The summer of 2013 will visit three big exhibitions of the work of artist James Turrell. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s James Turrell: A Retrospective will explore 50 years of the artist’s career in a nearly one-year-long exhibition. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is making many of their artist’s installations from its collection available for the first time, particularly “The Light Inside.” And the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York is transforming the rotunda of its Frank Lloyd Wright–designed building for “Aten Reign,” a new “Skyspace” by Turrell.
Below you can find out more about James Turrell and about that which we could remove from his years of working with lighting, space and understanding — particularly his signature Skyspaces — and his ideas could be incorporated into house designs.
guggenheim.org
When artist James Turrell (born 1943) graduated from Pomona College in 1965, he received a bachelor of arts degree in perceptual psychology, followed a year later by a master of fine arts from the University of California, Irvine. These two subjects — one science, 1 art — may seem diametrically opposed, but each of them influences what Turrell calls his “statements” in light, be it artificial or natural.
Light as Substance
At the root of his art is the idea that “the material is light, but the medium is understanding,” as he puts it. By crafting space and light, he aims to highlight light’s “thingness” and affect our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
This happens most overtly from the Skyspaces he’s created for schools, museums, cities and even people around the globe. A square, circular or elliptical aperture covers a room and frames the skies; seats enabling visitors to watch the light transform the skies over potentially long intervals.
A large scale version a part of the Guggenheim exhibition and claims to recast the Guggenheim rotunda “within an enormous volume filled with changing natural and artificial light,” according to the Guggenheim’s site. The rendering displayed here provides an idea about what to expect.
The term “Skyspace” is quite telling; Skyspaces are distances for appearing at the skies, but more important, they bring the sky down to us then make us examine the skies differently (at least for some time) after leaving the room.
The Effects of Time and Seeking
It’s difficult to visually convey the ramifications of Turrell’s Skyspaces, since they rely upon time (the apparent changes in color) and a prolonged looking at the skies. Especially in terms of the latter, his Skyspaces also have spiritual connotations, for in prolonged and contemplative appearing we “go inside to see that the light,” since Turrell describes it, using a concept from his Quaker upbringing. Unsurprisingly, Turrell has created Skyspaces for Quaker meeting houses.
John Hill
I have experienced a few of Turrell’s Skyspaces — in Chicago; in Long Island City, Queens; and in Dallas — and undoubtedly the most rewarding was that the one at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. Having visited on a day once the museum remained open late, I managed to go through the skies around sunset, when the most dramatic change happened. Accompanying the darkening of the skies was a rise in the ambient levels of artificial lighting inside the space. These two types of lighting worked together to enhance the audiences’ senses.
The Skyspace at the Nasher highlights among the particularities of the installation: It must look at just the skies. Nearby trees or buildings should not be inside the knife-edge frame that carefully flattens the skies on the opening’s surface. When an adjacent high-rise rose within the opening, the Nasher shut the Skyspace, also Turrell announced it ruined. While birds and airplanes may enter the frame from time to time, anything else just distracts from the contemplative element of the Skyspace.
John Hill
This photograph from my visit to the Nasher provides a fantastic overview of a typical Skyspace. From top to bottom would be the opening, then the basic walls aglow with the concealed uplights supporting the angled chair backs, followed by the chair and a floor that could take care of the rain and snow that will enter.
In what follows I do not propose that individuals construct Skyspaces within their backyard or loft, but rather that they think of openings from roofs (inside or outside) in terms of what the openings frame, and also think about lighting (artificial or natural) in terms of its effects.
BiLDEN
Sky Views at Home
While Turrell’s Skyspaces are intended to be experienced for long periods (even some of the enclosed gallery installations require more than 1 hour of immersion for the eyes to get used to reduced light levels), they may still be valued in brief durations. The exact same could be said about apertures that are cut into overhead airplanes, such as the one over this home’s exterior entry.
BiLDEN
From the opposite side of the doorway, we could grasp another aspect of the round opening: It traces the path of the sun both spatially (round the floor and the three walls) and in the form of the light that passes through.
BiLDEN
Even though the opening is positioned at the entry — naturally a place of just brief rest as one goes from 1 kingdom to another — it frames the trees and skies in a manner that increases their admiration. This is the identical tree whose back we watched a few photos earlier right next to the house; although we’re attentive to the tree, this opening forces us to look at and love its canopy.
