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November
2002 |
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Vol.21
No.9 |
A publication of the International Sculpture Center |
Into
The Light
A Conversation with James Turrell
by Elaine A. King

Gard Blue, 1968-2002.
Coutesy of the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
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The retrospective
exhibition James Turrell: Into the Light, on view through
April 2003 at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, showcases Turrells
life-long investigations of light, space, and perception, including three
pieces from the Mattress Factorys permanent collection and models
from his monumental Roden Crater Project. The show also features
outdoor daylight works such as Sky Space (an antechamber constructed
for viewing the sky and its subtle atmospheric changes at all times of
the day and night), projection pieces with artificial and natural light,
and perception cells, chambers that can be entered for perceptual
experience (such as Gasworks, an optic light chamber shaped like
a gas tank).
Turrell has been
working with light and space since the mid-1960s, when he began using
natural gas to create flat flames. He has used projected light to create
perceptions of solid forms and employed artificial light to create various
perceptions of lights presence. Since the late 1970s he has been
constructing a series of observation spaces on and in Roden Crater, a
390,000-year-old volcanic crater with a 600-foot-high red cinder cone.
Located approximately 50 miles northeast of Flagstaff, Arizona, it overlooks
the enigmatic expanses of the Painted Desert.
Turrells work
induces introspection, prompting observers to look at their own viewing
processes. His inquiries incite us to pause and probe our inner selves
and encourage us to reconsider our own connection to and comprehension
of the outside world.
Elaine A. King:
I read that you are a Quaker. Has religion played a role in shaping
your work?

Gasworks, 1993.
Coutesy of the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
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James Turrell:
I was raised a Quaker, and now I have come back to being active. Im
not sure whether that has impacted my art-making, because my work is not
about specific issuesperhaps being a Quaker influences how I live
my life and what I value. People tend to relate any work in light to the
spiritual. I dont think this is actually correct, yet, in terms
of our lives, we greet light in three major ways that arent necessarily
partitioned. There is a psychological aspect, a physical aspect, and a
spiritual aspect. In terms of the physical, we drink light as Vitamin
D, so its literally a food that has a major effect on our well-being.
The strong psychological effects of light can readily be felt in particular
spaces. One can feel this in Gasworksit expresses the powerful quality
of light. In terms of the spiritual, there are very few religious or spiritual
experiences that people dont use the vocabulary of light to describe.
EAK: Your
work also focuses on an architectural relationship between perception
and space.
JT: Im
interested in delving into and exploring the architecture of space created
by light. Mostly we have dealt with space by displacement or massing of
form. While there is an architectural vocabulary referring to the space
between, this has rarely been enlivenedits more rhetorical
than actual. The art that I make covers this ground between form and actually
forming space using light. For example, when the sun is shining, we see
atmospherewe cant see through the atmosphere to see the stars
that are there. The same applies if you are on a stage with footlights
and stage lightingyou cant see the audience. However, if you
step in front of the footlights, the audience is revealed. The space is
architecturally the same, but the location of the light actually changes
the penetration of vision such that some people see each other and others
cannot. It is a structured space without a massing of form. This quality
of working the space in between so that it limits or expands the penetration
of vision is something that intensely fascinates me.
It means that the
containing form has to be made somewhat neutral. What youre looking
at is that in-between zone, not formed or made by the massing of material.
This has a lot of ties to architecture, but not the sort of architecture
that we use to build everyday structures. It certainly isnt how
we light our buildings. Architects make a form and then they stick the
lights in.
EAK: What
criteria determine the structural configuration in relation to the selected
hue or tone?
JT: That actually
has changed over the years. I make this work for an idealized viewer.
You might say thats me. The idealized viewer has changed and matured.
He has become more circumspect. Color has to do with the kind of work
Im doingwhether I want opacity or translucency or transparency.
How I want it to penetrate or to be stopped. The milky colors of a Japanese
kimono are very subtle; in contrast, Korean culture evinces a brilliance
of color with very deep saturation. I work between those two approacheseach
has enlightened me. Its very different in light than with physical
material; the first and most important thing one needs to do is to throw
away the color wheel, because it provides misinformation. If youre
going to work with light, you need to learn the spectrum. Were making
an immense mistake by moving the color wheel into the computer. If you
mix blue and yellow with the earth, which makes pigment and reflects color,
youre going to get something near green. But if you mix blue and
yellow with light youll get white, which surprises most people.
We really need to look at the spectrum and have a different way of thinking
about light. In general, were a surface culture and tend to look
at and speak about reflected light because of our tradition of painting.

