Chêne liège, 1999

Light installation as a series of leaves, neon, transformer.

Dimensions: 85 x 23 x 45 cm

Born in Mamou, Louisiana, Sonnier first studied art and anthropology at the University of Southwestern Louisiana and at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Since the late 1960s, he has incorporated neon tubes, but also fibreglass, lead, grease, latex, wire and aluminium, into his work. Like Dan Flavin, James Turrell and Richard Serra, he thus expanded the conventional concept of sculpture, but later set himself apart from the radical formal language of the minimalists. Keith Sonnier last lived and worked in New York.

In 1999, during the retrospective "Environmental Works 1968-1999", Sonnier transformed the Kunsthaus in Bregenz into an art object visible from afar with a colourful façade installation. One of his most spectacular works in Europe is the 1.2 kilometre long neon artwork Lichtweg in Terminal 1 of Munich Airport. Numerous exhibitions of his works have been shown in renowned museums and presentations, including Documenta 5 and 7 in Kassel, the Venice Biennale, the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and the National Gallery, Washington.