On October 14, following an 18-month-long interior renovation, the Smithsonian's Asian art museums–the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C.–kicked off their official reopening with a two-day festival called IlluminAsia, celebrating Asian culture, food, and art. One of the features was a spectacular light show that animated the institution's rich history on the Freer Gallery's façade, facing the National Mall. The 12-minute show, called “Perfect Harmony,” was commissioned by the Smithsonian and created by London-based video artists 59 Productions, who boast an impressive portfolio of projects including the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games and the Tony award-winning Broadway musical, War Horse. “Perfect Harmony” had five showings on the evening of October 14.
The animations were divided into three sequences: the first, included photographs, correspondence letters, drawings, and museum plans, a nod to the history of the two institutions; the second, included patterns and motifs related to the art in the collections; and the third, displayed “bespoke animated material” that 59 Productions created as a playful homage to the museum.
In order to put together the light show, the design team went through the Freer|Sackler's archives, to learn about the two men behind the creation of these collections. Charles Lang Freer was an American industrialist and avid art collector who donated his collection of Asian and American art to the Smithsonian in 1906. Arthur M. Sackler, was a psychiatrist and entrepreneur who endowed a sister museum of Asian art in the 1980s. “There were certain key pieces that we knew we wanted to include such as [James McNeill Whistler's] Peacock Room, and some of the jade ‘bi,’” said Mark Grimmer, director at 59 Productions, in an email interview with Architectural Lighting. “The museum was able to provide us with a list of certain pieces that they wanted to feature, and some of the others were chosen once we had a narrative shape in mind for the piece.”
To create the dynamic display, 59 Productions used laser scanning to recreate an accurate 3D model of the building's façade. This template allowed them to digitally map and visualize the projected elements from the computers at their London studio. “I had been interested in projection mapping for a while,” says Thomas Wilde, assistant director of special projects at the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. “What attracted me to it was the way that you could tell a story as well as a spectacle. I was looking for something that had the potential of providing an emotional punch as well as just a dazzling light-show.”
To create the show, 59 Productions used eight projectors, each of which delivered 300,000 lumens, and were driven by a D3 media server. In addition to the projectors, the studio's lighting designer, Anthony Pearson, installed 24, 280W spotlights (the Pointe theatrical spotlight/projector by lighting manufacturer Robe) on the top of the building to emit a series of linear light beams over the façade, which created an overall harmony with the colorful animations.
James McNeill Whistler's "Peacock Room" projected onto the @FreerSackler on Oct. 14. #lightshow #Whistler #projection #Smithsonian #peacocks pic.twitter.com/oVH8eKKEh1
— Selin Ash (@TurkishDumpling) October 23, 2017
The greatest challenge for the team was creating a dark enough environment for the projection to be seen at its full realization with proper detail and contrast. Since the museums are located in an area that has a significant amount of street and ambient lighting, the team had to make sure lights emanatting from the museum would be turned off in time for the event. Wilde jokes, “Nevertheless, I still found myself at 1:00 a.m. the night before, with the director of the Freer|Sackler, perching on chairs trying to hang blackout curtains across windows in the museum that were leaking light onto the [National] Mall.”
The show attracted large crowds, and viewers enjoyed a visual journey through the museum’s history, celebrating a beloved institution that was founded on the idea that art could deepen the understanding and appreciation of world cultures. Richard Slaney, 59 Productions project director, said in a press statement, “We hope to show the museums in a spectacular new light and to demonstrate how Charles Lang Freer’s belief in the power of cross-cultural exchange is more important now than ever.”
