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James

Turrell

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JAMES TURRELL

PACE GALLERY LONDON

 

Over the course of more than six decades, James Turrell has pioneered an art of light, space, and time.

 

James Turrell’s  is an American artist primarily concerned with Light and Space. His recent Constellation works, the focal point of this exhibition at pace London, are the culmination of Turrell's lifelong pursuit. 

 

Generating what the artist has called “spaces within space,” these luminous portals are instruments for altering our perception; gazing into them results in the slow dissolution of the boundaries of the surrounding room, enveloping the viewer in the radiance of pure color. Turrell teases that visitors will be invited to a transcendental experience, in which one color will morph hypnotically into the next. And without even notice we get locked in that space, unable to leave the room because we do not want to miss the transitions. Trying to figure how that process goes on.

 

Fusing the temporal, sensuous, and illusory qualities of his projection works and architectural installations, the Constellations synthesize several aspects of Turrell’s practice. Unlike his early projection pieces, however, they are not about generating an illusion; instead, they greet the viewer with the actual materiality of light, what Turrell calls “the physical manifestation of light, which we have trained our eyes too readily to look through rather than to look at.”

 

Presented in site-specific chambers, the works feature elliptical and

circular shapes with a frosted glass surface animated by an array of technically advanced LED lights, which are mounted to a wall and generated by computer programming. The light changes are subtle and hypnotic, one colour morphing into the next. The programme runs on a loop that is imperceptible to the viewer, prompting a transcendental experience.

 

This exhibition is the living proof that colour can be everything. In this specific case, colour is what moves the artist and the spectator. Even though in my work I don’t use colour and sometimes I even have to force my self to use it, I recognise the amazingness in this show that it is all about colour.

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