“When, for the first time in history, one has an instrument, an optical element which can show every point of one’s face in its exact position in space, one must not misuse this instrument as a reproduction machine. Rather invent precise themes and reasons for it, poetic or philosophical. Avoid the medium’s sensation. Try to limit one’s production to wit and adventure.”

During the early 1980’s, a period when the Museum of Holography in New York was at its most influential, well-meaning American critics suggested to the staff there that one way of making holography more acceptable to the ‘art world’ would be to encourage ‘real’ artists to use the medium. This single, and probably well-meant observation, not only dismissed the vanguard of artists who had already embraced and dedicated themselves to holography as a visual medium, but also highlighted how difficult it can be to ‘understand’ the developments of a revolutionary creative medium.

A great deal has changed. The Museum of Holography is no longer in existence in its Bohemian, SoHo, cast iron-fronted building in Manhattan, and holograms are held in collections of major museums and galleries around the world, but some critics are still unaware. Artists, already established in other media, had embraced holography and were doing so well before it became an attractive ‘dinner party’ conversation topic.

Although born in the scientific laboratories of Russia, England and America, holography attracted the attention of artists as soon as it became public knowledge in the 1960’s. Politics and geography had prevented early collaborations between the scientific pioneers and, as much of the research was aimed at military applications, it took a while for the visual potential of this new medium to become publicly known. Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd was there at the beginning.

In those early days expensive, and inaccessible, lasers were needed to record holographic images. In fact, although the medium had been invented by Dennis Gabor in 1947, he had to wait until the invention of the laser, in the early 1960’s, before his curious optical phenomenon could be demonstrated as the revolution it really was. Technology sometimes takes a little time to catch up with genius!

As the phenomenal three-dimensional images of early holography were moving out of the laboratories and into more public scrutiny, Reuterswärd was already experimenting with laser light as an extension of his sculptural palette. Most well known is his use of powerful lasers projected onto the stage of the Stockholm Opera. Dots and lines of laser light darted over the stage to represent the six spirits in Busoni’s Faust in 1968/69. This appears to be the first occasion when laser light was used for a precise reason and not simply as luminous decoration. Today theatrical laser effects is an industry in its own right and so common as to be subliminal - a rock concert without lasers is lacklustre. Today we are visual sophisticates expecting ever more retinal stimulation, back in the 1960’s, it was revolutionary.

Perhaps being an established artist does give you a confidence, and mechanism, to explore cutting edge media or technologies. It certainly allows you to actually convert the experiments into realisable projects. However, being established can also breed lassitude. In Reuterswärd’s case it did not. As early as 1962 he was already using CO2 lasers to write and draw on Plexiglas. The name ‘KILROY’, was ‘blasted’ into transparent plastic - etching with photons in a way which transforms a mere name into something poetic and real. Kilroy was certainly ‘here’, manifest in molten plastic vaporised by the heat of this hi-tech, and far-reaching, ‘pencil’. During the same year the bright red beam of helium neon laser light was already an integral element in his ‘Kilroy’ installation, now in the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art, Paris. He was later invited to propose laser projects for the Centre Pompidou, Paris, “Laser Halo” in 1972, as well as “Envoyez Le Louvre À La Défense” in 1974. It is not surprising then that his fascination with laser light would lead, eventually, to the production of holograms - ones which can clearly be classified as pioneering examples of the medium.

Whereas many of the early artists who began working with holography were able to ‘tease out’ the technological secrets of the medium, build their own labs/studios and begin using the technology themselves, Reuterswärd chose a different route. During the 1960’s and 70’s he worked with some of the key world-class scientists, engineers and researchers to realise his concepts. Many of these early pieces have a flippant, yet sophisticated, humour not found in holograms produced by other contemporary artists of the period, who often concentrated on the minutiae of the medium. These were bold statements: “Finger Language”, 1973, literally did ‘poke you in the eye’ as the luminous fingers extend out of the holographic space and into that of the observer. This piece, made at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, in collaboration with Dr. Hans Bjelkhagen, was included in “Holografi Det 3-Dimensionella Mediet”, an exhibition which attracted immense attention when it took place at the House of Culture, Stockholm, in 1976. This international showcase of early technical and artist-produced images did a great deal to focus critical attention on the potential of holography. Later that year, the Museum of Holography opened its doors in New York, where Reuterswärd was the first European artist invited to show in 1977. His retrospective “Lasers & Holography” (he already had enough work to look back on), highlighted, to a skeptical New York audience, just how much this new medium was being stretched on a conceptual as, well as a physical level.

His birthday cake for Dennis Gabor, “Gateau Gabor”, sculpts the air above the candles with dimensional disturbance. There are, however, no flames to blow out and conclude the celebration (smoke without fire). This laser transmission hologram, with its corpulent depth and apparently limitless pool of space, behind the glass, is a true visual feast, an optical and physical demonstration, a celebration and visual conceptualisation. It makes me smile each time I see it.

During the 1980’s Reuterswärd produced a series of holograms with Matthias Lauk and the Museum for Holography and New Visual Media in Germany. “Non-Violence” was a holographic version of Reuterswärd’s massive sculpture of the same name. This holographic edition allowed collectors around the world to ‘own’ a conceptual, dimensional documentation of the object which stands outside the United Nations Building in New York. It is NOT the object, obviously, but neither is it a photo of the original, a sketch or a model. What the hologram so cleverly provided was a portable essence of the original. The dimensional irony of the knotted gun, and underlying humour which must accompany such a concept, still ‘poke’ through the cleverness of the holographic ‘gimmick’.

Humour is a dangerous element to incorporate into any art form - it is all too easy to miss the joke and be left hungry and confused - but this is not a funny hologram. What it attempts to say is earnest, but with just the right touch of humility to encourage you into its influence - a property which pervades Reuterswärd’s work in other media and one which has propelled his holography well beyond the physical demonstration of a curious and fascinating creative medium.

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Published in Style is Fraud - Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd, Bokförlaget Arena, Sweden, PP104-109, ISBN 91-7843-187-5,