtsThe Art of Rockne Krebs: Harnessing the Energies of Personal Experience “Rockne Krebs shares with poets and playwrights the knowledge that it is better to give heroes some human blemishes if they are to be thoroughly believable. Let it be said, however, that the footnotes are first-rate. The exhibition is extremely interesting to anyone with a prior knowledge of Krebs’ major works for the light that it sheds on them. It also stands quite well on its own. Anyone for whom this show serves as an introduction is sure to emerge wanting to see and know more about the artist and the art. THE FOOTNOTE here is a piece from 1943 -- Krebs again, is 39 years old – and it is a neat little thing, a hippopotamus that formed part of a zoo the four-year-old Krebs made for himself. To actually put it into a serious gallery exhibition would be sheer indulgence if the little hippo did not establish a mood of personal, and not altogether happy, reverie that Krebs apparently wanted for this off-beat little show. The ape is a beguiling, touching piece of art, a farcical plastic relief of the kind you can buy in souvenir-novelty shops, transformed by the artist into an expressive personal souvenir with brushstrokes of flecked day-glo paints, a rhinestone tear in the eye, and a tiny 3-D heart cut from Plexiglas.These sorts of connections help to make clear Krebs’s belief that art and life are inseparable at heart, that art depends in no small measure upon harnessing and transforming the energies of personal experience. Indeed, the principal point of this show may be to enable us to see Krebs’s work whole, to unite in our minds the apparently contradictory poles of his art. The piece is very appealing. It manages to be simultaneously simple and complicated, ordinary, and unusual, factual and imaginative, serious and ironic, personal and universal. These are qualities that adhere, in very different ways, to his city-structures, which are commonly appreciated as sheer spectacle or as technological feats, but which actually are much more. “Home on the Range” is the title Krebs has given to an entire series of these anti-heroic pieces over the past seven years, in the last two (at the New York Customs House last fall and in St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1976) he has begun to incorporate them into the structure of his large-scale works. Bringing the two together has not been an easy process, intellectually or formally, but by doing it, by letting the human blemishes show, Krebs has enriched his art immeasurably. This show is a priceless-documentation of the ups and downs the artist has experienced along the way.” Rockne Krebs and Sam Gilliam’s studio, 1970“I had the great pleasure to be Rockne and Sam’s studio mate in the mid to late 70s. Furthermore, my studio was the middle floor between them. Rockne was on the large expansive space on the bottom floor, with all the windows covered so it was always setup for the immediacy of his light experiments with lenses, smoke, and lasers. I remember the striking glint of reflected/refracted light that came from the part of the studio where he stored the Pi-Flower series of plexi-resin works. Sam was on the top floor with brilliant light filled walls with hundreds of feet of sopping wet canvas strung through the light-filled space…in various states of drying and recombination. Being in the middle floor meant that I had access to both artists…through their brilliance and the vernacular of each day. It was a great 5-year immersion for me as a young artist, one that has stayed with me throughout my life.” “Rockne Krebs was a multi-disciplinary artist known for his Birthdays, Whales and Debts"Rockne Krebs’ exhibit, now at Fraser’s Stable, is quirky, moving, and unfamiliar. It includes neither lines of laser light, glowing planes of Plexiglas, nor slowly marching sunbeams. This exhibition is, instead, Rockne Krebs’ self-portrait.The oldest work on view, a hippo made of clay, was done when heHe did not have it easy. Even when most polished, his art is never slick. He is no pencil prodigy, he struggles when he draws. His work, though often troubled, is at all times honest.All fine artists show us what they feel must be seen. Krebs is freer with his feelings now than he ever has been, but his motives have not changed. All his art, his light works and his animals, his sculptures, and his drawings, pay homage to the cycles of the natural, to energy and time.” Rockne Krebs Photos © Rockne Krebs Art Trust/Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York, NY
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Neo-Green, Rockne Krebs, 1987, Memorial Art Gallery - University of Rochester, Rochester, New York9/12/2023 Neo-Green, Rockne Krebs, 1987, Memorial Art Gallery - |
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Neo-Green, the showcase exhibit for the revamped Memorial Art Gallery, will be displayed for an invitation-only crowd tomorrow night – and on a special, live Channel 21 telecast from 8 to 9 p.m…
The laser exhibit will then be available to the public Sunday through Friday nights, from 9 to 11 p.m…
The miles-long beams of green-blue light that will connect the gallery with the campus and with downtown won’t be as readily visible from a distance, but are designed in a more philosophical sense to link the Memorial Art Gallery and its parent UR campus to the host community – Rochester.
