James Turrell is a Californian born artist, son of Quaker parents. The 67 year old got is pilots licence at 16 and has worked as an aerial cartographer something which has shape him and the art he makes till this day. Turrell’s work has been primarily considered installation, some critics have placed it in the realms of architectural art however, Turrell himself places the emphasis in his practice to the manipulation of light, the forming of space and creation of potential situations which allow the viewer to see themselves see. For this to happen the architecture must not be dominant and must allow the qualities of the space to become apparent.
Though Turrell's work looks to be at least in reproduction, a remnant of minimalist abstraction it goes far beyond this in its realisation. It is mentioned in the reader many artists whose prime concern is the depiction of spirituality often use the minimalist movement’s reductive quality to represent the metaphysical and spiritual elements of this world. Turrell does not do this. His work is primarily concerned with the acts surrounding seeing and perception. In escaping representation or the modernist search for the essence of painting or say sculpture Turrell presents the viewer with a carefully constructed sensory experience, one contingent upon his or her own facilities. He compares the role of the artist to that of the Bodhisattva, “one who comes back and entices others to take the journey… That’s when I began to appreciate an art that could be a non-vicarious act, seeing whose subject was your seeing.” In approaching art in this manner Turrell takes on the role of shaman over preacher, delivering the view to their own epiphany rather than simply recounting his.
Brown, Julia. Occluded Front. James Turrell. Los Angeles. The Lapis Press, 1985.
Noever, Peter and others. James Turrell. The Other Horizon. Vienna, 1999.
Turrell, James. Air Mass. London. The South Bank Centre.1993.
(Acessed 25 August 2010)
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