Light has never felt more powerful when in the hands of James Turrell. As one of the leading figures in the Light and Space movement that emerged out of southern California, he has stretched the parameters of contemporary art by using light as a medium.
Famous fans like Drake have paid tribute and Shanghai has responded in kind, flocking to Turrell’s first career retrospective in China, Immersive Light, which runs until May 21 at the Long Museum West Bund.
“In 2013, I visited my daughter who was studying in New York. We went to an exhibition of James Turrell at the Guggenheim Museum and were incredibly touched by the enchantment of these works,” explains Long Museum co-founder Wang Wei.
“We also saw how good he was at using the space of the museum. At the time, the Long Museum was just established and we felt that James Turrell was an artist that could fully take advantage of the space and truly cause a sensation. Of course, I also notice the long queue of visitors that were eager to see the exhibition.”
Due to the nature of his work, 13 Turrell pieces were created for Immersive Light based on prototypes of his past work. Wang describes it as the “most massive and large-scale construction of works in the Long Museum’s history.”
“To set them up, the Long Museum team has been working with James Turrell’s team for almost a year – combining the art pieces with the distinguishing features of the Long Museum,” she says.
“It’s made me incredibly happy to work with James Turrell from the very beginning of this exhibition. I watched how scrupulous he is about every detail, how persistent in his principles he is and his deep understanding of his work.”
Immersive Light opens with a stunner. One of the exhibit’s two experience rooms, ‘Ganzeld, Shangri La (Over the Hump), 2017’ makes an immediate impression. First built in 1976 as ‘Ganzfeld,’ it’s a product of sensory deprivation experiments that James Turrell and contemporaries Robert Irwin and Ed Wortz worked on together in the late 1960s.
“With carefully designed space and light, this piece creates an illusion of seemingly indeterminate and indefinite space filled with a tangible light substance,” Wang says.
“Viewers cannot discern any horizon or dimensions. It resembles the experience of pilots flying disoriented through cloud and fog, or going through a whiteout in a blizzard.”
While visitors’ time with the piece can be limited to five minutes during busy times, ‘Ganzeld, Shangri La (Over the Hump)’ doesn’t take long to make an impression. As the room fills with changing colors of flourescent light, it elicits a euphoric feeling – one that famously inspired Drake’s music video, ‘Hotline Bling,' and his Twitter declaration that "I fucks with James Turrell."
While the 72-year-old Turrell issued a wry official response noting, “while I am truly flattered to learn that Drake fucks with me, I nevertheless wish to make clear that neither I nor any of my woes was involved in any way in the making of the video,” the scene at Immersive Light is full of smiling couples shimmying to the perpetually changing colors of Turrell’s light work.
However, bliss is just one of the many emotions that Turrell’s work inspires. Pieces like ‘Wedgework’ take visitors through a path of disorienting darkness, subtly using projected light that creates illusions of barriers. ‘Magnatron’ projects calming light through an old television, a clash of contradictions.
More recent pieces like ‘Transmission Light Work’ highlight Turrell’s adoption of newer technologies, using holography to create seemingly physical pieces out of light – its colors and forms shifting as the viewer walks around it.
Immersive Light also pays tribute to Turrell’s work with other forms. A video details the euphoria elicited by his ‘skyscapes’ – enclosed rooms open to the sky through an aperture in the roof.
The second floor is largely dedicated to Turrell’s most famous work, Roden Crater – an extinct cinder volcano that the artist has spent the past four decades transforming into a massive naked-eye observatory.
“It’s his most iconic work and the culmination of his career.” Wang says of the unfinished piece. “Through photos, schemes and plans, visitors can see the scale of this amazing work.”
A trained pilot and a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, Turrell’s background studying psychology, astronomy and math makes him a fascinating figure in contemporary art – one that the New York Times has described as “a cosmic cowboy.”
While Turrell will visit the museum next month and give a public talk, Wang prefers that visitors come with an open mind free of thoughts of the artist’s back story.
“The works of James Turrell generally reminds me of an abyss filled with mystery,” she says. “When visitors enter the space, they are going to be immediately blown away by these installations of light.”
Until May 21, 10am-6pm (Sun-Tues), RMB200. Long Museum West Bund.
Photos by Rachel Deason for That's, except for the Roden Crater, from Wikipedia.
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