James Turrell Retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum Of Art
By Stephanie du Tan
“I like to see light like we see it in dreams. We all know this light. We don’t see it very often with our eyes open.” ~James Turrell
Objectless art: in which the object sees itself. How is this achieved? Ask L.A.-born James Turrell, a west coast “Light and Space” artist currently being celebrated at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for his 50 years of work. Over the course of his career Turrell has designed scores of room-size installations that offer the viewer a direct encounter with light/space events, as well as “skyspace” pavilions—subtly lit structures featuring a ceiling in which a large square has been cut out to allow direct gazing at the sky’s color variations. And since 1972 he has been transforming an extinct Arizona volcano—the Roden Crater—into a grand theater of perception for celestial events.
The first part of the retrospective traces the artist’s beginning from a large cube of white light protruding from a corner at eye level, to a recent suite of holographic panels in which, for example, a long rectangle of rainbow angles out of a black glass panel toward the upper half of the viewer’s body, absorbing it in its colors. Eight more rooms document the progress between these two points. There are prints and drawings, photographs and videos about the “skyspaces” and Roden Crater project. In several single-room installations, only a few viewers may enter at a time. In one, low levels of variously colored lights suffuse the room, leading to a relaxed, open-eyed contemplation, a perceptual experience suspended in silence.
The second part of the exhibition, in the Resnick Pavilion, houses the most dramatic installations. A “perceptual cell,” a large grey riveted sphere (approximately 16 feet in diameter) with a pure white interior is entered (by one person only) by lying on a gurney that is wheeled inside, where the viewer is subjected to a blitz of intense light sequences. One might recover in “Dark Space,” where only two can sit in total darkness, to be led to the threshold of visual perception.
The large “Ganzfeld” (German for “total field”) installation is a stark white rectangle approximately 45 x 20 feet, in which the walls have been rendered edgeless by rounding out their angles, and where the central wall features a long rectangular cut out “screen”—actually a large empty space outlined by razor sharp edges—from which light uniformly emanates in changing hues, infusing and eventually flooding the entire space with tone and feeling. The misty color shifts seem to follow the light cycle of an entire day, from the tender pinks of dawn to the brilliance of a yellow noon fusing into red then melting into white and slowly turning into cloudy blues, sinking into moments of lavender and purple at the edge of night, leading us into a total borderless perception of primordialness, in which we are not individual selves but part of the oneness. This selfless fusion of our interiority with the space, somewhat akin to certain deep meditation experiences, is described by Turrell as “seeing seeing.”
In Dreams, Memories, Reflections, psychologist Gustav Jung notes that, “The longing for light is the longing for consciousness.” In Turrell’s light orchestrations, the awareness of the wonder of awareness is unavoidable.
The LACMA exhibition will remain open until April 2014. LINK www.lacma.org
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Roden Crater
“An area where you could feel geologic time.” ~JamesTurrell
After an exhaustive search for an appropriate venue, the artist purchased Roden Crater, an extinct conical volcano in the Arizona Painted Desert north of Flagstaff, to develop as his magnum opus. Previously anticipated to be completed in 2000, his master cathedral is still under construction. However, excavation of the crater is complete, allowing for the experience of “celestial vaulting,” in which the viewer, leaning against the rounded rim, experiences the sky as a perfect dome. Some of 20 precisely designed and calibrated inner and outer spaces linked by a series of walkways and underground passages have also been completed at the site. Roden Crater is documented in two rooms of the LACMA exhibit, with videos, drawings, photographs, maquettes and scientific equipment, none of which adequately convey the monumentality and beauty of Turrell’s endeavor.
Other Turrell Works in SoCal
Kayne Griffin Corcoran, the artist’s L.A. gallery, is currently featuring a special exhibition about Roden Crater. Another perceptual cell, this one a perfect white sphere that is also available for purchase, invites two to lie down and experience an 18-minute light show. Turrell also collaborated on the design of the gallery’s new space, with light-changing skylights and a skyspace.
On the campus of Pomona College is a large outdoor skyspace freely accessible to the public; best viewing times are dawn and
dusk. And, finally, the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood features a series of small Turrell installations near the elevator on each of its 12 floors.
Stephanie du Tan is a Southern California art writer who has written for local and national publications for more than 20 years.
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