Harry Geffert’s neon sculptures pace the installation of his exhibit with the same distillate of process that marks the work itself. The first gallery opens with the largest of his pieces, a manually operable two-color structure; the next, two motorized works, one a blue vertical, the other a yellow horizontal floor piece; and the last, two still sculptures, very low and quiet. On leaving the exhibition, back through the gallery with the large work, a final inert vertical wall piece, related in form to the moving sculptures, catches the eye, and, with a vigilant glint, links the entire display.

The works are basically two different types, both supported in stark black or white constructions: those that move and contain stationary colored-neon tubes, in most cases striped across with closely placed bands, matched to movable clear Pyrex tubes, each with multiple lengthwise inner rods, hung in front of, or above, the neon; and those that do not move and contain double colored-neon tubes, one above another, the upper enclosed in a transparent Pyrex cylinder, the lower in the aluminum well beneath. The effects are distinct; together the two forms engage a good deal of the possibilities of light and color with an economy that minimizes the mechanical encumbrances and allows the visual systems to flourish.

—Martha Utterback