Susanne Rottenbacher: Licht im Griff (Light Handle)

Licht im Griff (“Light Handle”), a small work by German light artist Susanne Rottenbacher, fits in every private collection. Available in 4 different colors.

The multiple is made from a bent light hose. The light hose is provided with power via a cable and adaptor. Where the cable meets the hose an opaque handgrip made from black plastic has been attached. Initially the body of the hose describes a straight line, before it rises serpentine-like up into the air, in several dynamic expansive movements. Whereas the light component for this multiple is specifically constructed, the plastic handgrip is a prefabricated object: the handle grip of a bicycle.

Light Handle makes one think both of an unconventionally designed workshop lamp as well as the notion of a torch, adapted with a modern artificial flame. As an art object, it can be hung on the wall, or just left on a shelf or table. Due to LED lights, the object does not heat up a great deal and allows a simple and straightforward handling. As a torch, the multiple relates to a large, iconographic context. As a workshop lamp and therefore a tool conceived for practical use, it brings up an exciting question about the space that could require such a light – formed by such convolutions.

Independently from its use, however, Light Handle always retains, thanks to the end piece realised as a handgrip, its reference to the use of the hand. Established in this way as a portable and administrable light, it transports the image of a gesture, which always considers itself a contribution to brightness. And so it’s not a surprise that the light, when passed on, from hand to hand as a wandering torch, becomes an allegorical formula that can be filled and linked with multifaceted content.

In the work of Susanne Rottenbacher, the multiple refers to a set of sculptures in which light hoses appear as large and extensive light figurations. Their lively and always dance-like shapes are here brought into a form in a scaled down format, the composition of which makes one think of an object designed for a practical use. And so, it is precisely this “handiness” which transports the narrative moment of this work.

Text by Rafael von Uslar