Lightbox

A lightbox is a box with a translucent white surface fitted with an internal light source, usually a fluorescent tube or small incandescent bulbs. Such devices were first used for utilitarian purposes, for viewing transparencies and X-rays, and in advertising and shop windows. In contemporary art the lightbox has become an expressive medium in its own right: a photograph is printed on transparent transparency material and backlit from within, so that the image glows with a depth, saturation of colour and illusion of light unattainable in an ordinary paper print. The best-known master of this format is the Canadian artist Jeff Wall, whose large-scale illuminated compositions, often carefully staged, deliberately echo the tradition of grand painting and cinema. The lightbox brings photography close to the experience of the screen and the shop window, raising questions about the consumption of images in a media society, and remains an influential device in contemporary photography, including in the practices of Ukrainian artists who work with light and image.