Rise, 2002.
Coutesy of the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
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Im
interested in the revelation of light itself and that it has thingness.
It
alludes to what it is, which is not exactly illusion.
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EAK: How
did you begin to use light as a medium?
JT: The history
of art is a history of looking at light. Perhaps being American, I was
interested in a less vicarious form that actually used light itself. I
started out by dealing with a picture plane and the traditional presentation
of light in painting. I can remember Malevich talking about how the paint
was on the surface like the thinnest of membranes. If you put light on
the surface, its even thinner. But plastically, its very effective
in terms of the space it creates in front of it or beyond it. That was
really a way to look at a more direct perception: rather than being something
thats about light, it is light. The light is actually turned and
directed right to your eyes. The light inside that space is invasive and
penetrating. This direct experience of light is the difference between
watching football and playing it. I think that were an active culture
in that respect, and
so it was an easy step for me.
EAK: Have
your experiences as a pilot inspired your general fascination with light?
JT: Yes, absolutely.
The flight experiences were memorable and influential. When you actually
get down to the practical, how to do it, you have to see how light works
in space. When you are flying you get acute insights into how light functions.
EAK: Do
you think that the infinite horizons of sky contribute to your need to
work on a larger scale?
JT: A lot
has to do with where light is and where it isnt. The way I work
with light requires space. This was the biggest difference in approach
between East Coast and West Coast artists attitudes in the 1970s.
I make work that luxuriates in space, and it takes up a lot of space.
I need room because
of how light works in a space. Close-up inspection with light is very
difficultit becomes more of an object light. My work has more to
do with thingness than most things do. That is, my work questions
what it takes to make a thing, whereas others dont attempt to raise
the issue. Thats the most sculptural way it is. Basically, I dont
think I work with sculpture because it feels to me to be coming out of
a painters eye in three dimensions. So, in terms of questioning
what is something that is, what makes this object quality, I deal with
that issue, whereas most artists just assume it. They have a thing, and
they make a thing. They are making a thing out of something. Im
making something out of a thing we dont normally attribute thingness
to.
EAK: You
make something from nothingan illusion?
JT: Yes; however,
I dont think its all that illusory. Although light exhibits
wave phenomena, nevertheless it is a thingit is optical material.
But we dont treat it as such. Instead we use it very casually to
illuminate other things. Im interested in the revelation of light
itself and that it has thingness. It alludes to what it is, which is not
exactly illusion.
Ill give you
an example. We tend to think the sun rises. In fact, the earth is actually
sinking or spinning down the other way. You probably have been in a train
when the train next to you moves, and you feel like youre moving,
but youre not. It just appears that way. At Roden Crater, I have
one space where I remove all reference to level, so your only frame of
reference is the stars in a circular opening. Actually its elliptical
but you see it as circular. Thats your frame of reference, so the
strange thing is that you feel yourself tilting in reference to the stars.
You can say this is an illusion, but thats actually whats
happening. To get that sensation you have to have a different quality
of light in there. In that way, theyre not illusions, because thats
actually reality.
EAK: In
1966 you leased the Mendota Hotel in Ocean Park. For two years you sealed
up its rooms, painted out the windows, closed off its doors. This pivotal
work became known as the Mendota Stoppages.
JT: That is
where I made the first series of projection works. When you seal up a
space, it can get a little stuffy, and if you open anything, light will
come into this perfectly bare room in a very strong and amazing way. I
then began to open up the space, particularly at night, to different areas
of light. All forms of light were availablethe path of the moon,
cars, street lights, and shop lights. I made a series of spaces where
I could change the space by virtue of how I let in light. I literally
made a whole new space out of the same physical space, which remained
the same, although thats not what you encountered perceptually.
The example I like to give is the experience of sound when you are wearing
good earphones or have a good stereo system. You find yourself in a music
space thats larger than the physical space youre in. Its
the same when youre reading: you become so engrossed in the book
that youre more in the space generated by the author than you are
in the physical space where you are sitting. This extension to so-called
real space is the space that we operate in all the time. Just
look next to you at the stoplight and see that kid rocking back and forth
with the music on. Is he in the same space you are? I dont think
so.
This extension to
the physical, awake state, a kind of daydream space that we superimpose
on it, is the space that we should really discuss, because its actually
the space of our reality. The arts, without a doubt, extend these spaces,
whether its in literature or
in music or visual art.
EAK: Were
the experiments at the Mendota Hotel the beginning of your journey into
researching light?

