JAMES TURREL: REINTERPRETING STANDARDS

“I remember the cry of the watermelon man making his rounds through the back streets and alleys of Chicago. The wheels of his wagon beat out the rhythm on the cobblestones” (Santoro, 2004). Years later the vivid childhood memory of Herbie Hancock was brought to life in what would arguably be his biggest commercial success, named after the man who provided the neighbourhood with his vitamin-rich thirst quenching treats. In ‘Watermelon Man’ the vendor is portrayed in an animated way through Freddie Hubbard’s trumpet, accompanied by the rumbling wheels that is Billy Higgins rhythm section. Due to the immense popularity of the track it grew to be a jazz-standard in every players repertoire, where the structure of the composition leaves room for ones own creativity to shed a new light over one of jazz most recognizable songs, altering the meaning and perception to illuminate new ideas.

The perception of these concepts is not depending on what it exactly is we receive, but rather on our prejudice inaudibly dictating what we make it to be. The ambiguity of art has been the strength behind many great works of art in the past and present, provoking the beholders sense of reality, often leaving them in awe. One of the most highly acknowledged, boundary breaking and ambitious artists in today’s field of art playing with these ideas is undoubtedly James Turrell. Born into a quaker family to an aeronautical engineer and a medical doctor, Turrell recalls an early childhood memory where he took the black curtains in his living room and – presumably to his mothers great joy – pinched reasonably large holes in the texture, creating a complete map of the sky using the light that pierced through the perforations. Turrell created a way of seeing the stars that were present, but which you couldn’t normally see. Till this date, instead of using tangible matter to convey his ideas, Turrell’s medium is pure light. As the artist himself notes, ‘’My work has no object, no image and no focus. With no object, no image and no focus, what are you looking at? You’re looking at you looking. What is important to me is to create an experience of wordless thought’’ (James Turrell, 2019).

That is exactly the strength behind a greater part of the pieces crafted by Turrell: forging something out of an immaterial medium in a way where it impacts space as if it becomes an entity on its own, which presence can be experienced in the way an autonomous object would. One of his earlier works Prado (White, 1967) shows how one carefully placed – at that time state of the art – projector can obscure and divide space by where light is shed and where isn’t, and therefore create an architectural space. Another work, Afrum I (White, 1967), shows Turrell’s ability of forging what appears to be a gleaming, solid cube out of light, creating the illusion of mass emerging from the wall. When approached, the beholder comes to realise it’s only been light projected on a surface they’ve been looking at all along, proving we’re part of creating which we think we receive.

Turrell’s mindbending installations have coloured museums all over the world. While his personal repertoire never fails to amaze, one of the true crowdpleasers remains his late cover of Frank Lloyd Wrights ‘Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’. Crafting melodies out of his rich pallet of colours, the artist succeeds to turn the museum’s characteristic rotunda into the largest temporary installation both the artist as the museum has ever ventured. Aten Reign illuminates the tiers of the structure, crafting an artificial skyspace consuming the volume and engulfing the observer. Next to this magnificent piece, Turrell wished to make some permanent alterations to Frank Lloyd Wrights composition by cutting pieces out of the roof to create one of his notorious skyspaces using natural light.

Turrell obviously didn’t get the green light, responding in a sarcastic though thought-provoking manner: ‘’If you go to the Pantheon: that’s a hole, and it rains right through it. That structure has been there for 2000 years, so what’s our problem? This is an art museum, I don’t care who made it, it’s made for art. Were going to put art in it. Maybe architects (...) have this great love for their cathedrals that they’ve made that are posing as art museums, but the fact is that this is for art, so we’re going to do what we need to do here’’ (Turrell, 2014).As just noted, some of his most impressive pieces involve natural light, including his most ambitious project.

JAMES TURRELL: REINTERPRATING STANDARDS

Image 2 : Afrum, James Turrel, Guggenheim

Image 1: Prado. (White, 1967). From ‘’Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’’, by D. Heald, 2013(http://web.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/turrell/). SOURCES

Image 2: Afrum. (White, 1967). From ‘’Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation’’, by D. Heald, 2013 (http://web.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/turrell/).

Through changing the circumstances and therefore context of vision, Turrell refutes the common prejudice of depiction, taking the nature of perception into nature. After having spent the night in a cinder cone situated in the desert of Arizona in the early 1970’s, the artist has set his sight on acquiring the dormant volcano to create what is currently considered his lifework. Funded through partnerships and private donations the cinder cone has been under construction since the initial purchase of the area in 1977. The Roden Crater will set the stage for the mortal to witness celestial events in ideal conditions through 21 viewing spaces and 6 tunnels for the beholder to become its own experience. As with his earlier works, Turrell seeks to link the objective with the subjective, making the observer conscious of the possibility to manipulate that what’s considered a visual truth. As the site is still under construction the Roden Crater is currently closed for the public.

Turrell shows us with his colorful and carefully composed melodies how perception forms a subjective truth, crafted through that which we receive and our own frame of reference. As for us future architects, one might take inspiration out of the way how light can define, differentiate and inhabit space in a way where it isn’t something that reveals, but is a revelation itself.//

Image 1 : Prado, James Turrel, Guggenheim