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You are here: Home1 / James Turrell

James Turrell

Newsletter Essay, 2008-2009 | Newsletter Essay, 1994

Since the 1960s, James Turrell has experimented with visual perception and the materiality of light.  Early in his career, he was associated with the Light and Space movement in Southern California and participated in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s landmark 1967-1971 project Art and Technology, which paired artists with emerging industries and technologies of the period.

Interested in sensory deprivation and the Ganzfeld effect, his light defined shapes, skyspaces framing the sky, and built environments of horizon-less saturated color provoke a reflexive state that the artist has described as “seeing yourself seeing” – a state in which the viewer is aware of the functioning of their senses and recognizes light as a tangible substance.  Since 1979, Turrell has been constructing his magnum opus at the Roden Crater, a natural cinder cone crater located in the high desert outside Flagstaff, Arizona that he is turning into a massive naked-eye observatory.

In 1965, Turrell received a BA in perceptual psychology from Pomona College where he also studied mathematics, geology and astronomy.  In 1973, he received a MFA from Claremont Graduate University and in 2004, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Haverford College.  He has received numerous awards, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1984 and the National Medal of Arts in 2003.  In 2013, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston held simultaneous exhibitions exploring the breadth of his long career.

James Turrell - Site Plan with Projected Section and Survey Net, 1192, mylar, beeswax, emulsion, ink, liquitex, wax pastel, 41.5 by 60.5 inches
James Turrell - Site Plan with Projected Section and Survey Net
James Turrell - 1st Aerial Survey with 10 Camera (SOLD), 1983, photograph, 46.5 by 46.5 inches
James Turrell - 1st Aerial Survey with 10 Camera (SOLD)
James Turrell - Image Stone: Moonside (SOLD), 1999, photogravure, lithograph, aquatint, suite of 6 prints, 18.75 by 15 inches each
James Turrell - Image Stone: Moonside (SOLD)
James Turrell - Air Apparent, 2012, 30 by 30 by 30 feet, Tempe, Arizona
James Turrell - Air Apparent
James Turrell - Air Apparent (detail), 2012, 30 by 30 by 30 feet, Tempe, Arizona
James Turrell - Air Apparent (detail)
James Turrell - Air Apparent (detail), 2012, 30 by 30 by 30 feet, Tempe, Arizona
James Turrell - Air Apparent (detail)
James Turrell - Knight Rise, 2001, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona
James Turrell - Knight Rise
James Turrell - Knight Rise, changing light sequence into sunset, 2001, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona
James Turrell - Knight Rise, changing light sequence into sunset
James Turrell - Site Specific, Free-standing Elliptic Skyspace, 2000, Private residence skyspace commission
James Turrell - Site Specific, Free-standing Elliptic Skyspace
James Turrell - Site Specific, Free-standing Elliptic Skyspace (detail), 2000, Private residence skyspace commission
James Turrell - Site Specific, Free-standing Elliptic Skyspace (detail)
James Turrell - Roden Crater: Complete Site Plan, 2008, color carbon print, 28.5 by 35 inches
James Turrell - Roden Crater: Complete Site Plan (SOLD)
James Turrell - Roden Crater: Complete Site Plan (detail) (SOLD), 2008, color carbon print, 28.5 x 35 inches
James Turrell - Roden Crater: Complete Site Plan (detail) (SOLD)

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Jennifer TraskJennifer Trask - Thrive (SOLD), 2014, found 18th and 20th century frames, gold leaf, bone (deer, cow, python), antlers, fossilized wood, gesso, 23k gold leaf, resin, 46 by 38 by 11 inchesWilliam Wegman - Benchmark, 2015, pigment print, 23 by 30 inchesWilliam Wegman
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