Orca, 1967,
as installed in 1998.
Coutesy of the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
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JT: The beginning
of my lifetime investigation of light began in those Mendota spaces, but
more specifically with the Projection Series. It was the ability to change
the space itself by how light enters from the outside that began to extend
my ideas and art practice. It also spread into its space-making abilities
in terms of seeing the physical confines as having little to do with the
space that you could involve and activate. The more architecture begins
to do thisand there are a lot of ways to activate that, not just
with lightthe more it will extend our being. Right now, architecture
is caught up in fashionable signature structures.

Amba, 1982.
Coutesy of the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
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EAK: Several
site artists from the time you began working, including Robert Irwin,
Michael Heizer, and Robert Smithson, felt that science and technology
propelled them to look beyond the earth.
JT: In the
late 60s, I became interested in James J. Gibsons idea of
ecological psychology. Learning to work with this material, light, to
affect the medium of perception was something that I had to get used to.
My technology is extremely simple. My work might inform a scientist about
art, but it doesnt in any way raise notions of science or technology.
Light is something
that I had to learn how to mold and form, because it isnt formed
with the hand like clay or hot wax. Its more like sound. You make
instruments to create what you want. I learned to do that by trial and
error. I used a big projector and at first, it was really hard to form
and control light. Gradually, I began to understand light as a substance
that I could shape. I could see the evolution in the work. However, neither
science nor technology actually influenced how I learned to work this
material. The late 60s and early 70s were a contradictory
time. On one hand, we were going to the moon, and anything was possible.
On the other hand, despite technological advancements and euphoric attitudes,
we were conducting a war in Vietnam and my generation was up in protest.
Also, artists were
zealously idealistic in thinking that people were going to buy and collect
ephemeral work. There were a lot of losses along the way for artists who
had amazing and wonderful talent but nowhere to actualize their ideas.
EAK: What
expectations do you have of the viewer?
JT: I dont
have great hopes for the viewer. As I said before, Im dealing with
an idealized viewer. If you come up to that, fine. If you dont,
thats your business not mine. Many people seek to like what theyre
going to seethis is a terrible misunderstanding between artists
and viewers. In no way do most artists I know seek to affirm the publics
taste. If anything, we try to push the envelopechange it, mold it,
and hopefully destroy it. I dont think you should have any other
expectations than you do when you go to a movieyou go because you
are interested. Think about this: we go to the doctors office and
an hour or so later were still reading two-year-old magazines. Despite
the wasted time and the fact that its going to cost you, you still
patiently wait and at the appropriate time remove your clothes, lean back,
and completely submit. We submit in a lot of places in our lives. If you
cant submit to art, to hell with you. You dont have to do
this, and if you dont want to do it, dont even ask me or bother
meIm really not concerned. I feel that my art is genuinely
benign; however, I have had problems and lawsuits. Placing work in public
is risky, but artists have to do it.
EAK: Why
were you sued?
JT: Someone
fell to the ground in a piece at the Whitney Museumbecause of the
perceptual effects. Its written up in Art Law, and it is a very
interesting case. The woman who fell happened to be the wife of the Oregon
Supreme Court Chief Justice. Her testimony is literally this: There
was this wall, actually it was a receding wall, I leaned against it, and
it wasnt there. I have to say that these things do have a
feeling of materiality and solidity, but it still looks like light to
me. They possess a quality that accords materiality to light, but I dont
think it substitutes for some opaque solid surface. I can come up with
this different viewpoint partly because I dont function in the same
situation as the general publicI am the maker not the observer.
This is essentially a problem shared by all people in art. There are other
situations in which the actual physicality of art, whether its a
work by Richard Serra or monumental construction by Mark di Suvero that
moves, can actually injure someone. However, my work is just light and
space. I think that people really ought to stand up to contemporary art.
If they cant stand up to contemporary art, what can they stand up
to?
EAK: What
convinced you to purchase Roden Crater?

