Worldwise: Lighting Designer Seth Bernstein’s Favorite Things

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Lighting designer
Seth Bernstein’s
perform has often met at the crossroads of art, entertainment, manner, and luxury. 

Whether it is his Emmy Award-nominated perform for Saturday Evening Reside, Wizkid’s concert at London’s O2 Arena, the Museum of Broadway in New York’s Moments Square, or tasks for the likes of Cartier and Chanel, Bernstein has established himself flexible at pretty basically shedding light on a vast vary of artists. 

“I believe the by line jogging as a result of my do the job is [using] thoughtful design to solve a problem,” claims Bernstein, 37. “When men and women appear to me, it is because there’s a hurdle that either they cannot triumph over, or a difficult time body to work by. I’m in and out of Tv set and situations and live shows. I have a no-panic approach that ends up solving complications.” 

Bernstein suggests a guiding theory to his portfolio is minimalism and elegance—crafting styles that are not overly intricate and getting a distinct way to explain to a story through lights.

When asked where by this desire in lights structure stems from, Bernstein recalls participating in faculty performs increasing up, providing his four strains and then eagerly running off stage to operate on the lights. Currently being backstage with the lights interested him significantly additional than acting. 

He got his start out doing work on lighting in community theater right before the transfer to New York, which observed an evolution from lighting stage productions to promos for common tv demonstrates including Billions. 

Bernstein, who now spends most of his time in Los Angeles, shared a couple of of his favorite items with Penta. 

Just one matter that will get me up in the early morning is… my get the job done. I in no way know what is going to transpire in the morning, I’m performing on these kinds of disparate projects. 

Just one place I’ve traveled that I’d enjoy to revisit is… I did a clearly show in Lisbon and I still regret to this day that I rushed back to do a show in L.A. It was just a single of all those journeys wherever I slash it so near. I took a commuter teach to a end, ran up the hill to a castle, ran close to the castle, went back to the commuter train to the airport ,and it was my previous vacation right before Covid. I did not get to get pleasure from the countryside actually. I’m dying to go back to Portugal and commit time in Lisbon and go all over the place. 

The finest e-book I’ve go through a short while ago is… you know it is funny, but right ahead of the pandemic, I switched from studying textbooks to reading through The New Yorker include to cover. It’s a big time commitment for me, but reading through it is what I dedicated to, it is so gratifying, it’s so present-day, and often they just do these deep dives on the most random matters. I conclude up just like taking them into my artwork and pop out a new strategy.

1 piece of art that changed the way I perspective the environment is… [Alexander] Calder’s Monumental Sculpture really had a enormous affect on me. You can in no way place anything at all modest on phase, you normally have to consider about the scale, I believe specifically that unique Calder is just these types of an impact the way it casts a shadow, the way it occupies a place. It undoubtedly inspired me in how I solution my work—not each and every design is made for the stage, if it does not healthy, never put ‘a Calder’ there.

If I could have a drink with everyone it would be… I assume it would be [Icelandic-Danish artist]
Olafur Eliasson.
His operate is so assorted and I adore the puns in his work… I don’t even imagine I would talk to any artwork concerns. His Turbine Corridor [commission] was vastly influential to me, just that set up, the mirror, and the sunshine, the use of trickery to transform the perception of space—he’s just anyone I want to have a consume with. 

Just one merchandise in my kitchen I just can’t stay without… it is the blender, due to the fact one of my pandemic hobbies was earning all my personal sauces, so I taught myself sauce making by way of watching
Roy Choi
on a person of the chef reveals on Netflix. I now go to eating places and attempt to take the sauce aside in my head and experiment with it.

If I could invest in any operate of art it would be…
Ed Ruscha,
the Common Station oil paintings exactly where he painted the similar gasoline station a multitude of situations. Ruscha is an L.A. artist and that is the town I’m at the moment connected to.

My most loved community in the earth is… the neighborhood Vinohrady [in Prague]. I studied abroad there and overstayed my research abroad since I beloved it so much—I stayed and labored as a stagehand at the Barrandov, the motion picture and Tv set studio. I could just wander around… I could just about say ‘that whole region of the town,’ all the way to the river, all the way to the Vysehrad elaborate, all the way to the Tv tower. You get the medieval socialist communist architecture, you get the Gehry present day, the glass and steel, it’s like anything is suitable there in and around Vinohrady. 

A passion of mine that not quite a few folks know about is… a large amount of people really don’t know how deeply I’m into art and specially artwork textbooks. I never believe people today know that is a unique hobby of mine, just how a lot time I expend heading via outdated art guides. I also go about leafing by way of other people’s art books when I visit them in their possess homes. I enjoy wanting as a result of art books in gallery museums, collections of previous shows, points like that. I have a pastime, an artwork reserve obsession. 

A single man or woman who motivated me to do what I do is… I would zoom it all the way out to the men and women who basically do the factors I do, the individuals who built the tresses, truck the lights, the people today who hold the lights, the persons who power the lights over the decades. Their excitement about what we do has lifted me. I see individuals connect with the class of my operate as an audience, I see the technicians join with it and appreciate that I have assumed about each individual single mild. So, I assume the men and women who inspire me are the types who in fact do what I do—no a person appreciates the magnificence and the problem solving extra than the persons who put it jointly, the craftsman who inspire me to keep going.

This report has been edited for size and clarity.