This May, legendary artist James Turrell celebrates his 70th birthday with a trio of blockbuster exhibitions across the United States. Known for his explorations of light and space, Turrell has inspired awe among audiences for almost five decades.
Working in close collaboration, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York concurrently present complementary yet independently-curated exhibitions, which tell the story of the artist's pioneering experiments in perception and light projection. The exhibitions incidentally coincide with the debut of another of Turrell's work - a dramatic site-specific light installation at The Shops at Crystals, the Libeskind-designed luxury retail complex in Las Vegas.
'After you spend time looking at Turrell, it's like restoring your connoisseurship of light,' says Alison de Lima Greene of MFAH, 'It makes you pay attention to the difference between daylight, incandescent light, of LED light, of neon light. There's this substance all around us, and yet we never pay attention to its effect.'
Though light is Turrell's instrument, the artist regards perception as his true medium. By isolating luminosity, Turrell asks his audiences to consider this ephemeral material as a thing upon itself and its effect on the body. The system behind each work of art may be complex, but the effect is immediately grasped. 'It's a marriage of the complex and scientific,' says Christine Y. Kim of LACMA, '[Turrell's works have] incredible detail and complexity, but can also be experienced by a person of any age, generation or background because it relates to our bodies.'
Picture: 'Bridget Bardo', 2009. Installation view at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany, 2009. Courtesy: James Turrell
Exhibition: James Turrell: A Retrospective Dates: 26 May 2013 - 6 April 2014 Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art The most comprehensive exhibition of the three, the LACMA show takes over 33,000 square feet at the museum's Broad Contemporary Art Museum and Resnick Exhibition Pavilion. It covers the artist's seminal experiments at the Mendota Hotel to his ongoing opus, Roden Crater in Arizona. In, 'Breathing Light,' a newly commissioned work, visitors into a seeming void of indeterminable light and space.
Picture: 'Milarepa's Helmut', 1989. James Corcoran Gallery, Los Angeles.
Exhibition: James Turrell: A Retrospective Dates: 26 May 2013 - 6 April 2014 Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art The most comprehensive exhibition of the three, the LACMA show takes over 33,000 square feet at the museum's Broad Contemporary Art Museum and Resnick Exhibition Pavilion. It covers the artist's seminal experiments at the Mendota Hotel to his ongoing opus, Roden Crater in Arizona. In, 'Breathing Light,' a newly commissioned work, visitors into a seeming void of indeterminable light and space.
Picture: 'Afrum (White)', 1966. Courtesy: James Turrell.
Exhibition: James Turrell: A Retrospective Dates: 26 May 2013 - 6 April 2014 Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art The most comprehensive exhibition of the three, the LACMA show takes over 33,000 square feet at the museum's Broad Contemporary Art Museum and Resnick Exhibition Pavilion. It covers the artist's seminal experiments at the Mendota Hotel to his ongoing opus, Roden Crater in Arizona. In, 'Breathing Light,' a newly commissioned work, visitors into a seeming void of indeterminable light and space.
Picture: James Turrell in front of Roden Crater Project at sunset, October 2001.
Exhibition: James Turrell: A Retrospective Dates: 26 May 2013 - 6 April 2014 Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art The most comprehensive exhibition of the three, the LACMA show takes over 33,000 square feet at the museum's Broad Contemporary Art Museum and Resnick Exhibition Pavilion. It covers the artist's seminal experiments at the Mendota Hotel to his ongoing opus, Roden Crater in Arizona. In, 'Breathing Light,' a newly commissioned work, visitors into a seeming void of indeterminable light and space.
Picture: 'The Light Inside', 1999. The MFAH, museum commission, gift of Isabel B. and Wallace S. Wilson.
Exhibition: James Turrell: The Light Inside Dates: 9 June - 22 September 2013 Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Drawn entirely from the museum's holdings, the exhibition includes eight light pieces and three portfolios. The centrepiece of the show is 'The Light Inside', a work that is permanently installed at the museum's underground Wilson Tunnel. As visitors traverse the space, the wall colours shift from blue, crimson and magenta.
Picture: 'Acro, Green', 1968. The MFAH, museum purchase.
Exhibition: James Turrell: The Light Inside Dates: 9 June - 22 September 2013 Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Drawn entirely from the museum's holdings, the exhibition includes eight light pieces and three portfolios. The centrepiece of the show is 'The Light Inside', a work that is permanently installed at the museum's underground Wilson Tunnel. As visitors traverse the space, the wall colours shift from blue, crimson and magenta.
Picture: Rendering for 'Aten Reign', 2013. Guggenheim Foundation; Rendering: Andreas Tjeldflaat, 2012
Exhibition: James Turrell
Dates: 21 June - 25 September 2013
Location: The Guggenheim
Drawn entirely from the museum's holdings, the exhibition includes eight light pieces and three portfolios. The centrepiece of the show is 'The Light Inside', a work that is permanently installed at the museum's underground Wilson Tunnel. As visitors traverse the space, the wall colours shift from blue, crimson and magenta.
Picture: Rendering for 'Aten Reign', 2013. Guggenheim Foundation; Rendering: Andreas Tjeldflaat, 2012
Exhibition: James Turrell
Dates: 21 June - 25 September 2013
Location: The Guggenheim
Drawn entirely from the museum's holdings, the exhibition includes eight light pieces and three portfolios. The centrepiece of the show is 'The Light Inside', a work that is permanently installed at the museum's underground Wilson Tunnel. As visitors traverse the space, the wall colours shift from blue, crimson and magenta.
Picture: Rendering for 'Aten Reign', 2013. Guggenheim Foundation; Rendering: Andreas Tjeldflaat, 2012
Exhibition: James Turrell
Dates: 21 June - 25 September 2013
Location: The Guggenheim
Drawn entirely from the museum's holdings, the exhibition includes eight light pieces and three portfolios. The centrepiece of the show is 'The Light Inside', a work that is permanently installed at the museum's underground Wilson Tunnel. As visitors traverse the space, the wall colours shift from blue, crimson and magenta.
Picture: Rendering for 'Aten Reign', 2013. Courtesy: James Turrell, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Rendering: Andreas Tjeldflaat, 2012
Exhibition: James Turrell
Dates: 21 June - 25 September 2013
Location: The Guggenheim
Drawn entirely from the museum's holdings, the exhibition includes eight light pieces and three portfolios. The centrepiece of the show is 'The Light Inside', a work that is permanently installed at the museum's underground Wilson Tunnel. As visitors traverse the space, the wall colours shift from blue, crimson and magenta.
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