if it won some kind of award, I'd hope that the artist did something interesting or enlightening with the light bulb.

Hmm . . .I haven't seen it either, but I doubt he did. A big thing in modern art is to break stuff down to its base elements to really look at them. Now, I'm not sure what you get out of watching a light go on and off, or looking at a canvas painted one, solid, primary color, but that's the point. Modern art is reflective, you get out of it what you put in.