A volcanic creation erupting with light
It started when US light-and-space artist James Turrell bought a volcanic cinder cone in Arizona in 1977.
The 74-year-old has since been sculpting the peak into a large-scale work called Roden Crater by chiseling open-sky tunnels and closed chambers to capture light in both day and night.
He remains fully committed to the ongoing project.
That’s despite an injury earlier this year that kept him from attending the ongoing exhibition, James Turrell: Immersive Light, at Shanghai’s Long Museum.
The show features photos and documents introducing the project’s past, present and future. It includes 13 installations that convey the magic and mysterious qualities of light and shadow.
The Los Angeles native is internationally acclaimed for works that play with illumination.
He uses light and space, rather than specific objects and shapes, to create works that challenge and enrich viewers’ perceptions of what they see.
Turrell is also a pilot who has flown for more than 12,000 hours. He works to portray the sky’s rich color spectrum. He views the firmament as his “studio, material and canvas”.
Many people say Turrell’s works make them feel as if they’re viewing a sunset.
On his personal website, the artist says: “My work is more about your seeing than it is about my seeing, although it is a product of my seeing. I’m also interested in the sense of presence of space; that is space where you feel a presence, almost an entity — that physical feeling and power that space can give.”
Marc Glimcher, president of the American Pace Gallery that represents Turrell, says every work at the Shanghai exhibition represents a different experience. All together, they guide the audience to follow Turrell’s investigations of light step by step, and understand how he has learned to shape light into a subject of art over half a century.
On show are works from 1966 and 1967 that were created as a result of Turrell’s first efforts to discover how to make light a substance of form. There is also his 1994 work Key Lime, in which viewers walk through a pitch black channel that they navigate by feeling a wall.
“You will feel fear first,” Glimcher says.
“Then, it is a feeling that James says: ‘With all the fears leaving your eyes, you are adapting and adjusting to receive the incredible light experience until the end.’”
Pace Gallery has spaces in New York, London, Beijing and Hong Kong.
It was at Turrell’s exhibition at its New York space last year that Long Museum’s director, Wang Wei, first saw his works and decided to bring him to Shanghai.
Wang co-founded the museum with her husband, art collector Liu Yiqian.
Turrell’s show is one of their many efforts to enrich Shanghai’s art scene by exhibiting works by internationally recognized artists, including a show of Danish-Icelandic Olafur Eliasson’s pieces last year and an upcoming exhibition featuring works by British artist Antony Gormley.
Wang says the cost of staging the exhibition has surpassed their initial budget by 30 percent. But it’s worth it to bring Turrell’s deeply meaningful works to Chinese art lovers.
Shanghai visitor Ge Yi says that, unlike a lot of US artists, Turrell doesn’t create to salute the changing commercialism of today.
“Light means the beginning of life and hope,” she says.
“Turrell’s works always bring me a spiritual feeling — like you’d get inside a church. The longer I’m in front of his works, the more absorbed I feel.”
She says she’s surprised by Turrell’s ability to express exactly how he understands the relationship between light, shadow and space, and to further maximize viewers’ experiences.
“I think that is why some people say he works with the precision of Da Vinci.”
My work is more about your seeing than it is about my seeing, although it is a product of my seeing.” James Turrell, US artist