James Turrell

James Turrell

James Turrell at the site of the Roden Crater.
Born 6 May 1943
Los Angeles
Nationality American
Known for Installation art
Notable work Roden Crater, Acton
Satellite view of Roden Crater, the site of an earthwork in progress by James Turrell outside Flagstaff, Arizona.
'Space That Sees' Israel Museum, Jerusalem

James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist primarily concerned with light and space. Turrell was a MacArthur Fellow in 1984. Turrell is best known for his work in progress, Roden Crater, a natural cinder cone crater located outside Flagstaff, Arizona that he is turning into a massive naked-eye observatory.

Background

James Turrell was born in Pasadena, California.[1] His father, Archibald Milton Turrell,[2] was an aeronautical engineer and educator. His mother, Margaret Hodges Turrell,[2] trained as a medical doctor and later worked in the Peace Corps. His parents were Quakers.

Turrell obtained a pilot's license when he was 16 years old. He subsequently flew supplies to remote mine sites and worked as an aerial cartographer. He received a BA degree from Pomona College in perceptual psychology in 1965 (including the study of the Ganzfeld effect) and also studied mathematics, geology and astronomy there. Turrell enrolled in the graduate Studio Art program at the University of California, Irvine in 1966, where he began making work using light projections.[3] His studies at UC Irvine were interrupted in 1966, when he was arrested for coaching young men to avoid the Vietnam draft. He spent about a year in jail.[4] He later (1973) received an MA degree in art from Claremont Graduate University.[5] In 2004, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Haverford College.

Works

Main article List of James Turrell artworks

In 1966, Turrell began experimenting with light in his Santa Monica studio, the Mendota Hotel, at a time when the so-called Light and Space group of artists in Los Angeles, including Robert Irwin, Mary Corse and Doug Wheeler, was coming into prominence.[6] By covering the windows and only allowing prescribed amounts of light from the street outside to come through the openings, Turrell created his first light projections.[7] In Shallow Space Constructions (1968) he used screened partitions, allowing a radiant effusion of concealed light to create an artificially flattened effect within the given space.[8] That same year, he participated in the Los Angeles County Museum’s Art and Technology Program, investigating perceptual phenomena with the artist Robert Irwin and psychologist Edward Wortz. In 1969, he made sky drawings with Sam Francis, using colored skywriting smoke and cloud-seeding materials.[9] A pivotal environment Turrell developed from 1969 to 1974, for The Mendota Stoppages several rooms in the former Mendota Hotel in Santa Monica were sealed off, the window apertures controlled by the artist to allow natural and artificial light to enter the darkened spaces in specific ways.[10]

Turrell is perhaps best known for his work in progress, Roden Crater. He acquired the crater in 1979.[5] Located outside Flagstaff, Arizona, Turrell is turning this natural cinder volcanic crater into a massive naked-eye observatory, designed specifically for the viewing of celestial phenomena. His other works usually enclose the viewer in order to control their perception of light. Access to Roden Crater is limited to friends, though devoted fans can gain access by completing the "Turrell Tour", which involves seeing a Turrell in 23 countries worldwide.

In the 1970s, Turrell began his series of "skyspaces" enclosed spaces open to the sky through an aperture in the roof. A Skyspace is an enclosed room large enough for roughly 15 people. Inside, the viewers sit on benches along the edge to view the sky through an opening in the roof. As a lifelong Quaker, Turrell designed the Live Oak Meeting House for the Society of Friends, with an opening or skyhole in the roof, wherein the notion of light takes on a decidedly religious connotation. (See PBS documentary). His work Meeting (1986) at P.S. 1, which consists of a square room with a rectangular opening cut directly into the ceiling, is a recreation of such a meeting house.[11] In 2013, Turrell created another Quaker skyspace, Greet the Light, at the newly rebuilt Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting in Philadelphia.[12] In 1992 James Turrell’s Irish Sky Garden opened at the Liss Ard Estate,[13] Skibbereen, Co Cork, Ireland. The giant earth and stoneworks has crater at its centre. One enters through a doorway in the perimeter of the rim, walks through a passage and climbs stairs to enter the Irish Sky Garden.[14] Lie on the central plinth and look upwards to experience the sky framed by the rim of the crater.”The most important thing is that inside turns into outside and the other way around, in the sense that relationships between the Irish landscape and sky changes” (James Turrell).[15] Other Skyspaces include the Kielder Skyspace (2000) on Cat Cairn, England, Second Wind (2005) in Vejer de la Frontera, Spain, and the Sky-Space (2006) in Salzburg, Austria. Three Gems (2005) at the de Young Museum is Turrell's first Skyspace to adopt the stupa form.[16] At Houghton Hall in Norfolk, the Marquess of Cholmondeley commissioned a folly to the east of the great house. Turrell's "Skyspace" presents itself from the exterior as an oak-clad building raised on stilts. From the inside of the structure, the viewer's point of view is focused upwards and inevitably lured into contemplating the sky as framed by the open roof.[17]

Turrell is also known for his light tunnels and light projections that create shapes that seem to have mass and weight, though they are created with only light. His work Acton is a very popular exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It consists of a room that appears to have a blank canvas on display, but the "canvas" is actually a rectangular hole in the wall, lit to look otherwise. Security guards are known to come up to unsuspecting visitors and say "Touch it! Touch it!"

Turrell's works defy the accelerated habits of people especially when looking at art. He feels that viewers spend so little time with the art that it makes it hard to appreciate.

