Framing Thomas Wilfred’s Lumia: Museums, Intermedia and the Problem with Painting | Intellect Skip to content
1981
Volume 12, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 2045-5836
  • E-ISSN: 2045-5844

Abstract

Thomas Wilfred (1889–1968) invented an idiosyncratic artform, ‘lumia’, that projected coloured light onto screens. With these contraptions, Wilfred aimed to expand the concept of art beyond standard media categories. Yet critics and curators historicized lumia within the tradition of painting, and the artist himself adopted a form of museological presentation – the frame – for his works of the 1950s. Close consideration of a work in the holdings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art sheds light on how the disciplinary framework of museums obscures intermedia objects that prompt new approaches to their collection and interpretation.

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2024-01-12
2024-04-28
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