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dozen light-based works by the renowned American artist.
Turrell titled the grouping Vertical Vintage; the
retrospective selection reflects the full arc of Turrell’s engagement
with artificial light, ranging from his first mid-1960s projections to
his most recent Tall Glass series.
“Vertical Vintage is part of an on-going partnership established by the
MFAH and James Turrell,” said MFAH interim director Gwendolyn H. Goffe.
“This project evolved out of
many conversations Peter C. Marzio had with the artist, and reflects Dr.
Marzio’s absolute commitment to excellence.”
“James Turrell worked closely with the MFAH staff and board of trustees
as we defined the parameters of this major acquisition,” commented
Alison de Lima Greene, MFAH
curator for contemporary art and special projects. “Special thanks are
also due to Hiram Butler, of Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, who has
represented the artist for close to two
decades, as well as to his former associate Devin Borden. Building from
an initial proposal, we chose decisively to create an in-depth
representation of Turrell’s career, complementing our rich holdings of
his prints, photographs, and the
beloved The Light Inside installation in the Wilson tunnel. This
masterpiece, which was acquired through the generosity of Isabel B. and
Wallace S. Wilson, has been delighting MFAH
visitors since the opening of the Audrey Jones Beck building in 2000.”
About the Vertical Vintage Acquisition
The title Vertical Vintage (a reference to a selection of wines of
various vintages from the same vineyard) was chosen by the artist,
reflecting the selection of 12 works dating from 1967 to 2010. The
purchase was made possible through the generosity of the MFAH Caroline
Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund. Vertical Vintage includes the
following works:
1. Projection: Tycho (White), 1967. Created by projecting a controlled
beam of
light across a room, Tycho (White) consists of two overlapping
projections, so that the central “zip” becomes a radiant focus on the
wall.
2. Shallow Space: Rondo, Blue, 1969. A Shallow Space is viewed from the
rear of a large room. A false wall is lit from behind and appears to
float, challenging the viewer’s depth perception.
3. Corner Shallow Space: Raethro II, Blue, 1970. The shapes in this
series are similar to those in the Projection series, but the light in
this case is not projected and instead comes from within the wall. The
light creates the illusion of a three- dimensional object.
4. Dark Spaces: Night Light, 1989. A Dark Space is an enclosed room with
no seemingly perceivable light. After several minutes in darkness, the
viewer’s eye will detect a faint light in the room.
5. Space Division (Aperture): Fading Violet, 1990. A Space Division
(also called an Aperture work) consists of a large, horizontal aperture
cut into a wall. Space Division works appear to be a flat painting or an
LED screen. On closer inspection, not only is the light-emitting
rectangle a hole, but a seemingly infinite, light-filled room lies
beyond.
6. Perceptual Cells: The Changing Room, 1991. The Perceptual Cells
series are enclosed, autonomous spaces built specifically for one person
at a time.
7. Wedgework: Caper (Salmon-White), 2000. A Wedgework uses projected
light to create the illusion of walls, or barriers, where none exist.
8. Tiny Town: Bisbee, Green, 2001. A Tiny Town is similar to a Space
Division/Aperture work. This series is more residential in scale and the
works in the series are titled after small towns in the Southwest.
9. Magnetron: Cecil, 2002. A Magnetron consists of a small aperture in
the shape of an old television screen. As in many of Turrell’s aperture
works, there is no glass, just a shape cut through the drywall. The
light comes from an actual 12-inch CRT television, out of view within
the wall and tuned to a specific channel.
10. Ganzfeld: End Around, 2006. “Ganzfeld” is a German word to describe
the phenomenon of the total loss of depth perception, as in the
experience of a white-out. Turrell artificially creates a similar
experience through the controlled use of light, coved corners and an
inclined floor.
11. Veil: Nora, 2007. A Veil is a Wedgework turned on its side. Some
Veils combine the use of natural and artificial light to create a slowly
changing curtain, or veil, of light.
12. Tall Glass, 2009-2010. A Tall Glass is an aperture with frosted
glass. LEDs are positioned behind the glass and programmed to change
slowly over the course of several hours. Each Tall Glass light program
is unique.
History of MFAH Working Collaboration with Turrell
The MFAH has had a long and fruitful working collaboration with James
Turrell, beginning in 1994 with acquisition of the artist’s First Light
portfolio, which came to the museum as a gift of Ralph O'Connor The
museum’s 1996 purchase of the Peter Blum Archive brought over 100 major
prints, photographs, working proofs and printing plates by Turrell to
the museum’s collection. In 2002 the museum added a Site Plane
photograph of the Roden Crater project as a part of The Manfred Heiting
Collection. Thanks to the generosity of Isabel B. and Wallace S. Wilson,
Turrell was subsequently commissioned to create The Light Inside (1999),
the light-filled Wilson tunnel linking the Caroline Wiess Law Building
with the newly built Audrey Jones Beck Building. This installation has
become one of Houston’s most iconic and celebrated public art spaces.
The museum has also continued to maintain its commitment to Turrell with
other significant acquisitions, including the 2007 purchase of the Still
Light series of aquatints and the 2008 purchase of Acro (Green), 1968,
from the Projection series.
About James Turrell
Born in Los Angeles, Turrell attended Pomona College, where his studies
concentrated on psychology and mathematics; he then enrolled in the fine
arts program at Claremont Graduate School, where he received an MFA in
1966. In the mid 1960s Turrell began to be associated with a group of
artists, including Robert Irwin and Bruce Nauman, who pioneered what
came to be known as the Light and Space Movement. Turrell began his
experiments with artificial and natural light in a modest storefront
studio in the Ocean Park district of Santa Monica in California, seeking
to use light itself as his material. Using a projector, he cast a highly
focused light beam across a room onto a mural surface. Where the light
hit the wall (or corner) it became a sharply rendered geometric form,
both defining and dissolving the space around it. These images have been
eloquently described by John Coplans as having “considerable iconic
power . . . the compelling sensuousness of the light and its
inexhaustible brilliance are almost hypnotic.” The fact that the light
source is a mundane tool that is not concealed from the viewer “does not
rationalize the total effect but adds to its vividness and
mysteriousness.”
Concurrent with his first projection pieces, Turrell also began a series
of works dependent on external and natural light sources. He cut a
series of negative shapes from the blocked-off windows of his Mendota
Hotel studio through which light could enter the darkened interior.
Turrell found that these apertures would subtly amplify changing
daylight, as well as street lights and car headlights in the evening. He
took a particular interest the colored light sources and in ways of
projecting and absorbing their hues into the rooms of the building.
In the 1970s Turrell developed a number of installations that heightened
the relationship between light and the architectural frame. The
resulting series of Light Spaces, Shallow-Space Constructions, and
Wedges manipulated light so that the viewer becomes aware of light as an
elemental force and as a plastic material primary to the existence of
color. Standing within one of these spaces is a wonderful and even
transcendent experience. In 1977 Turrell initiated what would be his
most ambitious project, the transformation of
Roden Crater, outside Flagstaff, Arizona, into a complex site-specific
installation which would both frame the sky and chart the movements of
the sun, moon, and stars.
Over the past three decades, Turrell has continued to refine and expand
his exploration of light and space, gaining international recognition.
This month (March 2011), The American Academy of Arts and Letters
announced Turrell’s election to the organization and later this year,
Turrell’s work will be included in the 54th Venice Biennale, within the
ILUMMInations pavilion curated by art historian and critic Bice Curiger.
Turrell has also been featured in solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum
of American Art; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Smithsonian
Institute; de Young Museum; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; National Gallery
of Art, Washington, D.C.; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Moderna Museet;
and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.
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