Keith Sonnier

Keith Sonnier (b. 1941, Mamou, LA - d. 2020, Southampton, NY), known best for his use of neon in standalone sculptural works and installations alike, is a key figure in the Conceptual and post-Minimal movements of the late 1960s. In his essay accompanying Sonnier’s 2018 Parrish Museum exhibition “Keith Sonnier: Until Today”, curator Jeffrey Grove noted, “From his earliest investigations of ephemeral and unstable materials, such as flocking, latex, and neon, to his later, more complex articulations of the ways in which architecture, light, and form commingle to shape experience, Sonnier has radically reframed the function of sculpture through a sensitive and idiosyncratic understanding of materiality and physicality.” Sonnier, born and raised in rural Louisiana, cited the multivalent culture of his bayou youth – in particular, memorable Mardi Gras parades featuring costumed, Cajun revelers on horseback – as inspiration toward a lifelong interest in sociology, travel, and myriad milieu. Further, at the root of his works are an effort to express and communicate through visual systems. Sonnier bore an interest in exploring the roots of value systems, in superseding code-switching, and in giving form to a universal means of expression. 

Keith Sonnier earned a B.A. at University of Southwestern Louisiana (Lafayette, LA) in 1963, and an M.F.A. at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ) in 1966. Sonnier was a two-time recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts grant (1975, 1981), and was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1974. Curator Harald Szeeman included Sonnier’s work in his groundbreaking exhibition “Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form” at Kunsthalle Bern (Bern, CH) in 1969. Solo museum exhibitions have since taken place at the Parrish Art Museum (Water Mill, NY), Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, DC), Hall Art Foundation (Reading, VT), Whitechapel Art Gallery (London, UK), and Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, CT). Sonnier’s works are held in the permanent collections of numerous museums worldwide, including Musée National d’Art Moderne-Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, FR), Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, CA), Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), Stedelijik Museum (Amsterdam, NL), and Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY), amongst many others.