Rewarding Lives On Tour:

A Unique Exhibit Hits the Road 

Lighting & Sound America, June 2004
by David Barbour

One of the better-remembered advertising campaigns of recent years was the American Express print ads featuring eminent American Express cardholders such as Ella Fitzgerald, Stephen Sondheim, Woody Allen, and Yo-Yo Ma, all captured in distinctively witty photo portraits by Annie Liebowitz. Those portraits were assembled for an exhibit titled Rewarding Lives, which was seen at the World Financial Center in New York in the fall of 2002. Now the exhibit has gone on a three-year world tour, first to San Francisco, then to Los Angeles, where it remains until July 1. More cities will be announce soon.

The exhibit was initially designed to welcome back Amex employees to the World Financial Center, a venue that had been evacuated on September 11, 2001. The Moderns won the competition for the design with an organically conceived concept that would group together portraits from several categories, then place them in curved pods, each of which would have its own distinctively colored lighting. According to Janine James, a principal with The Moderns, “It was one of those things-the minute the phone call came, I got this image in my nead. I pictured all of these glowing pods; I saw them all, clearly and vividly.”

After looking at other options, James settled on PowerMesh as the basic material for the pods. The material was chosen, she says, because “it stretches to four times its width, which gives it that taught structure and absorbs the light.” The idea of colored light was central to the concept, she adds, “It was important to stress the chromotherapy behind the light. We have a physicist on staff and we did studies before we even hired the lighting designer. We’re very interested in the emotive and healing power of light.” Thus the pod dedicated to The Celebrated/The Inspiring is bathed in turquoise light, while the unit titled The Vibrant is bathed in goldenrod and The Loving and Connected in pale pink, and so on.

The exhibit was lit by the firm of Kugler Tillotson Associates, with principal Jerry Kugler taking the lead on the project along with lighting designers Jason Livingston, LC, and Wai Mun Chi. At first, says James, the project proved to be a lighting challenge. Kugler, she says, “wanted to light the pods from below, because je was concerned that the light source would be distracting. He also wasn’t happy with the PowerMesh - he kept sending me opaque materials. Then he saw how beautifully the light came out.”

Livingston notes, “Because of the organic curves of the pods and the openness of the mesh fabric, the lighting angle became a critical part of the design.. The goal was to light the pods from oblique angles, rather than straight on. This served two purposes. First, the light would be caught by the threads of the fabric rather than pass through the mesh unimpeded. Second, by using shutters or barndoors to control the shape of the beam, I could light the walls and ceilings of the pods without pouring colored light onto the portraits.” Livingston assisted James and The Moderns with the final color selections.

The exhibit was originally intended only for the World Financial Center. When the tour was announced, Livingston, who had moved on to Charles Cosler Theatre Design, became the official lighting designer on Rewarding Lives. The current venue at the Pacific Design Center (PDC) in West Hollywood provided an opportunity for an entirely new take on the project. It is housed in a 40’ tall by 240’ long tent on the terrace of the PDC; the tent was designed by FTL Design Engineering Studio. (The venue can accommodate only five pods at a time; the seven pods are rotated through on a regular basis.)

According to Livingston, the exhibit begins with a display on the history of American Express, with a wall of credit cards from such figures a Dwight Eisenhower and Elvis Presley. Inside the pods, each Liebowitz portrait is lit with an MR-16 unit, the pods themselves are bathed in colored light from ETC theatrical fixtures using Rosco dichroic color filters. To get the correct coverage, the lighting trusses are hung perpendicular to the length of the tent, on suspension points. Also, Livingston says, “The lighting is programmed with an astronomical time clock, which is found in the ETC console that runs the lighting (ETC also provided the dimming). Using the clock, you can program in your longitude, latitude, and time zone, as well as the date and time; then you can have cues executed at the same time, relative to sunrise and sunset, each day. There are four time-related cues, including an hour-long cue that starts an hour before sunset.” He adds that the lighting coming in from sunset creates an especially stunning effect; James adds, “You get that pink cast of light going through the space; some people were so taken off-guard by it that they got very emotional.”

Rewarding Lives, in its New York version, won both Lumen and IIDA awards for the way in which its lighting is so seamlessly integrated into the overall effect of the design. Then again, says James, “How often do you get a chance to take a project to another dimension? Amex deserves tremendous credit. They really took a leap of faith with this”