James Turrell facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
James Turrell
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President Barack Obama presents the National Medal of Arts to Turrell in 2014
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| Born | May 6, 1943 Los Angeles, California, US
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| Alma mater | Pomona College University of California, Irvine Claremont Graduate University |
| Known for | Installation art |
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Notable work
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Roden Crater, Acton |
| Movement | Light and Space |
James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist. He is famous for his amazing art that uses light and space. He's often called the "master of light." Turrell creates art installations that mix natural light with artificial colors. He uses openings in ceilings to change how indoor spaces look. These spaces are always shifting with new colors.
Much of Turrell's work has been on a huge project called Roden Crater. This is a natural volcano crater near Flagstaff, Arizona. He is turning it into a giant observatory for watching the sky without a telescope. He also has a series of artworks called skyspaces. These are enclosed rooms that frame the sky, letting you see it in a new way.
Turrell was born in Los Angeles, California. He grew up in a Quaker family. He got his pilot's license when he was 16. Later, he flew Buddhist monks out of Chinese-controlled Tibet. This happened during the Vietnam War, as he was a conscientious objector. This means he refused to fight in the war for moral reasons.
Turrell studied psychology, math, geology, and astronomy in college. He started experimenting with light when he was in art school. This early work led to his famous light art. He has won many awards for his creative use of light and space. His art explores how we see things and the true nature of light. His works have been shown in major museums around the world.
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Early Life and Education
James Turrell was born in Los Angeles, California. His father was an engineer and teacher. His mother was a doctor who worked for the Peace Corps. Both of his parents were Quakers.
Turrell got his pilot's license when he was 16 years old. He later flew Buddhist monks out of Chinese-controlled Tibet. He said it was a "humanitarian mission." For many years, he fixed old airplanes to help pay for his art projects.
He earned a degree in perceptual psychology from Pomona College in 1965. He also studied mathematics, geology, and astronomy. In 1966, he started a graduate art program at the University of California, Irvine. Here, he began making art using light projections. His studies were interrupted when he spent about a year in jail. This was because he helped young men avoid military service during the Vietnam War. In 1973, he earned his Master of Arts degree from Claremont Graduate University.
Exploring Light in Art
First Light Experiments
In 1966, Turrell began working with light in his Santa Monica studio. This was when the "Light and Space" art group became popular in Los Angeles. Other artists in this group included Robert Irwin and Mary Corse. Turrell covered his studio windows. He only let certain amounts of light from the street come through small openings. This is how he made his first light projections.
In his Shallow Space Constructions (1968), he used screens. These screens allowed hidden light to create a flat, glowing effect in a room. That same year, he worked with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He explored how people see things with artist Robert Irwin and a psychologist.
From 1969 to 1974, Turrell created an important artwork called The Mendota Stoppages. He used several rooms in an old hotel. He sealed off the rooms and controlled the window openings. This allowed natural and artificial light to enter the dark spaces in special ways.
The Roden Crater Project
In 1979, Turrell bought an extinct volcano crater near Flagstaff, Arizona. Since then, he has spent decades moving tons of dirt. He is building tunnels and openings inside the crater. His goal is to turn it into a huge observatory for viewing the sky. This observatory will let people experience celestial events with their own eyes.
The completion date for the Crater has been changed many times. No one gives a specific date anymore. Roden Crater has been kept secret for a long time. Only friends of the artist could visit it. However, some special programs now allow devoted fans to gain access. For example, in 2015, a small group of people could visit for a fee.
Turrell says he is not an "earthworks artist." He explains, "I make things that take you up into the sky." He adds, "I'm working to bring celestial objects like the sun and moon into the spaces that we inhabit." He sees himself as someone who "shapes or contains light."
In 2019, Turrell teamed up with Arizona State University. This partnership is called the "ASU-Roden Crater Project." They hope to use the university's resources to help with the project. ASU has already started including the crater in its classes.
Skyspaces: Framing the Sky
In the 1970s, Turrell started his "skyspaces" series. These are enclosed rooms with an opening in the roof. A Skyspace is a room big enough for about 15 people. Viewers sit on benches along the edges. They look up at the sky through the opening in the roof.
As a lifelong Quaker, Turrell designed the Live Oak Meeting House. This building for the Society of Friends has a "skyhole" in the roof. Here, light takes on a spiritual meaning. His work Meeting (1986) at MoMA PS1 is a copy of such a meeting house. It is a square room with a rectangular opening in the ceiling.
A writer for the New York Times described a skyspace. She said it's a "celestial viewing room." It creates the "magical illusion that the sky is within reach." It looks like the sky is stretched like a canvas across the ceiling opening.
In 1992, Turrell's Irish Sky Garden opened in Ireland. This huge earth and stone artwork has a crater in its center. Visitors walk through a passage and climb stairs to enter. Then, they lie on a central platform and look up. The rim of the crater frames the sky. Turrell said, "The most important thing is that inside turns into outside."
Since 2009, Turrell's Third Breath, 2005 has been on display in Germany. It is a camera obscura. This means it uses lenses to project an image. In the lower room, visitors see an image of the sky reflected on the ground. In the upper room, they can see the sky directly through a hole in the ceiling.
