That Boston exhibit...Is it art? Or is it track lighting?

RE "ON and OFF: Praised, panned light-switch art gets Hub showing" (Page A1, Sept. 13): It is marvelous that Martin Creed was able to create his masterpiece and win the Turner Prize in England. However, Geoff Edgers's description of the artwork does raise a few questions.

Is the artwork insured? For how much?

He writes that the artwork is in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. What did MOMA send to Boston's Mills Gallery for the exhibit? Was the work in New York dismantled, including the room, and shipped to the Boston Center for the Arts?

In the photo there is a lighted EXIT sign over the door. Is this a nice addition placed there by the artist, or is it imposed on the artwork by the Boston Fire Department?

If an art thief breaks into the Mills Gallery, what does the thief have to take to claim that he has the original? The room, the lights, the computer, the floor, the walls?

If a copycat uses the same type of computer, lights, wires, and room, how will we be able to tell the original from the copy?

If the Mills Gallery burns down, does this destroy the masterpiece?

JOSEPH L. KEEFE
Franklin

BILL ARNING, curator of MIT's List Visual Art Center, comments approvingly on Martin Creed's exhibit at the Mills Gallery, but his description that from the outside it might look "as if something's gone horribly wrong in there" may be much more accurate than he realizes. What has gone wrong is that the art world can be so insulated that artists like Creed cannot see why an empty gallery with its lights turning on and off might be provocative.

Most of us realize, either from personal experience or hearsay, that art can exhilarate, inspire, excite, and give form to our aspirations, fears, beliefs, and desires. Exhibits such as Creed's disappoint in this regard, and provoke us to look elsewhere for these experiences. Of course, not wanting to appear fuddy-duddy, curators and gallery directors are quick to praise this piece. However, that the spatial environment changes when the lighting changes is something every interior designer knows and most of us already suspect.

We're left asking, is this all there is?

HARRY BARTNICK
Beverly

The writer is a professor at the New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University.

I WAS greatly encouraged by the article about Martin Creed's "Work No. 227: The Lights Going On and Off," as I have been searching for venues for my own work: "Work No. 228: The Lights Going Off and On."

JOSEPH BARBIERI
Cambridge