(Uerdingen 1912–1990 Krefeld)
‘2 Brennpunkte’, titled, signed and dated Luther 68 on the reverse, two layers each of 16 square concave mirrors, silver with rounded corners (each 17 x 17 cm, over mirrors each 35 x 35 cm) on black wooden panel in an aluminium frame with Plexiglas pane, 149 x 149 x 11 cm, (PS)

The work has been registered by the Adolf Luther Foundation, Krefeld, under the archive no. HSP 68/011.

Provenance:
Private Collection, North Rhine Westphalia

“It was Luther who developed the concept of perceiving light as energy, as energetic power, rather than as a source of fascination to illustrate and mystify as did other artists. It was he who, using complex systems of mirrors and lenses, created immaterial, but nonetheless visible, real and at the same time floating pre-images – literally – of real life. These produced dumbfounded amazement and still do, even in today’s era of simulative media, and demonstrated the existence of “parallel worlds” which we cannot directly perceive. It was Luther who, not alone in his spatial settings, turned the supposedly passive observer into an indispensable co-creator. [...]
Every one of his works requires a viewer in physical and intellectual movement.”
(Klaus Honnef in: Adolf Luther, Eine außergewöhnliche Künstlerkarriere, Ed. Magdalena Broska, Goch 2012, p. 17)

By superimposing two convex mirrors of different sizes, the “two focal points” demand significant movement from the viewer in order to comprehend the work as a whole and the surrounding space. In a strangely fascinating way, as with a camera obscura, which Luther described as the inspirational origin of his works, the pre-image is inverted with the aid of light and reflected back into the room via the two mirrors, distorting it twice. Luther’s intention is to make the existence of light as an independent, transoptical and autonomous reality visible to us, the viewers. Thus the world is turned on its head.