Neo-Green is such a large work that it can’t be totally viewed at one time, from one place.
“I particularly enjoy the idea that I can produce something that occupies such a large space,” Krebs said, “but can also be changed quickly and easily, as I see fit.”
Krebs explained that the patterns of laser light are created through a maze of three lasers generators and about 20 mirrors on buildings at the gallery and on the campus. A new “work” results when the degree of light or the angles of any of the mirrors are changed.
It is the ephemeral, organic quality of laser art that especially appeals to Krebs, who approaches the spontaneity of laser art as a jazz musician embraces improvisation.
“I started out as a sculptor in which I explored ideas about space. And space is meaningless without light.”
At one point, Krebs said, he constructed sculptures of transparent plexiglass. “I walked away from it, turned around, and it seemed to have disappeared. At that moment the idea was triggered to work with lasers. I liked the idea of structuring things in space that aren’t material.”
Krebs, 48, who built his first laser installation in 1968, said, “I’ve always said I wanted to build sculptures that people would walk through.”
And, in effect, Rochesterians are being invited to walk through Neo-Green.
Krebs wants people to feel free to stroll about the gallery grounds, examining Neo-Green from underneath the designs, which will be played off the gallery buildings and the two rows of linden trees in front of the structure.
He said he designs his works to be viewed up close – and not from a distance, as one might view fireworks.
People also can photograph the work. Ron Baird, a photographic specialist at Eastman Kodak Co., suggests that photographers use 400 speed film, and a wide-open F stop (like F2), with a speed of one-half or one-quarter second. “But the camera must be supported on a tripod, or at least be sitting on your rolled-up coat on a rock or a ledge.”
If other illumination is present – such as streetlights – photographers could try one-fifteenth of a second at F2, Baird added.
(Another suggestion is to “bracket,” or shoot at a variety of F-stops and speeds to improve one’s chances of getting a good exposure.)
Krebs said the lasers won’t hurt anyone; they’ll be out of reach. The only potential danger is if someone were to look directly down a laser beam toward the source – much like the danger of looking at the sun. But the public won’t be in a position to do that.
The laser beam itself is a special form of light that has been amplified by specific molecular action within the projector. The word stands for: “light amplification by stimulated emissions of radiation.”
White light from conventional sources diffuses in all directions, a beam of laser light travels in a tight, narrow path. For example, a half-inch beam will expand only to about three inches while traveling one mile.
“Lasers are only in their infancy,” said Krebs, “I could see myself working in lasers for the rest of my life.”
He added, though, that laser artists have met with their share of naysayers.
“Lasers aren’t firmly established in the arts community,” he admits. “But lasers are really only a tool to be used by the artist.”
“Fortunately, some of the earliest work in lasers by artists was quite strong, and much of it occurred before lasers became prominent in the entertainment field.”
Krebs added that laser art also has had difficulty finding acceptance because it isn’t easily “collectible,” unlike paintings that can be hung on a wall, or marble or metal sculptures that can adorn a patio.
In other words, Neo-Green will be here through Friday – and then it’ll disappear into thin air.”
Jack Garner, Sculpture in the Sky: Rochester will be wrapped in light in ‘Neo-Green’, 1987
-HK
The One Night Stand, Rockne Krebs, December 31, 1977 - January 1, 1978, Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD.
7/12/2023
The One Night Stand, Rockne Krebs,
December 31, 1977 - January 1, 1978
Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD.
Fireworks by Zambelli Fireworks.
First time ever lasers and fireworks shown together.
Video on Rockne Krebs Art's Facebook page 🎼🎶🎵🎼
-HK
It’s a family affair, 1979
Happy Father’s Day
Photographs of Rockne’s father, Arthur Krebs, an engineer, assisting him with the construction of his public art sculpture The White Tornado for the atrium of the Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse
in Topeka, Kansas. Commissioned by the U.S. General Services Administration Art-in-Architecture Program. An environmental sculpture 60 feet high with a tornado-like element on which white neon lightning bolts are placed to form a five-pointed star when viewed from below - sunlight, prisms, white neon, white painted aluminum, mirrors, and scrim fabric.
Restoration of The White Tornado was completed by McKay Lodge Laboratory Fine Art Conservation in 2017.
A photomontage of Rockne’s dad, Arthur Krebs, a great father,
and granddad.
