JAMES TURRELL art thread - new exhibitions at Guggenheim, Lacma, Houston Tx + general awesomeness

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/06/13/magazine/13turell9/13turell9-popup.jpg

Cannot wait to see this new thing at the Guggenheim. Big article on him in this coming weekend's NY Times magazine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/magazine/how-james-turrell-knocked-the-art-world-off-its-feet.html

I think the only work of his I have seen is the open-sky room at MOMA PS1 ("Meeting"), it's fantastic.

This section from the Times article almost made me post this on the noize board.

The Perceptual Cells are Turrell’s most extreme work. The visitor approaches a giant sphere that looks like an oversize Ping-Pong ball and lies down on something like a morgue drawer to be pushed inside. When the door is shut, the lights come on, so bright that it’s almost pointless to close your eyes. As the colors shift and morph, you begin to see things that aren’t there, like tiny rainbows floating in space and crisp geometric forms. It turns out that what you’re seeing is the biological structure of your own eye, which, in the blinding intensity, has turned on itself.

Even Turrell describes the Perceptual Cells as “invasive” and “oppressive.” Some of his most avid fans prefer not to see the series. Andrea Glimcher represents Turrell at the Pace Gallery in Manhattan, but when she visited Lacma for the opening in May, she declined to view the Perceptual Cell. “Just thinking about it makes me want to press a panic button,” she told me. When one of the curators of this year’s Guggenheim exhibition, Nat Trotman, viewed the Perceptual Cell at Lacma, he wrote me to say that it had “rewired” his thinking and was “very aggressive and very hallucinatory.” Before viewers climb into the Perceptual Cells, Turrell makes them sign waivers to certify that they are 18 years old, sober and sane.

tried to go to the LACMA show opening weekend and it had "sold out"(?) - also the exhibition plus 'perceptual cell' costs something like $45

his pieces at the mattress factory are incredible

one of the MF pieces operates in a way similar to the perceptual cell except instead of blinding light it's pitch darkness - the whole time i was wondering if i was seeing something or if there actually were very faint lights bouncing around this vast darkness

It seems like the Guggenheim installation is going to cover the entire interior, like you won't be able to see the walkways or skylight, just look up from the floor at this giant dome thing.

Also he's been building a huge network of tunnels and rooms inside a freaking crater in Arizona since 1974.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/06/16/magazine/16turell4/16turell4-popup.jpg

he also has a cool installation at pomona college, his alma mater:

http://www.pomona.edu/museum/collections/james-turrell-skyspace.aspx

"Meeting" is very simple (to the point that when I post a picture of it here it's not going to look like anything cool) but you go in there and it feels very heightened, extra-bright, and somehow hyper-real. It was neat. All it is is a hole in the ceiling at PS1 and some benches around the sides to sit on. They close it up if it rains.

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/02/d1/0a/8c/moma-ps1.jpg

xpost - wow, that looks neat.

he built a skyroom in a building here on campus, but it isn't open yet. open dammit!

here's what's at the Guggenheim right now, opened last week

http://media.guggenheim.org/content/exhibitions/2013/ex_turrell_atenreign_1024.jpg

Turrell on the floor of the Guggenheim:
https://twitter.com/jsf/status/347870205281718272/photo/1

I saw a retrospective of his at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh about 10 years ago, blew me away.

love turrell, and one of the hardest artists to convey via photographs

I read that mag piece. I may break a bone if I go to the Gugg?

Didn't realize that window at PS1 was his.

http://nga.gov.au/turrell/

i've seen this a couple of times now, it is amazing.

I read that mag piece. I may break a bone if I go to the Gugg?

haha nah I think all those pieces were at the Whitney in the '80s. that part of the article was funny though. wonder how many of those people thought it would be cool to go to the exhibit on drugs.

think I'm gonna head to the Guggenheim this Sunday

i can see (Light Reign) from my office. it's such a treat when darkness begins to fall early enough that the changing lights are visible.

i took this little series last autumn on the first dark enough day:
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5519/9102613954_65668e5f1a.jpg

and lol here it is captured incidentally behind a guy in a banana suit:

http://magicflakes.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/bananasuit1-225x300.jpg

last week I checked out that new statue of bruce lee that james turrell did in chinatown

turrell kind of pisses me off idk

its petty and stupid but just hearing his name over and over is kind of too much, it makes me understand how ppl could riot in brazil or w/e over robert irwin's work whenever that happened, tho I do kind of have a dream of driving to the crater and having a convo w/ him while he's wearing a hard hat tho w/ the machines making their construction noises in the distance

<slow clap>

the Guggenheim installation was kind of underwhelming tbqh

I expected it to be more ... immersive I guess ... somehow transform the rotunda more than it did. it didn't blow me away or anything.

the other pieces in the show were all older (from the '60s and '70s) and were pretty simple with just white light on black. maybe my expectations were wrong because of reading about all the other stuff in that article, but it seems like I would have been more into what's on show at LACMA or in Texas.

love his skyspace at the deyoung sculpture garden

excited to see the lacma show

so .... went to lacma, was also somewhat underwhelmed

i did really enjoy the BIG piece, the one linked at the top of the thread

the first time i was really conscious of turrell was when i stumbled on "alta" at the "cosmic wonder" show at yerba buena center, was totally unprepared for it and was blown away

http://static.environmentalgraffiti.com/sites/default/files/images/http-inlinethumb23.webshots.com-44438-2225681870104237032S600x600Q85.jpg

here i walked in expecting to be blown away again and basically was not

i do have a "perceptual cell" ticket, but it's for FEBRUARY, will report back then ...

BTW "perceptual cell" is completely sold out through the end of the show now ...

Just returned from a trip to the US where I was able to see both the Guggenheim installation and the one at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh. Fantastic stuff all round. The Guggenheim rotunda was a beautiful sight to just lie there and bathe in the softly changing light. Found it quite amusing the way the security guards would occasionally bawl "NO PHOTOS" but that wasn't putting many people off. Didn't queue up for the other room though, the 45-minute wait kind of sealed off that option when you're going around with two young kids.

Loved the Mattress Factory pieces as well, especially Pleiades which was ghostly and rather unsettling. I was the only person in there as well, which kind of made up for the milling crowds at the Guggenheim

Didn't queue up for the other room though, the 45-minute wait kind of sealed off that option when you're going around with two young kids.

I saw it. Wasn't really worth the wait. It's a big gray square on the wall in a room with very little natural light and it kind of takes on this indeterminate quality as you get closer to it where you can't tell if it's flat gray paint on a wall, or a hole that goes back 2 feet, or extends indefinitely like a bottomless pit. After waiting in the line I sort of forced myself to find it a little interesting but in the end it was a gray square on a wall.

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/calendar-and-events/2013/09/19/philip-glass-in-concert/1549

"On the day of the performance, a limited number of standby numbers may be available on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 6 pm."

Early works at the Pace, curse my lack of proximity!!!

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-master-of-light-revisits-his-early-experiments-1462834661

Worked in a Turrell building for a bit; going to the office felt like going to a Ktown lounge or a restaurant that isn't about the food

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i love his early projections. holy shit.

I saw that Pace exhibit on Thursday. I could have spent all day in the green room. Here is a photo of me and it:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CidVq57U4AA12Rf.jpg

I need to see the Hockney Yosemites there before (and hopefully not instead of) making it back to the real thing