AG18 GALLERY cordially invites you to the first presentation of HELLER & DIMMER lighting fixtures in an art gallery setting. Under this name, artist and designer Matthias Paul Hempt founded a label for the development and manufacture of his own designs.

On display is a group of works in which the lighting fixture is reinterpreted as an object of aesthetic, technical, and conceptual investigation. The starting point is the dismantling and reinterpretation of an archetypal luminaire, whose components—material, connection, construction, and function—are individually examined, revealed, and reassembled.

Hempt’s approach combines traditional craftsmanship, technical expertise, and a precise, timeless design language. The lights are created as sculptural compositions in which architectural considerations are just as present as a conscious object-oriented approach. Each work reveals the underlying construction: the connection is not a means to an end, but carries meaning.

In this practice, the hierarchy of the everyday object shifts: the light source becomes the luminaire, the construction of the luminaire becomes an artistic act, the everyday object becomes a technical sculpture. Hempt’s works oscillate between critical examination and an almost ironic glorification of the functional object. Humor and self-reflection remain as palpable as a pronounced affinity for technical poetry.

The small series and individual pieces presented are the result of intensive research into form and materials. With their clarity and minimalism, they open up a space in which light, construction, and architecture can be experienced directly, transforming the luminaire into an independent, space-defining object.

Matthias Paul Hempt, born in Vienna in 1986, is a trained electrical installation technician and studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in the class of Andreas Gursky, among others, where he completed his studies as a master student in 2017.