Rockne Krebs’ 1979 #publicart #sculpture The White Tornado restoration recently completed by @ohioconcenter #artconservation #TopekaKS pic.twitter.com/8SPbbW77Mz
— Rockne Krebs, Artist □□ (@RockneKrebsArt) September 3, 2017
-HK
Smoke Drawing Series
Rockne Krebs, August 1973
Code Purple, Washington, DC, June 8, 2023
- HK
Rockne Krebs: Lasers and Candle Smoke
Public Art Works on Paper SciArt HighTech LowTech
Art and Technology
The other is a selection from his hitherto unknown works on paper, which someday could easily serve as the basis for a more extensive exhibition that examines how he used the oldest art medium to describe his aspirations for the newest. - Dan Cameron, August 2022
Cameron, Dan / Zahn, Mike / Pazo Fine Art, The Technological Sublime, 2022.
Rockne Krebs: Born in 1938 in Kansas City, Missouri, Rockne Krebs was, by the 1970s, a major pioneer in public artworks. Krebs was one of the first artists to experiment with lasers and other light forms in his works, the first to create three-dimensional installations with light, and the first to deploy lasers in large-scale public works…
Public Art Review, Spring/Summer 2012, In Memory: Rockne Krebs
-HK
Photographs from the Rockne Krebs photo archive and by Carol Harrison to accompany a 1986 article by Paul Richard for
The Washington Post about Nesta Dorrance and the
Jefferson Place Gallery.
The Nesta Revival: A Gallery Pioneer back at Jefferson Place,
The Washington Post, 1986, Paul Richard.
The artists!
Exhibition opening night
The Jefferson Place Gallery Reunion, Washington, DC, 1986
Photo © Carol Harrison
Back: Ed Zerne, Sam Gilliam, Eric Rudd, Rockne Krebs
Middle: John Wise, Carroll Sockwell, V.V. Rankin, Nesta Dorrance, Alice Denney, Franklin White
Front: Ben Abramowitz, Hilda Thorpe, David Moy
“It is not just the art – by Gene Davis, Tom Downing, Howard Mehring, Sam Gilliam and Rockne Krebs – that gives the Jefferson Place Gallery show now at 406 Seventh St. NW particular importance. Nor is it just the sight, there behind the counter, of dealer Nesta Dorrance selling art again.”
Paul Richard
“The rooms upstairs were tiny – some were literally cubicles, about as high as they were wide – but they made new art look grand.”
Paul Richard
“What made the Jefferson Place unusual,” says Krebs, who had seven exhibitions there, “is the consideration she extended to her artists. It had been founded as a cooperative, and she ran it that way. She never told you that your work was too experimental. She focused on the artists of this city – and she stuck with them.”
Rockne Krebs
Paul Richard, The Washington Post, 1986, The Nesta Revival: A Gallery Pioneer, Back at Jefferson Place.
"The first time Krebs installed his laser sculptures there
his mirrors made the walls dissolve so that the viewer felt
as if he were standing on a pinnacle, among endless,
floating lines of light, somewhere in outer space.”
Paul Richard
Sculpture Minus Object, 1969, installed in the
Jefferson Place Gallery for Rockne Krebs: Energy Structures.
- HK
Laser Sculptures Brighten Up the Omni
By W. C. Burnett Jr.
âThe Atlanta Journal and Constitution, February 12, 1977
The art of Rockne Krebs is internationally recognized. He has installed his âlaser sculpturesâ in Japan, Canada and in museums and galleries at many places in the United States.
But seeing the forms which are created by his placing of colored beams of light is not all there is to understanding the complex ideas of the artist.
An exhibit in the Arnold Gallery, 347 Omni International, will furnish insights into his thinking and some entertainment as well. His drawings are architectural in character, though not strictly as formal as architectural renderings. He seeks to find order, even in random experiences, such as the breaking of sun rays through clouds. Thus many of the drawings are systematic visualizations of such experiences.
He also expresses emotions about natural phenomena and personal relationships, makes little jokes, explores concepts which would be totally impractical in real life and misspells quite a few words. Schoolteachers and copy editors attending the exhibit will just have to forgive him for the last failing. He gets his messages across.
The works in the exhibit relate to his laser sculpture installation in the Omni International, which is visible from 8 until 11 p.m. in the evenings, when the apparatus is working. It has been temporarily disrupted by freezing temperatures, which interfere with the water cooling of the laser installations.
In his drawings Krebs has gone beyond the laser installation. Intrigued by the shape and dimensions of the space within the Omni International, he has projected variations of light sculpture for various seasons and times of day.
There is also a visualization of the roof area as the âCanine Constellation,â in which lights seek affinity with the universe.
In yet another work, he also has envisioned âAtlantis,â an eye which is formed from light as it emerges through many prisms, and he has generally speculated on light as energy and form.
