Leo Villareal
Modern Master of Light
“Scramble (3×3)” by Leo Villareal. A small sample of the piece’s light, motion, and color.
What is visual art but the controlled interplay of color and light? What is a visual artist but a master of that discipline? Painters, sculptors, workers in every visual medium begin with an instinctive understanding of the power of light and color to shape perceptions and challenge the viewer. And what is the ultimate realization of that understanding but to create bold, provocative works through the medium of light itself?
Thirty years ago on a Nevada desert plain, a young artist from New Mexico first discovered the power of light set free. When Leo Villareal built his first light array from sixteen portable strobe units, he merely wanted an easy way to find his tent amidst the roiling campers of the Burning Man Festival. But in throwing the switch, he illuminated a path that would lead him to becoming one of the most exciting conceptual artists of the 21st century. His academic background in sculpture, stage design, new media, and computer programming served him well as he explored the use of ever-changing elements of light and color, and the rapid advancement of microprocessor and LED technology in the early years of the new millennium offered a broad new canvas upon which to create stimulating and provocative works.
While the concept of creating art from animated points of light dates back to the development of electrically lit advertising signs in the late 19th century, a concerted movement to move light art beyond the strictures of commerce did not arise in full form until the 1960s. Some, such as James Turrell, emphasized the careful direction and framing of natural light. Others, such as Dan Flavin, utilized complex electromechanical switching devices to create bold patterns from colored fluorescent tubes. Keith Sonnier transported the penetrating flash of neon from the beer sign to the high-end gallery. Inspired by all but beholden to none, Leo Villeral would move beyond these early pioneers to master light on a truly monumental scale.
Villareal burst upon the world of conceptual art in the early 2000s, creating elaborate computer-controlled LED installations for the National Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Herbert Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, and the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, among other prestigious venues. These works, filling entire rooms and even spanning the connecting spaces between buildings, were the result of careful planning and randomized programming, where every movement and flash of color was unique, with no moment where the presentation might be sensed to begin or end.
In the 2010s, Villareal moved beyond gallery and museum walls to vast outdoor installations. In 2013, he lit the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge with 25,000 LEDs, an installation originally intended to be temporary but since made permanent. Six years later, he achieved even greater renown with his "Illuminated River" series of installations, lighting the nine central London bridges that span the Thames with a combination of LEDs and fiber optics, creating ever-shifting color patterns which, true to Villareal's technique, are programmed to present complementary but random movements of light and color.
That same vision is clearly evident in the artist's more intimate pieces. Lot 3281 in our Summer Grandeur Auction is a choice example of a portable Villareal piece. Entitled "Scramble (3x3)," the work presents bright sequenced squares of pinks, reds, oranges, blues, greens, and white, randomly pulsating and shifting in hue and tone across the white plexiglas screen to no apparent pattern. The direct inspiration for the piece can be found in the color-shifting lighting design created by minimalist icon Frank Stella for choreographer Merce Cunningham's landmark 1967 dance suite "Scramble." Stella's original design used gelled stage lights projected onto movable fabric screens, and while Villareal recreates the effect by programmed software, there remains something of the analog in the compelling randomness of the light and color effects.
Villareal created "Scramble (3x3)" in 2011, in an edition of five units. Other units from this edition are held by the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, and in private collections. Our piece is numbered four of the five units created, and awaits your bidding consideration as a bright and scintillating highlight of Day Three of our Summer Grandeur Auction.
LEO VILLAREAL (NY, 1967 - )
Lot 3281| August 30th, 2026
"Scramble (3x3)" 2016, number 4 from an edition of 5. A work of light created from LEDs, custom software, white plexiglass with electrical hardware and metal case.
Connersmith, Washington DC. Christie's sale 1986, lot 121, First Open/Post-War and Contemporary Art. 9-21 July 2021, sold for $62,500
Leo Villareal is noted for his creative use of light, motion, and color in his pulsing electronic works. His monumental public installations using patterns of LED lights to outline famous bridges have drawn global critical attention.
Summer Grandeur
Date & Time: August 28th, 29th, and 30th - 11 AM EDT
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