The Zurich-based artist duo Adam Cruces and Louisa Gagliardi, a.k.a. Couple, stage light itself in their joint exhibition Haunts. Like a ghost from the past that still seduces us; like a modern act of illusion that still makes us see things that don’t truly exist — depending on the light in which one sees them.

For light may be the source of creative power, the spirit within matter, yet it is also humanity’s most seductive trick of illusion. In the Gothic setting of ORTHUNGA, light becomes both sacred and suspect: a reminiscence of the Christian worship of light rituals, and its modern electric afterimage — an artificial flame imitating the divine’s greatest spectacle.

As the first act of illusion, luminous figures rise in the space like false altar candles. They are tall, four-sided paper lanterns printed with images of burning wax candles. Behind the matte surface of the paper burns no flame — only a glowing bulb. These large lanterns form a landscape of pillars — like modern altar candles in a secular temple.

In the biblical tradition, light is associated with the divine — “Let there be light” — a beginning from which all life springs. Yet light carries an ambiguity: it is both revelation and illusion, that which gives life but also blinds and casts long, unsettling shadows. In certain orthodox circles, the veneration of light in church rituals is considered sheer idolatry — a seduction away from the true; one should worship the Creator, not the creation.

At the windows, the second act of illusion continues. Transparent sheets of plexiglass are mounted, shaped to match the windows’ Gothic contours, but printed with images of plywood — as if the windows were boarded up, barricaded. From the outside, the room seems darkened, yet from within, the light still seeps through. A reawakening of matter through lumen naturae. Some of the panels are spray-painted or adorned with stickers, traces of human intervention — a profane gesture of human presence that breaks with the sacred atmosphere.

Three monumental pairs of glasses — made of plexiglass and metal — lie on the floor like lost relics, their lenses tinted clear, pink, and dark. Our eyes constantly transform the impressions of reality; the brain unceasingly translates light, shadow, and color, while Truth remains beyond our field of vision. Illusion act number three.

Haunts moves within the tension between faith and technology. Light becomes a being unto itself — alive but distorted; a ghost from the religious rituals of the past, now electrified, technologized, transformed, and refusing to rest. It casts not only light upon the world, but also a shadow upon our own longing for meaning.

The title Haunts carries this duality — between that which haunts us and that which we yearn for, long toward. In that sense, the divine has never truly left us.

— Maria Kjær Themsen