Swatt | Miers Architects
Round openings are also effective on the inside for tracing the sun’s motion throughout the sky and framing the surroundings. These two are particularly nice for the way they illuminate a stair and hallway.
Swatt | Miers Architects
The pair also puts the skies on screen, allowing the residents to feel that the movement of time through the changing color of the skies. It’s no wonder that Turrell’s Skyspaces are flat (facing upward) instead of windows, since the sky is spatial: It is most filled with color straight overhead and slowly recedes to white at the horizon. Therefore skylights provide the best potential for focusing our attention on the various hues of the heavens.
These first few examples also highlight an important distinction between Turrell’s constructions and what could be seen as more standard structure. Turrell works with contractors and architects to create knife-edge openings that do not display the thickness of the roof overhead. A level bottom and angled shirt are expected to attain this, as are careful patching and painting in order to create the transitions between assemblies and substances invisible. Such would be a lot to ask for skylights.
Cathy Schwabe Architecture
A fantastic location for a Skyspace-like opening is a social one, such as above this outdoor dining table. Sure, the opening doesn’t allow for eating from the rain, but it brings plenty of light to what is a dark space if completely covered, and it frames the skies above the table in a manner that borders on the spiritual.
Cablik Enterprises
Here’s a terrace that divides views in 1 corner to low and large (as we could see by the orientation of the seats, there is also a view from the other direction). The low part by the guardrail frames the trunks and the branches, while the opening provides glimpses of the sky and the trees’ canopies. The comparison with the orange is an overt effort to allow the green leaves stick out.
Kentaro Kurihara
Somewhere between an overhead opening along with a window is that this large aperture cut into a loft story. The low sill height permits the adjacent buildings to be glimpsed, however, the angle of the roof forces the gaze up to the skies and clouds. The subject’s position indicates that something spiritual may be going on here as well.
Krannitz Gehl Architects
Among the more intriguing projects on that alludes to James Turrell’s Skyspaces is that the Waterfront Residence, where a circular stone stair tower functions as an elbow upon which the wings of the house pivot. Even within this opinion throughout the tower at bridge level, there is the sense that lighting is entering from above.
Krannitz Gehl Architects
Looking into the tower from the balcony that is observable in the previous photograph, we get a glimpse of the angled skylight that caps the stair tower.
Krannitz Gehl Architects
While the framing of the skylight does not really allow the cylindrical space to act like a Skyspace, the light entering and projecting along the rock walls includes a primordial sense that contrasts the profound ideas Turrell aims for.
Wheeler Kearns Architects
Asked about using natural versus synthetic lighting, Turrell has stated, “There is not any unnatural light” This statement opens up the artist to all types of light (recall how his Skyspaces utilize both light from the sun and ambient lighting from fixtures), but in addition, it gets at the various attributes of light that are emitted and reflected by various sources (sun, stars, moon, fluorescent bulbs, incandescent bulbs etc.). To think about light for a thing that has a tangible presence, even as its source is invisible, is to start to think about it in creative ways.
This garage Chicago is fairly interesting during the afternoon, but the light in the scales makes it better at night. The architecture and lighting are integral; the walls, instead of a freestanding lamp, illuminates the space.
Mark English Architects, AIA
Even since the Skyspaces — particularly the ongoing efforts to transform the Roden Crater in Arizona — attract the most attention, much of Turrell’s output is restricted to gallery areas where he has to rely solely on artificial lighting for impact. These distances will be emphasized from the three exhibitions occurring this summer, but other associations have permanent installations that individuals should certainly visit.
One influence of his installments on house design is the use of cove lighting since the primary means of illuminating a room and forming a room. The bedroom’s L-shaped wall and ceiling dangled from the larger room carefully frames the mattress, but they also allow for light that provides the feeling of floating inside an even larger space.
Mark English Architects, AIA
A detail of the corner demonstrates that outside of the lights above and behind the L-shaped piece, there is a cove cut along where the ceiling meets the side wall. This detail dematerializes the wall airplane, making it appear like it slides past the ceiling. Like Turrell’s art, light reshapes the space and makes us reconsider how we see.
More concerning the 2013 exhibitions and installations:
Los Angeles: James Turrell: A Retrospective, Los Angeles County Museum of Art Houston: “The Light Inside,” The Museum of Fine ArtsNew York: “Aten Reign,” Solomon R. Guggenheim MuseumNext: Statement-Making Skylights, Large and Small