Three Gems (2005) at the de Young Museum is Turrell's first Skyspace shaped like a stupa. This is a dome-shaped building. At Houghton Hall in England, Turrell's Skyspace is an oak building on stilts. Inside, viewers look up at the sky framed by the open roof.
Turrell's Dividing the Light (2007) uses water and landscaping. This Skyspace is an open-air building. It has a canopy with an opening, special lighting, a pool, and plants. It is located at Pomona College. The opening in the canopy reflects the pool below. It is surrounded by granite seats and plants.
Other Skyspaces can be found in many places around the world. These include England, Spain, Austria, Australia, Norway, and Uruguay.
In 2023, the Walker Art Center updated its 2005 Sky Pesher work. They changed the lights to LEDs. This allows for a wider range of colors. Now, the lighting program is multicolored. The seats in this artwork are even heated!
Other Amazing Works
In 2008, Turrell designed an indoor pool in Connecticut. It makes you feel like you are swimming in a mirrored light box.
In 2009, the first museum dedicated to Turrell's work opened in Argentina. It is part of the Hess Collection at Colome. This museum shows Turrell's light art from five decades of his career. It's like a time tunnel. The experience ends with a beautiful skyspace. Here, you can see the Andean sky at sunrise and sunset.
Turrell is also known for his light tunnels and projections. These create shapes that look solid, but they are made only of light. Three of his works, Danaë, Catso Red, and Pleiades, are always on display at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His 1968 artwork, Raethro Pink, is a glowing pink pyramid. It was bought by the Welsh National Museum of Art.
His work Acton is very popular at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It looks like a blank canvas on a wall. But it's actually a rectangular hole in the wall. It's lit up to look like a solid surface. Museum guards sometimes tell visitors to touch it to show them it's not what it seems!
Turrell believes that people often spend too little time looking at art. He wants viewers to take their time. He once said, "Maybe we could also have a slow-art movement, and take an hour." Art critic John McDonald said Turrell's works are "dull to describe but magical to experience."
Exhibitions Around the World
Turrell had his first solo art show in 1967. Since then, his art has been shown in many famous museums. These include the Stedelijk Museum (1976), Whitney Museum of American Art (1980), and Israel Museum (1982).
The Wolfsburg Project in Germany was Turrell's largest exhibition there. It opened in 2009. It included a "Ganzfeld" work. This is a light installation that covers a huge area. Also in 2009, his artwork Third Breath, 2005 opened in Germany. This was with an exhibition called James Turrell – Geometry of Light.
A big exhibition called James Turrell: A Retrospective showed his 50-year career. It was at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2013-2014. It also traveled to the National Gallery of Australia.
From June to September 2013, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York showed Turrell's work. This was his first New York museum exhibition since 1980. A new project, Aten Reign (2013), turned the Guggenheim's round building into a huge space filled with changing light.
In 2017, his work was shown in the exhibition Immersive Light in Shanghai. Another installation, Into the Light, is on view at MASS MoCA until at least 2025.
James Turrell's art has been shown in many public and private galleries worldwide.
In February 2020, the Pace Gallery in London held a Turrell exhibition. It showed the "culmination of Turrell's lifelong pursuit."
James Turrell Museum
On April 22, 2009, the James Turrell Museum opened in Colomé, Salta, in Argentina. Turrell designed it after Donald M. Hess, a winery owner and art collector, wanted to dedicate a museum to his work. It has nine light installations. These include a skyspace called Unseen Blue (2002). It also shows some of his drawings and prints. The museum is 1700 square meters (about 18,300 square feet). The experience ends with a wonderful view of the Andean sky at dawn and sunset.
Art in Collections
Turrell's art is part of many public collections. These include museums like the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. You can also find his work at the Centre for International Light Art in Germany and the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh. Other places include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
Internationally, his works are in the Tate Modern in London and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. They are also in the Museum SAN in Korea and the Welsh National Museum of Art.
In Japan, Turrell's works are in several museums. These include the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. The Chichu Art Museum has three of his works on permanent display. These are Afrum – Pale Blue (1968), Open Field (2000), and the skyspace Open Sky (2004). Architect Tadao Ando designed a building called Minamidera to hold Turrell's work Backside of the Moon (1999).
House of Light (2000) is a building completely designed by Turrell. It mixes traditional Japanese architecture with his light installations. It also has a skyspace. The view of the sunrise from this skyspace has been called "incredibly moving."
Awards and Honors
Turrell has received many awards for his art. These include a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fine Arts. He also received The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1984. In 2013, he was given the National Medal of Arts.
In 2004, he received an honorary doctorate from Haverford College.
Films About James Turrell
- Passageways DVD (2006, 2017): This film shows James Turrell's work and the Roden Crater project.
- Art 21: James Turrell, Live Oak Friends Meeting house, PBS Documentary: This is a biography with an online video clip.
See also
In Spanish: James Turrell para niños
- Stuck Red/Stuck Blue (1970)
