James Turrell: A Retrospective

Art experienced through the senses is the theme of the latest exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The first major exhibition in the U.S. in nearly thirty years, James Turrell: A Retrospective, spans 50 years of the light and space artist's entire career, from the mid 60's to the present. Exploring human perception, the artworks include early light projections, holograms, as well as selections from his work in progress in the high desert of Arizona, the Roden Crater.

Los Angeles native Turrell, who celebrated his 70th birthday this past June, uses light as a sculptural tool, narrowing the differentiation between the imaginary and the visual in a sensory vacuum, where viewer perception becomes part of the work.

Approximately 50 art pieces, many of which built on site, are shown in 33,000 square feet of LACMA's two campus venues, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) and the Resnick Pavilion.

BCAM focuses on Turrell's early works in which geometric light is projected into a darkened space, as with the iconic Afrum (1966) where a white cube appears to float in the room's corner. Also featured are Shallow Space, a large room challenging the viewer's depth perception, and Cross Corner Projection in which light is projected to suggest weight and mass. 

Magnatron, an entrance in the shape of an old TV screen, is followed by three full scale installations: the Key Lime, where the illusion of tangible walls are created through light and architecture, the Wide Glass, a temporal element to Turrell's light-based installation, and St. Elmo's Breath, a construction appearing to be a flat surface when in actuality it is light emitted from a bottomless cavity in the wall.

Featured at the Resnick Pavilion is Turrell's most expansive installation of Roden Crater works consisting of models, mixed-media drawings, photographs, holograms, and other documents from the 1980s to the present.
Three immersive light installations occupy the remainder of Resnick. Plunging the spectator in intense lights of changing color, is the 5,000 square foot Ganzfeld exhibit, designed to eliminate the viewer's depth perception. Dark Matters is a 10 minute immersion in a dark room with a minimally perceivable trace of light. 

In Perceptual Cell, a 12 minutes light immersion in a spherical chamber with a sliding bed, gives the impression of lying in space and experiencing, in Turrell's words, “behind the eyes seeing”. 

Perceptual Cell can accommodate only one person at a time, or three per hour, and therefore requires advance reservation at www.lacma.org/Turrell or by phone at 323-857-6010, or onsite at LACMA's Ticket Office. Perceptual Cell is sold out until August.

Turrell's experiential art can be appreciated without a docent or program, and requires slow viewing for full enjoyment.

LACMA recommends 90 minutes to see the exhibit, however, due to limited capacity, be prepared to experience waiting periods.

The retrospective at LACMA is complemented by the concurrent James Turrell exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York. Additional Turrell exhibitions on view this year include the Academy of Art Museum, Easton and Villa Panza, Varese, Italy.

The exhibit runs through April 6, 2014, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) level 2, and Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion, located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit www.lacma.org

Following its run at LACMA, James Turrell: A Retrospective travels to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (June 1-October 18, 2014) and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra (December 2014-April 2015)