Last Call: James Turrell at the Guggenheim through September 25th

James Turrell, Aten Reign, 2013, Guggenheim Museum

(DAVID HELD/COURTESY SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION)

James Turrell (b. 1943) makes art that requires long, drawn-out periods of concentration.  Do you think we can manage that in this hyper-active, ADD, Digital Age?  It's a stretch.  Aten Reign, on view in the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum, needs about an hour of constant viewing to experience the complete cycle of color changes.

Informed by his Quaker background (the belief in receiving an "inner light" through individual meditation at meetings), Turrell seems to make secular environments that seduce us into a moment of visual - and perhaps spiritual - pleasure.  These installations illuminate shapes in contained spaces, sculpting interiors through directing radiance.  Aten Reign's slow, subtle spectacle of color transition increases our awareness of an architectural form created specifically for the Guggenheim's central rotunda. The tones change ever so slowly, asking us to be patient. To wait.

And so we wait, becoming increasingly mindful.  We wait to delight in the next magnificent hue, and we wait to embrace a fully conscious act of seeing in time and space.  

For more information on this exhibition and other Turrell projects, please watch an interview on Charlie Rose  wherein the artist explains his philosophies and ambitions.

And for an illuminating aural essay on eye-mind perception, please listen to Radiolab's podcast on color: (Season 10; Episode 13).

Aten Reign is Turrell's biggest museum installation so far.  He is still working on his colossal masterpiece, Roden Crater, in Flagstaff, Arizona, begun in 1979.  The Guggenheim's exhibition, James Turrell includes other works by the artist which belong to the museum's collection.

Concurrent with the Guggenheim exhibition, Turrell has two other shows in the US: 

James Turrell: Retrospective at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA, through April 6, 2014) and James Turrell: The Light Inside at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas (through September 22, 2013).

And now a word from Culture Grrl and Deborah Solomon on New York's WNYC.  Discotheque wedding cakes, anyone?

Shine on,

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com 

Last Call: Robert Irwin at the Whitney, September 1

Robert Irwin, Scrim Veil-Black Rectangle-Natural Light, 

Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1977

Among New York's art cognoscenti, the Summer of 2013 will be remembered as the "Summer of Space and Light" thanks to two exceptional exhibitions: Robert Irwin, Scrim Veil-Black Rectangle-Natural Light, Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1977 at the Whitney Museum (closing on September 1) and James Turrell at the Guggenheim Museum (closing on September 25). Although these artists were born 15 years apart (Irwin in 1928; Turrell in 1943), both responded to the visceral presentness of Abstract Expressionist by rejecting its materiality and choosing instead its ephemeral ingredients: real space and pure light.

Their work (along with Richard Serra's, Michael Heizer's and Michael Asher's) belongs to an ill-defined overlap of Minimalism and Post-Minimalism, wherein the simplicity of form interacts with the viewers' self-awareness in the presence of the artist's decisions. Space, scale and light play principal roles, rather than the flat canvas, the carved stone or the welded metal object.  And yet, Irwin and Turrell are sculptors, shaping a specific environment through directing the source of light and the reception of light.  Briefly stated: they are the Illuminators of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, bringing intellectual and spiritual enlightenment to a population of overstimulated, sentient creatures.

Irwin's Black Veil rewards a physical visit to the Whitney Museum's 5th Floor by confusing and surprising our visual perceptions as soon as we exit from the elevator or stairs. It takes a moment to grasp what is there and what may be an illusion. This disorientation is part of the thrill, which no photographs or videos can convey - not even close. The fact that a virtual encounter cannot achieve the real intent of the artist delights me.  For it re-enforces the main objective of today's gallery or museum: being there and not here - online.

To learn more about Irwin's work, please view this short video:

And read the digital catalog, a reprint of the original 1977 catalog with an new introduction by Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Programs, Donna De Salvo.

(Stay tuned for another post on James Turrell in September.)

Best wishes for the Labor Day Weekend,

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic

Director

New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com