Rudi Stern

Rudi Stern, born Rudolph George Stern in New Haven Connecticut on 30 November 1936, was a world renown multimedia artist best remembered for his work in neon. Initially trained as a painter, Stern studied with the artists Hans Hoffman and Oskar Kokoschka. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bard College in 1958 and received his masters in 1960 from the University of Iowa. Moving to New York in the mid-1960s Stern collaborated with the artist Jackie Cassen on luminous kinetic installations including, for LSD evangelist Dr. Timothy Leary, "Psycedelic Celebrations". In 1969 he was one of the co-founders of Global Village, the pioneering experimental video center and performance space in SoHo, New York. During the 1960s Stern became famous for his avant-garde light shows and advocacy of video art. In the 1970s he was responsible for reviving the dying craft of neon which was all the rage in the 1930s in the United States. In 1972 he founded the studio and gallery Let There Be Neon. It was here that Stern designed lighting for theatre, opera, television and films along with pieces for music groups like the Doors and the Byrds. His best known neon work includes pieces for Studio 54, the Broadway production of "Kiss Of The Spiderwoman" and installations for performance artists Laurie Anderson and Nam June Paik. In his later life Stern turned to documentary filmmaking. He also wrote several books, including "Let There Be Neon" (Abrams, 1979) and its sequel "The New Let There Be Neon" (Abrams, 1988).