Thursday 02 November, 2000
Seeing The Light With James Turrell
Sculptor James Turrell works with light and space. His installations can be seen throughout the world and have moved even the harshest critics to wonder at the beauty and simplicity of his work.
His current project entitled, Roden Crater, is the culmination of over 20 years of work and involves carving tunnels and creating chambers in an extinct volcano in the Arizona desert. As the project reaches its first stage of completion, Meridian Ideas visits the volcano and talks to Turrell and his collaborators about the Roden Crater project which has been likened to one of the ancient wonders of the world.
James Turrell is obsessed with the artistic exploration of light and has devoted his life to demonstrating how light is something to be treasured. His current work is one of the largest and most audacious artworks in the world and will cost millions of dollars to complete.
With Roden Crater, Turrell has carved out craters within the extinct volcano and has created a bowl. His aim is to make environments that will enhance the natural light and dark.
Who is James Turrell?
James Turrell grew up in Pasadena California, where one of his earliest memories is of his grandmother inviting him to ‘go inside and greet the light’ at Quaker meetings. The son of an aeronautical engineer, Turrell took the sky as soon as he came of age, earning his pilot’s licence at 16 years old.
By the 1950s Turrell was running what he has termed as ‘alternative service’ missions, these included flying single-engine planes across the Himalayas and transporting monks out of Tibet following the 1959 rebellion. Sometime later he became involved in flying high-altitude spy planes for the Central Intelligence Agency which resulted in a fascination in the tricks of perception.
After completing a degree in perceptual psychology, Turrell began to experiment with light. He has since described his work as being for:
‘The ideal viewer, who will treasure this light. I make situations that allow anyone to have this relationship.’
The Elliptic Ecliptic
When James Turrell completed his Skyspace project in the west of England, in August 1999, critics viewed it with suspicion. The freestanding enclosure, perched on the hillside facing St Michael’s Mount, was to provide the perfect platform from which to view the solar eclipse; Turrell was quite simply using the sky as his canvas. “It’s as though I’ve always seen this way, yet never before” somebody wrote in the comment book, followed by a simple “thank you for making me look at the sky”.
Previous works had been a little less enthusiastically received. In 1967 the three-dimensional light forms that he projected onto the walls of the Pasadena Art Museum, were described by the local newspaper as "just light on a wall".
Furthermore when Turrell exhibited in New York last year, several people were so convinced by the illusions of light that they tripped over the beams and fell to the floor. One such casualty sued Turrell for the broken wrist that she sustained.
Whilst concerned for her safety, Turrell has recalled her testimony with a smirk:
‘Her testimony was that I had created a blue wall, but when she leaned against the blue wall it wasn’t there. It was made of light.’
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Roden Crater
After more than 500 hours flying his single engine plane in the search for the perfect volcano, in 1974 Turrell found Roden Crater. In 1977 he bought the volcano and began the long process of raising funds to develop the site.
Without drastically altering the natural site, Turrell’s vision is to create a number of chambers within the volcano where visitors will ‘feel the presence of gathered starlight’. To this end he has engineered a set of dimly lit corridors and rooms that have a perfect view of the craters rim, therefore limiting the horizon and providing a bowl like view of the sky. Turrell explains:
‘I wanted a bowl shape at the top so that the top actually shapes the sky and gives a dome shape form…I lived there straight for 18 months and I liked it very much because I liked the colour and I liked that it was on the western edge of the painted desert… in this stage set of geologic time, I wanted to build these spaces that engage celestial events, kind of making music with a series of light.’
Purpose of light
When finally completed, it is estimated that the project will have cost something between $15 and $20 million. It is funded by a combination of foundation and private funds.
One such supporter of the work is the Italian collector Count Panza di Buomo. He is so impressed with the concept of Roden Crater, that he believes that the experience has the potential to rid the world of social ills. He has commented:
‘If everyone were to have this kind of experience the use of drugs would disappear, no one would commit suicide and violence would stop.’
Turrell, however has less grand ideas about the purpose of the project:
‘Rather than being a journal of my seeing, it is about your seeing… I would just like to take you and put you in front of this mountain in a way you couldn’t miss it. It’s all that I can hope for and that way there is a possibility that the same kind of delight of seeing that happens to me, could happen to you.’
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| Short stay volcano |
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On completion, Roden Crater will house the facility for long and short stay guests. The lodge, which is placed half way down the side of the crater, has four bedrooms that can be reserved by guests.
A key time to visit the project would be in 2006 when the ‘lunar standstill event’ is predicted to project an image of the moon directly into volcano’s central Sun and Moon Space. |
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