Gallery lighting with zero spill: the Tarq case study
Aparna S.
Senior Architectural Consultant
Tarq needed 97 CRI wall grazing and near-total darkness in the same room, four times a year. Here's the switching diagram.
When contemporary art gallery Tarq relocated to their heritage space in Fort, Mumbai, the brief had zero margin for error: 3000K museum-grade light with zero glare on glass frames, coupled with rapid reconfigurable magnetic track layouts.
Controlling Stray Light with Framing Projectors
Standard flood reflectors spill photons onto polished concrete floors, creating distracting secondary reflections. By utilizing optical framing shutters with precision condenser lenses, we cropped the beam exactly to the perimeter of each oil canvas.
Each luminaire was equipped with custom anti-reflective honeycomb louvres and individual potentiometer dimmers on a low-voltage 48V magnetic track.
Key Engineering Takeaways
- Framing projectors confine light strictly to the artwork canvas with crisp optical edges.
- 48V magnetic track allows curators to reposition fixtures without electricians or tools.
- Maintain uniform vertical illuminance with less than 10% falloff from top to bottom.