For years there has been a critical demand within the sign industry for a book on the structural engineering of signs. This comprehensive text more than meets that demand -- it exceeds it. Sign companies, ...
Are neon signs artwork?
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Assuming few readers like to delve into deep math as a pastime, this month I‘ll discuss the vague, if nonexistent, distinction between neon signage and artwork.
Neon art poses challenges, but also bring rewards. If you want to produce neon art, don’t expect normal, sign-production work. And prepare yourself for other surprises.
A neon-art repair project certainly provided a “now for something completely different” moment for me. I’d received photos of a small, approximately 3-ft.-wide, window-sign type object (below). I never expected it would arrive in a car-sized, triple, box-in-box container delivered via an air-conditioned, 38-ton flatbed truck. It was handled only with white gloves. I cleaned out my garage to unpack it.
Is it a sign or art?
Neon-sign fabrication has always been an art form since neon’s invention in 1910. But, since the 1960s, artists have discovered neon’s artistic possibilities. First, cartoon-like caricatures showed up as signs. Using posterization, the Pop-Art movement focused attention on advertising and signage as artistic expression.
Correct tubing-fabrication methods require practice and equipment, so only a few artists who use neon fabricate it themselves. Most artists relegate fabrication to a well-known local neon shop.
Artists want to be treated like artists, and they normally ask the neonbender to create something technically impossible, as if it’s a production piece. Because of an artist’s demands, art projects clog up the production-shop workflow. Thus, the neonbender/installer must gently ground the levitated artist back to electrical safety.
Grounding the artist
The National Electrical Code, paragraph 600, and the Underwriter Laboratory’s standard UL 48 describe sign and outline lighting’s usage, but don’t define precisely what a sign is. Artists may find some loopholes to circumvent the U.S. regulations, but not in Europe, where regulations only reference the voltage implied, not the usage (sign or art).
Often artists claim art must not be restricted by regulations, which I can agree with, if no safety regulations are involved. I have witnessed “art” pieces that expose lethal voltage – viewers are protected only by keeping away from it.
Because art is presented publicly, and normally within arm’s reach, it must be absolutely safe, not to say fool- and childproof (normally, gallery operators don’t know much about electricity).
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