In considering the Arnold Gallery exhibit, it is necessary to consider Krebsâ use of laser beams as âlight sculptureâ in general.
When Krebs visited the Atlanta College of Art some years ago, he encountered a student body which was at least interested in his concepts. But some were skeptical, and one said, âOh boy, that Krebs is just getting off too easy.â
The studentâs attitude was an old one, that art can only consist of laboriously constructed images which are capable of being located in some easily controlled space.
But letâs consider these points:
* Krebs divides space, but with lights instead of lines on paper or instead of using substances which have weight, as in much of abstract metal sculpture.
* All art depends on light. It is really the effect of light on surfaces that we see, and if lights are turned off we really do not perceive a work of art. Krebs gives us the light itself, only a step away from the usual perceptual process.
* He sculpturally divides space, but instead of dividing a pace which is outside of us, which is limited to a pedestal or the dimensions of a canvas, he divides the space in which we are actually standing. We are inside his sculptural space.
âThe images and scrawled commentary in this exhibit are sometimes poetic. But their greatest contribution is in the area of sharpening our own perceptions.
Krebs has made a major accomplishment out of the childhood pastime of looking at the clouds. For example, he shows us a âsun pyramid,â a fantasy structure which would be built over the hours of a day as the earth moves and the rays shine down through the clouds.
Itâs an exhibit which reawakens the pleasure of using imagination and speculating about âthings.â
W. C. Burnett Jr.
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, February 12, 1977
âPhilip M. Smith has succinctly described this drawing as, âa mathematically developed astronomical plot of the sun at Atlanta GA for the Omni International Project.â This cosmic view of the Atlantis project includes the artistâs commentary on the splendor of ârayning,â the appearance of beams of sunlight through an opening in the clouds that are, Krebs informs us, technically known as crepuscular rays."
Stephen Goddard, Associate Director, Spencer Museum of Art, 2013
Rockne Krebs: Drawings for Sculpture You Can Walk Through, Spencer Museum of Art
â
âKrebs created the word Rayning to describe how he saw the sunâs rays breaking through clouds.
Drawing text excerpts: âRAYNING â a definition. All know the sun is supreme as far as life on this sphere is concerned. It is our light, our energy. Granted that other factors of value must be considered, but in any hierarchical ordering the sun must surely REIGN supreme.â
âI am of course not the first to acknowledge the SUN RAYNING.â â Rockne Krebs, 1973
âATLANTA â The bellhop calls them sunflowers, the desk clerk calls them rainbows. They are spectra made by sunbeams passing through the thousand prisms the Rockne Krebs has fastened to the skylights 14 stories overhead. They drift alone, or in small groups, apparently at random through the Omni International as long as there is lightâ¦
â
No pigments are as pure as these colors made of light â the reds and emerald greens and mysterious midnight purples â that visit the walls, the leaves of the indoor gardens, and your lap. They vary in intensity from the ghostly to the brilliant. Though they seem to wander aimlessly as clouds, they obey Newtonian optics in the placement of the prisms, and the cycles of the sun.â
Richard, Paul. The Washington Post, November 8, 1976. Brilliant Hues of Sunbeams by Day, Piercing Darts of Lasers by Night.
Brilliant Hues of Sunbeams by Day, Piercing Darts of Lasers by Night
By âPaul Richard
âThe Washington Post, November 8, 1976
By âPaul Richard
âThe Washington Post, November 8, 1976
Omni Great Space Mid-Summer â Atlanta, Sept. 1972, Rockne Krebs
Rockne Krebs in the laser booth for his public art piece at the Omni International in Atlanta, Georgia, 1976.
Photos © Al Stephenson for The Washington Post
âHues of Sunbeams by Day, Piercing Darts of Lasers by Nightâ
by Paul Richard, Washington Post, 1976
The Atlantis video on RK Art's Facebook www.facebook.com/629362525/videos/382840194226186/
- HK
The Technological Sublime - Beverly Fishman, Rockne Krebs, and Ruth Pastine (exhibition catalogue)
1/1/2023
Pazo Fine Art is pleased to present The Technological Sublime,
an exhibition of works by Beverly Fishman,
Rockne Krebs, and Ruth Pastine.
September 17 - November 10, 2022
These three artists each calibrate finely-tuned qualities of light and space through their unique approaches to the dynamics of media and spectatorship. The exhibition is accompanied by a 80 page catalogue with essay by independent curator and critic Dan Cameron.
Digital exhibition catalogue click here.
Print copies are available through Pazo Fine Art
The Technological Sublime - Beverly Fishman, Rockne Krebs, and Ruth Pastine
-HK
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