Rough Sketches: Featured Artist: James Turrell

James Turrell draws upon his experience in perceptual psychology and optical illusions to create art that focuses on space, perception, and light. His works are wordless, build entirely on visual perception and feeling. He says, “I want to create an atmosphere that can be consciously plumbed with seeing...like the wordless thought that comes from looking in a fire.”

His works challenge his audience by forcing them to wait, to become consciously aware of themselves looking. The works are meant to be taken in slowly, quietly, and over time. I see this as a subtle protest to the way current society rushes about, never taking time to slow down and observe the intricacies and beauty of the things around us.

Afrum (White), 1966

Afrum uses light projectors to create the illusion of a floating cube in the corner of two walls. The experience of the piece relies upon the position of the viewer in relation to the projection; some vantage points appear more convincing than others, yet there is a magic in the way that something so tangible could be created with light alone. Turrell once said, “In working with light, what is really important to me is to create an experience of wordless thought, to make the quality and sensation of light itself really quite tactile.”

The Light Inside, Light Installation, 2000

Other works often control their viewers' perception of light by enclosing them inside a structure. An example of such a work is Meeting, one of his Skyspace pieces. Inside this closed room are benches that allow viewers to sit and look up at the sky through an opening in the ceiling. The work focuses on the changing light at sunset and the way in which that light affects emotion.

Meeting, 1986

Meeting, 1986

Viewers looking up at Meeting
Turrell's most ambitious work is still in progress: a celestial observatory created in the center of Roden Crater, near Flagstaff, Arizona. David Cohen described the work as "a multimillion dollar earthwork of tunnels, elliptical chambers, and a perfected rim-- it is designed for enhanced contemplation of the heavens, a kind of natural telescope that will use the laws of perception in lieu of lenses." (http://www.orbit.zkm.de/?q=node/311)