View of Roden Crater, Arizona.
Coutesy of the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
|
JT: I saw
it as an occasion to embark on the kind of work that I always wanted to
do; its expansive site posed numberless opportunities to experiment with
light and perception. I decided on it in 1976 but couldnt buy it
until 1979, when I bought an option to buy and then sought the funding.
The Dia Foundation purchased it. When Dia failed for awhile, they returned
the crater to me. I had to get financing for the surrounding ranch land.
However, one cant get a loan in Arizona on vacant land. So I got
a loan as a cattle rancher. Curiously, I used agriculture to fund art.
The Skyspace Foundation was founded so I could accept the crater portion
from Dia. Now Skyspace owns the crater.

Model of Roden Crater Project, 1987.
Coutesy of the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
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EAK: The
crater is an extraordinary place. Its extinct cinder cone appears to be
dead, yet youve brought new life and meaning to this barren and
quiet spot. How long do you think a viewer will need to spend at Roden
Crater in order to experience it beyond a superficial spectacle level?
JT: The main
thing is to make a journey, so that you actually go to something purposely
and have time to settle down and empty out the noise and distractions
of daily life. Often we can shift gears more quickly in places such as
a church or a libraryperhaps because they are designated places
of silence and reflection. Most people by the time they arrive at the
crater are pretty well set up for it. It would be wonderful if visitors
could spend at least 24 hours, but it would be better to stay longer.
EAK: When
will the crater open to the public?
JT: Right
now the projected date is some time next summer. I dont know that
it will be possible to stay for very long, because only a small number
of people can be accommodated, and there will be a great demand by many
groups wanting to visit the site. However, those things also change over
time. You know how trends in contemporary art goat first there is
the barrage of interest and then gradually the newness tapers off. I dont
think that after awhile itll be too crowded.

