Rockne Krebs
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Urban-Scale Laser Sculptures


"I think of these as pieces which you experience in total but
see only in sequence or passages.  The experience is a remembered
experience, almost as a piece of music of which you hear the progression. 
In this case, you see the progression of the piece and your final total experience 

is one of memory." Rockne Krebs, 1970

"Rockne Krebs principally sculpts with light, though he has worked in a variety of media.  His objective is to define space and mark time. Though some hardware is always necessary to his sculpture, the work itself consists only of light.  The light generally takes two forms, one natural, the other technological.  Working with the  existing landscape, he transforms it, playing the variability of light  conditions against a formally rigorous system of mirrors and laser lights. This creates structures which appear solid and stable, but are actually immaterial and subject to atmospheric conditions."
Reid, James Earl.  Sculpture Today/Traditonal and Non-Traditional, exhibition catalogue, 1980.  The Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
"In the 1960’s lasers became available to the artist.  Lasers have been used most characteristically to create spectacular nocturnal displays, the pioneer in this field being the American artist, Rockne Krebs (1938-2011)."
Chilvers, Ian (Editor).  “Light Art,” A Dictionary of 20th Century Art, 1999.


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The Source, 1980. Washington, DC.

‘Rockne Krebs is recognized as one of  Washington’s
finest artists.  Krebs “Of the 38 major pieces I’ve made 
in the last 10 years, two still exist.  Perhaps I ought to
start making still-lifes of flowers.”’
Richard, Paul.  The Washington Post, October 2, 1977,  
Making It as An Artist.


"The Source by Rockne Krebs, a kind of weightless sculpture made of glowing laser beams that floated in the evenings above the greensward of The Mall, was among the most beautiful.”
Richard, Paul.  The Washington Post, March 27, 1990,
Sculptors’ Conference to Return to Washington.
 

"In his homage to the founding fathers of our country, entitled “The Source,“ Rockne Krebs bounced a laser beam off the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.”  (10’ x 4' mirror in the middle of the reflecting pool.)
Editors. Optics & Photonics News, OPN, March 1996, Vol.7 No.3, After Image.

 



“…laser artist Rockne Krebs was the pioneer in the orchestration of  elaborate choreographies of static and moving laser beams.  Inclined Planes  transformed the town into a dynamic stage of moving shapes.”  

Houk, Pamela.  Sculpture, May-June 1991.  Sky Art’s
Lofty Ambitions
.

"Rockne had that ability, to hold people spellbound. 
I remember him at a sculptors’ conference in
Huntsville, Alabama, he was just remarkable. 
Making those lasers come to life through
35mm slides and the power of his conviction."  
 
William Dunlap, 
May 14, 2013
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Inclined Planes,1989, Johnstown, PA.
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The Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1973.



“I was working at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
back in 1973, when  David Katzive, the head of
the Museum's Division of Education and the
Urban Outreach Program, commissioned
Sky Bridge Green, which was one of  the
most extraordinary, beautiful artworks I have
ever experienced.  I watched Rockne tinker
with the impressively huge laser that he had
set up on the east portico of the Museum to
shoot a beam of light straight down the
Benjamin Franklin Parkway to a mirror on
Billy Penn's hat on the top of City Hall.”

William F. Stapp, 
December 2, 2012

Former Curator of Photography,
The National Portrait Gallery  Former Staff Lecturer Education Department, The
Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Tampa Tribune,  November 6, 2013,
1977 artist’s work debunks rumor of UFO in St. Pete, by Paul Guzzo

Documentation of a 1977 installation by laser artist Rockne Krebs was recently mistaken for documentation of a UFO landing. A Florida newspaper debunks the myth. 
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Slides by Rockne Krebs, taken between 1975-1977 of his work,
The Laser and Star Board Home on the Range, Part VI, St. Petersburg, FL. 
Slides were taken with long exposures at night; the effects have an ethereal quality.
  

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"The Disneyland Hotel Laser piece proposed
at the request of Mr. Jack Wrather.  
Rockne Krebs 8 Dec 78." 


Sketch courtesy of Donald Ballard.

*The Sixth National Sculpture Conference, 1970, catalogue, National Sculpture Center, the University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.  Edited by Elden C. Tefft, published 1971.  Published transcript of Krebs’ lecture.

All Photographs by Rockne Krebs

All Images © 2023 Rockne Krebs Art Trust / Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York, NY /  Photographs are not to be downloaded or reproduced without license from VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS) / ​
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Researched and archived by H. Krebs /  Website created by H. Krebs  /  Last update March 13, 2023
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