A few years before the Light and Sound movement took off on the West Coast, a young artist from Queens named Tom Lloyd (1929–1996) was developing something very new. With help from an engineer at the Radio Corporation of America, he was forging an art practice centered on electric light. In 1968, for instance, his kinetic work Velour incorporated 800 colored Christmas bulbs. Lloyd also created static assemblages, wall-mounted sculptures, and works made from found metal—wheels, clock hands, and more. In that year of 1968, Lloyd’s first institutional show just happened to be the inaugural exhibition at the Studio Museum, in Harlem. As the museum reopens after renovations, Lloyd’s trailblazing work now returns for a long-overdue retrospective. —Elena Clavarino