Supercluster
Leo Villareal

Date: 2005
Location: Queens, New York

Leo Villareal’s Supercluster was a temporary light installation at the PS1 Contemporary Arts Center, which was under extensive renovation to its facade in 2003.

The piece was a large array of LED lamp nodes that were secured to the protective mesh covering the scaffolding. These nodes were molded polycarbonate boxes that were riveted to hollow nylon webbing. The webbing served as both a conduit for the wiring and a structural attachment to the building; Villareal’s studio assembled the lamps into pre-wired strands, which were unrolled from the top of the building. These vertical straps were tied off to the scaffolding and then placed under tension using ratcheting loadbinders.

These LED nodes are now used in a permanent installation of the piece at the Albright Knox Museum in Buffalo, NY, where they are installed behind a glass curtain wall on aluminum rails.