James Turrell
James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist primarily concerned with light and space.
Description
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.
Turrell was a MacArthur Fellow in 1984.
Arcus installations: "congealed light"
Arcus installations:
- June 18 to August 31, 1999
- Newlyn Art Gallery
- Newlyn, Penzance, Cornwall, England
Source: http://jamesturrell.com/exhibitions/solo/
Jonathan Jones described the Arcus installations:
"What makes the blue cloud of light so uncanny is that it has a tangibility. Light in this mysterious space has, as James Turrell puts it, 'congealed'."
Larger excerpt:
Turrell shows that we can still have our sense of reality transformed by the way an artist captures light. But instead of canvas, he uses space. He does this in his Arcus installations. These (the Newlyn Art Gallery piece is one of them) are darkened rooms with a window at one end, through which is another space containing light which is so "thick" you feel you could touch it. "We do feel with the eyes," says Turrell, "but it isn't until light is reduced that the pupil opens and feeling comes out of the eye like touch. Often in my pieces you feel that you want to touch it, well the thing is, you... are touching with your eyes."
To get into Turrell's Arcus installation at Newlyn Art Gallery, you feel your way along a black corridor into a gloomy chamber where, at the far end, a blue monochrome painting the same length and shape as a Monet waterlily decoration appears to hang. As you move closer the "painting" disintegrates into dots of colour. Right up close to the aperture, you feel strange: there is a space beyond, but you can't tell how big it is. What makes the blue cloud of light so uncanny is that it has a tangibility. Light in this mysterious space has, as James Turrell puts it, "congealed". The fictional world of art has become as substantial as the reality into which we emerge.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/jul/08/artsfeatures2
See also
External links
- Official website
- James Turrell @ Wikipedia
- Immortal Longings @ The Guardian (July 1999)
