Where Do Museums Get Their Lighting?

A story of one company in Long Island City that designs and manufactures lighting for most museums and galleries that you know.

The last thing that comes to mind when looking at art at a gallery is lighting. Indeed if you’ve been to MoMA or Gagosian gallery, you’ve noticed that the art of good lighting is far from simply filling the room with lumens: it’s about balance, focus, and accents. Such lighting is so unique that it’s required to design the set at the location — with a group of light designers and specialists. For the last sixty five years, a quiet pioneer of light manufacturing, Edison Price Lighting, has been producing and designing lights for 450 musesums and galleries from around the world — all from their factory in Long Island City. I stopped by at the factory to capture how they do it.

The testing station where the final assembly happens

Edison Price Lighting makes every single piece of their lights at the factory: from prototyping to designing custom tools, press dies, and parts down to the smallest nuts and bolts.