James TurrellSustaining Light, 2007

Wood, computerized neon setting, and glass

62 ¼ × 46 ½ in

About the artist

I want to create an atmosphere that can be consciously plumbed with seeing, like the wordless thought that comes from looking in a fire. —James Turrell James Turrell explores the myriad possibilities of light as subject, material, and medium of perception, as well as its inherent connections to painting and sculpture. In formally simple works, he assigns light its own structure, drawing attention to the limits of seeing while conveying a sense of transcendence and revelation. Ultimately, this fascination is connected to Turrell’s search for humanity’s place in the universe, a spiritual quest that he attributes to his Quaker faith, which he characterizes as having a “straightforward, strict presentation of the sublime.” Turrell aims to prompt greater self-awareness through a similar encouragement of quiet contemplation. Turrell was born in 1943 in Los Angeles, and lives and works in Flagstaff, Arizona. He earned a pilot’s license at age sixteen—an influence, perhaps, on his later artistic interest in the sky—and, consistent with his Quakerism, registered as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. After receiving his BA in mathematics and perceptual psychology at Pomona College, California, in 1965, he took a studio in the former Mendota Hotel in Ocean Park, California. There he produced his first light work, Afrum-Proto (1966), as well as Mendota Stoppages (1969–74), a series of projections in which planes of light are positioned in relation to architecture. These early projects linked Turrell to the Light and Space movement and underpinned his ongoing artistic practice. Turrell’s debut solo exhibition was staged at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1967 and the following year he achieved a formal breakthrough by producing constructions in which the light emerging from behind partition walls appears to dissolve the edges of the rooms they occupy.

About the artist

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