Artful Decision Why Gallery Curators Choose Amerlux
Amerlux’s SPEQ LED track heads illuminate the “Never Built NY” exhibit at the Queens Museum, in New York City.
Like a cast of supporting actors who help the lead shine, superior lighting casts art in the best light.
Gallery curators carefully choose what part of the exhibit should be well lit and which part should be left to the shadows. The dynamic is a play within itself.
Lighting art is an art—and the new gold standard for galleries is Amerlux’s SPEQ track lighting.
LED lights can help protect the artworks, enhance the visiting experience and provide significant energy cost savings. When it comes to lighting precious works of art, more and more galleries are choosing Amerlux for the elegant lighting solution they need.
One of those galleries is the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. Its recent “Never Built New York” exhibit, which showcased New York City architecture projects that were never constructed, was lit with SPEQ LED lighting from Amerlux, which remains in the space for future exhibits.
SPEQ, a modern-styled and highly efficient LED tracking lighting system by Amerlux, offers exactly what galleries need including, most importantly, light that does not damage the art as well as energy savings that do not sacrifice color quality. Maintaining this balance has long been a difficult problem for museums and galleries to manage.
Halogen and metal-halide lights provided an imperfect solution and could seriously damage artwork over time with their UV emissions, not to mention maintenance issues from lamps burning out during exhibits. With Amerlux’s SPEQ lights, it could easily be a decade or two before the LEDs need to be replaced.
SPEQ LED track heads come in three sizes Small (15 w max, 1,310 lm), Medium (26 w max, 2,056 lm) and Large (48 w max, 3,977 lm).
SPEQ LEDs emit neither harmful UV rays nor high amounts of heat, making their use with priceless art entirely safe. Since there is no UV light or substantial heat, galleries can illuminate delicate art much brighter without risking damage. With SPEQ LEDs, heat and UV concerns are a thing of the past.
Furthermore, now LED lamps have the color control to completely supersede halogen lights. Halogen lighting’s strength was its warm color rendering, but LEDs like SPEQ have evolved to render color even better than the outdated halogen lights, especially with whites, blues and other which appeared yellowish under halogen lights. Additionally, SPEQ LEDs hold their color temperature when dimmed, maintaining the same light color at any power level. Finally, low light does not have to mean orange light!
Highly adjustable and repositionable, SPEQ’s track heads have a clean and minimal design that does not draw attention to itself, instead putting the spotlight on the display. Unlike several competitor’s lights, SPEQ lights have excellent beam control without any glare as well as customizable controls (e.g. snoots, louvers) to ensure that the light goes exactly where it is needed without any spillover.
In addition to SPEQ’s art preserving qualities and customizability, the lighting system really shines when it comes to energy efficiency and longevity. The 48-watt SPEQ LED lights installed at the Queens Museum, used about 15 percent of the 300-watt quartz lamps they replaced, resulting in significant energy savings for the museum.
Most of the power going to halogen lamps is actually wasted in the form of heat, which causes paintings to fade and increases electric bills. With LEDs, instead of wasting lots of energy in the form of heat, they use a tiny amount of electricity and all of it goes into lighting the space.
Galleries can enjoy these significant energy savings for years, if not decades, due to SPEQ’s long life. While halogen lamps last for about 2,000 hours, SPEQ LEDs suffer no depreciation in light quality for more than 50,000 hours. This is especially key for high ceiling applications, where costly lifts and scaffolds are not needed for years after installing SPEQ lighting.
Amerlux can ship SPEQ lights in just 10 days, so your next exhibit will be seen in the best light.
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