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James Turrell: Pace Gallery London -
11 February – 27 March 2020 |
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Pace Gallery is honoured to present its second
solo exhibition of new works by Light and Space master James
Turrell at 6 Burlington Gardens. The exhibition will be on view
from 11 February to 27 March 2020. Turrell is among the most
influential artists of the past fifty years and Pace is proud to
continue its long commitment to him stretching back to 1967.
This is the gallery’s ninth exhibition of Turrell works.
Influenced by the notion of phenomenology in pictorial art,
Turrell focused, in his earliest work, on the dialectic between
constructing light and painting with it, building on the
sensorial experience of space, colour, and perception. These
interactions became the foundation for Turrell’s oeuvre, which
evolved to an investigation of the immateriality of light itself.
Turrell’s exhibition at Pace features four new works from the
Constellation series staged in site-designed chambers. The works
will feature elliptical and circular shapes with a frosted and
curved glass surface animated by an array of technically
advanced LED lights, which are mounted to a wall and generated
by a computer programme. The light changes are subtle and
hypnotic, one colour morphing into the next. The programme runs
on a loop that is imperceptible to the viewer, prompting a
transcendental experience. With these new works, Turrell
continues his exploration of technological possibilities
combined with sensory practices and gradient colours.
“To some degree, to control light I have to have a way to form
it, so I use form almost like the stretcher bar of a canvas…
When I prepare walls, I make them so perfect that you actually
don’t pay attention to them. This is true of the architecture of
form I use: I am interested in the form of the space and the
form of territory, of how we consciously inhabit space.” James
Turrell.
Since his earliest Projection Pieces (1966–69), Turrell’s
exploration has expanded through various series, including
Skyspaces (1974–), Ganzfelds (1976–), and perhaps most notably,
his Roden Crater Project (1977) near Flagstaff, Arizona.
Representing the culmination of the artist’s lifelong research
in the field of human visual and psychological perception, Roden
Crater is a controlled environment for the experiencing and
contemplation of light and stars, a shared interest with Pace’s
exhibition in London. Fundraising is underway to complete the
construction and open it to the public. Turrell’s practice has
equally materialized in small-scale works, including
architectural models, holograms, and works on paper. His
inspiration draws from astronomy, physics, architecture and
theology. James Turrell: Passages of Light is currently on view
until 29 March 2020 at Fundación Jumex, Mexico City.
James Turrell
(b. 1943, Los Angeles) attended Pomona College, where his
studies concentrated on psychology and mathematics. Since 1966,
he has created art works made primarily out of light. In 1973 he
received a master's degree in art from Claremont Graduate
School.
His work is represented in international public collections
including the Tate Modern, London; Los Angeles County Museum of
Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York; Whitney Museum, New York; Chichu Art Museum,
Naoshima Island, Japan; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and
the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
Turrell’s first one-person exhibition, James Turrell: Light
Projections, was held in the fall of 1967 at the Pasadena Art
Museum, curated by John Coplans. An accompanying catalogue essay,
written by Coplans, was also published in the October 1967 issue
of Artforum. This seminal exhibition positioned Turrell at the
forefront of the Light and Space movement and set the stage for
nearly 200 one-person exhibitions and 250 group shows worldwide.
Notable recent one-person exhibitions include James Turrell,
held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2013) as
well as James Turrell: The Light Inside, Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston (2013). These exhibitions were held concurrently with
James Turrell: A Retrospective, organized by the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, California (2013), which subsequently
traveled to the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2014),
before closing at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (2015). Another
retrospective of his work was exhibited at Mass MoCA, North
Adams, Massachusetts (2017). In 2018, The Substance of Light was
organized by Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
(2018), and in 2019 Asia Society, Hong Kong, presented Yukaloo.
In addition to twenty-two permanent installations at
institutions such as the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum; and P.S. 1, Long
Island City, New York, James Turrell’s work is held in over
eighty collections throughout the United States and abroad. In
2009, the Hess Art Collection inaugurated the James Turrell
Museum in Colomé, Argentina, housing a collection devoted
exclusively to the artist’s oeuvre.
Turrell has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors
throughout his artistic career, beginning with a grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts (1968, 1975). Turrell received a
Guggenheim Fellowship (1974), which, coinciding with the loss of
his studio, allowed him to initiate the Roden Crater Project.
Other awards and honors include The John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1984); Chevalier des Arts et
des Lettres (1991); as well as the Commandeur de l’Ordre des
Arts et des Lettres (2006), conferred by the French government.
Turrell was elected member of the American Academy of Arts and
Letters, New York (2011), and presented with the National Medal
of Arts, awarded by President Obama (2013). In 2017, Turrell
received The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts
University Medal Award.
James Turrell has received honorary doctorates from several
academic institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago
(1999); Claremont Graduate University, California (2001); Royal
Academy of Art, London (2002); and Pratt Institute, New York
(2015). Pace has represented James Turrell since 2002. The
exhibition is organised in collaboration with Kayne Griffin
Corcoran.
Release: Pace Gallery, London
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