“ I feel my work is made for one being, one individual. You could say that's me, but that's not really true. It's for an idealized viewer. Sometimes I'm kind of cranky coming to see something. I saw the Mona Lisa when it was in L.A., saw it for 13 seconds and had to move on. But, you know, there's this slow-food movement right now. Maybe we could also have a slow-art movement, and take an hour.[18] ”

Exhibitions

Two separate shots side-by-side looking up toward the ceiling in the middle of the Guggenheim Museum in New York during James Turrell's light exhibition Aten Reign.

Turrell was given his first solo show at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1967.[9] Solo exhibitions have since included the Stedelijk Museum (1976); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1980); Israel Museum (1982); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1984); MAK, Vienna (1998–1999); Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh (2002–2003); and the National Gallery of Australia in 2014.

There is also an exhibit at Rice University titled the "Twilight Epiphany" Skyspace.

In October 2009, the “Wolfsburg Project,” Turrell’s largest exhibition in Germany to date opened and continued through October 2010. Amongst the works featured in the “Wolfsburg Project” is a "Ganzfeld," a light installation that covers 700 square meters in area and 12 meters in height.[19] A major retrospective will open at four different venues in 2013: the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD opening in April, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art opening in May, and both the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York opening in June. Turrell has a permanent exhibit inside the Louis Vuitton store at CityCenter in Las Vegas. The work is known as "Akhob".[20]

Museum

In April 22, 2009, the James Turrell Museum opened at the Bodega Colomé in the Province of Salta, in Argentina. It was designed by Turrell after Donald Hess, owner of the winery and several of Turrell's works, told him he wanted to dedicate a museum to his work. It contains 9 light installations, including a skyspace (Unseen Blue 2002) and some drawings and prints.[22][23]

Collections

Turrell's work is represented in numerous public collections including the Tate Modern, London; the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the de Young Museum, San Francisco; the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and Hansol Museum, Wonju, Varese (Italy) Panza Foundation.

In Japan, Turrell's works are exhibited at several large museums, including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa and a permanent installation at the Chichu Art Museum at Benesse Art-Site in Naoshima. At the latter, Turrell's work "Afrum - Pale Blue" (1968), "Open Field" (2000) and "Open Sky" (2004) are displayed. As part of the Naoshima town exhibitions, his Minamidera ("Southern Temple") was designed together with architect Tadao Ando. Also, in Tokamachi, Niigata, Turrell's "House of Light" has a view of the sunrise through the open roof that has been described as "the almost imperceptible change into deep blue was incredibly moving."[24]

Awards

Turrell has received numerous awards in the arts including The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1984 and the National Medal of Arts in 2013.[25]

Bibliography

Films

Interviews

References

  1. ↑ Birthplace sometimes given as Los Angeles (for instance, see Adcock, Craig, James Turrell: The Art of Light and Space, Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford : University of California Press, 1990, p. 2). Pasadena is given in a biographical note to the introductory leaflet for the 1993 exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, South Bank, London, UK.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Adcock, Craig, James Turrell: The Art of Light and Space, Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford : University of California Press, 1990, p. 2.
  3. ↑ Belcove, Julie L. "Incredible Lightness", Harpers Bazaar, April 19, 2013.
  4. ↑ Wil S. Hylton (June 13, 2013), How James Turrell Knocked the Art World Off Its Feet New York Times.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Biographical note to the introductory leaflet for the 1993 exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, South Bank, London, UK
  6. ↑ James Turrell Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas.
  7. ↑ James Turrell: Early Light Works, November 13, 2004 – February 12, 2005 William Griffin, Los Angeles.
  8. ↑ James Turrell MoMA Collection, New York.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 James Turrell Guggenheim Collection.
  10. ↑ Christopher Knight (May 28, 2013), Art review: The light through James Turrell's eyes Los Angeles Times.
  11. ↑ James Turrell: Meeting, 1986 P.S.1, New York.
  12. ↑ "The Skyspace". Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting. Retrieved 2014-08-28.
  13. ↑ "The Estate". Liss Ard Estate. Retrieved 2013-07-18.
  14. ↑ "Gardens". Liss Ard Estate. Retrieved 2013-07-18.
  15. ↑ <http://www.orbit.zkm.de/?q=node/310>
  16. ↑ James Turrell: Three Gems, 2005 de Young Museum, San Francisco.
  17. ↑ Donald, Caroline. "The new garden at Houghton Hall, King’s Lynn, Norfolk," The Times (London). May 11, 2008.
  18. ↑ Sarah Douglas (October 24, 2005), In Their Words: James Turrell and Andy Goldsworthy, BLOUINARTINFO, retrieved 2008-04-21
  19. ↑ Baker, Tamzin."James Turrell / The Wolfsburg Project." Modern Painters, November 2009.
  20. ↑ James Turrell's Akhob, Las Vegas
  21. ↑ "The Mattress Factory Art Museum". Mattress.org. Retrieved 2013-10-17.
  22. ↑ "Colomé". Bodegacolome.com. Retrieved 2013-10-17.
  23. ↑ http://hess-family.com/Press_Release_James_Turrell_Museum.pdf
  24. ↑ Rawlings, Ashley."Staying in James Turrel's House of Light." PingMag (Tokyo). Aug 21, 2006
  25. ↑ Hoye, Matthew. "Obama admits boyhood crush on Linda Ronstadt". http://www.cnn.com/''. Retrieved 29 July 2014.

Further reading

External links