I recently wrote about a visit I made to Proa, a contemporary
art space in Buenos Aires, and included images of the striking
ceiling. As you can see in this photo, there’s quite a contrast
between the old pillars in the building and the very modern
feeling fluorescent lighting. A reader wondered if American
museums will ever try lighting contemporary art this way. There
are many ways to address this question and one, for starters, is
to explore when and why fluorescents are used. I spoke with
Terry Schaeffer in LACMA’s Conservation Center on the subject
and she told me that U.S. museums do indeed sometimes use
fluorescent lights but that they’re utilized less than tungsten,
which is the mainstay, because fluorescents emit more UV light,
which can be damaging to objects. The decision to light via
fluorescent or tungsten is influenced by three primary factors:
conservation requirements (works on paper and costume may be
particularly light-sensitive), lighting that ensures a correct
representation of the color o