Model of South Space at Roden Crater, 1998
Coutesy of the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
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Four Models of Roden Crater Spaces
Coutesy of the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
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EAK: When
I was sitting in Skyspace I wondered why the very intense yellow light
was chosen to illuminate the interior in contrast to the open sky.
JT: It is
normal tungsten light that weve used in our houses for years. It
was chosen in relation to the quality of blueness in the sky. There are
different interior light choices in each of the pieces, but mainly we
have the light on all the time, and you dont notice it much during
the day. But then as the light changes outside, the light inside affects
the scene through this opening.
EAK: Will
this be operative in the various chambers at Roden Crater?
JT: Only a
few are like that. There are different combinations of light from inside
to outside. There are places where you are changing as you come into the
light, as in the dark spaces. There are places where the light is changing.
There are also other places where the light inside is not changing, but
the light outside is, as in Skyspace. And then there is space where everything
is changing, as in Rise. I mixed it up in terms of the time-making quality.
Sometimes we make the time, but other times things are slowed down, and
something else makes the time. Time plays a crucial role in this work.
I like things that take place over time, but then its interesting
to know which things are stable or staying the same and what is changing.
They all have that sort of a time sense, or sensibility.
EAK: Have
you ever considered yourself as a type of
a shaman? People have to slow down and step into a different mind-frame
if they really want to experience your work. Perhaps you are trying to
show people that theres another side of life. Is light symbolic
for something other?
JT: I dont
traffic in symbolism. Im no more a shaman than any other artist.
Part of the role of the artist is to direct attention and to precipitate
change.
It can also just be to make a nice piece. That is enough, definitely enough.
In terms of spiritual context, I think youll find quite a bit of
that across all the arts. Think of the work of artists and architects
in constructing grand cathedrals or monuments, places such as Chartres,
Notre Dame, or St. Peters. In some way, art has suffered for it a bit.
Architects today get to make their cathedrals not as religious centers
but as signature art museums. Thats one of the problems with religionstheyve
had this sort of brand name attached to them. Artists are dealing with
different presences and powers, and this has always been true. Its
no more or less true now than at any other time.
EAK: Your
work runs counter to our societys attention span and to the art
worlds need for trends.
JT: Someone
has to do that. Maybe I just cant keep up with constant change.
Im a slow guy. I like slow planes, so you can land in many places.
Theres also a measure of safety if you land where you would crash.
In a way, thats true with art, too. Things that require more time
give more back. I think its okay to take time. It seems more direct,
actually.
EAK: Because
of the absence of specific subject matter and your use of pure space,
light, and color, some people have compared your work with that of Joseph
Albers, Agnes Martin, and Mark Rothko.
JT: When you
make the subject matter light and essentially use it as a pure entity,
then you are showing its primal power. That is what the artists youve
mentioned do. In Gasworks, light is the content and the form. However,
if you then take light and try to use it to tell a story as film does,
you lose all the power of the light.
EAK: It
seems as if some of your earlier works were prototypes for the concept
that architects are beginning to investigate regarding the consequence
of light vis-à-vis space and form.

View of East Portal, Roden Crater.
Coutesy of the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
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JT: There
are some places that my work may inform architecture and is informed by
architecture. I like places that you can enter and feel the presence of
light permeating throughout. That bespeaks architecture, as does Platos
cave. These things for me are analogies for perception. We are housed
in the structures we create. In that way were like hermit crabs.
We adopt one space, and then we go out and get into a movable one, a car,
and we get out of that and move again into another one. Its something
humankind is very good at doing: we make shells. We are probably as aware
of the shells we make in forming cities as the coral is aware of making
the Great Barrier Reef. Recognizing what we are and that we have these
modes of perception and protection, Im interested in how we open
those things out to perception and where we locate certain spaces within
our dwellings. For instance, we tend to put the kitchen on the eastern
side of the house in a single-family dwelling. I certainly am interested
in what architects do. Still, Im an artist, and I play a very different
role when it comes to space, light,
and structure.

View of East Portal Tunnel, Roden Crater.
Coutesy of the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh
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EAK: Do
you feel cities might be more livable and pleasant places if more attention
were given to light?
JT: Yes, and
fortunately that change is slowly becoming a reality. I remember seeing
mercury vapor lights when I flew over L.A., and now its all gone
to sodium lights. The mercury vapor lights were greenish-blue, and now
the illumination is a type of orange light because its more efficient.
But its not a good quality of light. This will change again because
of need and efficiency.
Eventually, well
begin employing light that actually is changeable. Well be able
to select it knowingly, and, hopefully, traffic engineers who see light
only in terms of the color wheel will not dictate city lighting in the
future. Itll be pleasant to interact with a different type of lightit
will make a big difference in the comprehension of our environment, as
well as our attitudes.
Elaine A. King
is a freelance critic and curator.
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