James Turrell: Light, Space and the Art of Perception

American artist James Turrell is a megastar of the art world and famous in mainstream hip hop. Drake’s video for Hotline Bling paid homage to him. Turrell hosted Kanye West in his brilliant but-not-open-to-the-public earthwork, Roden Crater, which also serves as the backdrop to Ye’s 2019 experimental film, Jesus is King. 

Celebrity aside, Turrell’s work with light and space spiritually fixates his viewers. They are gesamtkunstwerks, works of art that combine with design and activated processes of creation and reception to generate a complete experience. James Turrell: Light, Space and the Art of Perception is on view at the Center of International Contemporary Art Vancouver (CICA Vancouver) until Feb. 17. 

CICA was established in 2021 as a registered non-profit organization in downtown Vancouver. Under curator Viahsta Yuan, the gallery has hosted a range of contemporary artists in solo and group exhibitions. Programming seems to reflect an interest in raising the status of lesser-known artists with a few exceptions such as this one. Turrell’s show put the gallery on my radar. 

I have viewed artworks by Turrell twice: pieces from his Skyscape series at MoMA PS1 in New York, and at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle. These singular works isolate the experience of light: Dedicated rooms that are neither inside nor outside, blending architecture with natural and artificial light design to both distort and absorb the senses. At the centre of these installations, if you are feeling receptive, you will find a message. 

And while I have built up the gleam of Turrell’s talent and star power and, perhaps, curiosity for this new space, my advice is for visitors to adjust their expectations. CICA requires paid entry, and while this should not matter, at $25 for general admission, there arrives a question of relative value.

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James Turrell, “Uriel,” 2023, glass and programming (photo by Elvis Yang, courtesy of CICA)

The show features two works from Turrell’s recent Glass series – 2023’s Uriel, and Ariel from 2022 – among four print editions of two-dimensional works made in 1990/1, and documentation for the ambitious Roden Crater, a site-specific work installed in a spent volcano in the Painted Desert of Northern Arizona. Discovered during a flight (Turrell is a licensed hobby pilot), the crater, intended to become a naked-eye observatory, was purchased by the artist with the financial support of Dia Art Foundation and has been under construction and closed to the public since 1979. 

Every hour on the hour, guests may enter. They are spieled on what to expect by a guide at the front and then held at entry to stand for a couple minutes under a red light. This is to introduce guests to the Ganzfeld effect, German for “the complete field.” It is a deprivation of the senses that has fascinated Turrell and is meant to confuse the visual cortex and induce hallucinations. In the CICA entrance way, with red light illuminating the didactic wall text, this exercise, rather than bringing about purposeful immersion, began our tour by interrupting its flow.

The glass pieces, Uriel and Ariel, alone provide the Turrell experience. These are mesmerizing large-scale LED wall installations that incorporate colour transformation and motion. The Glass series bathes the viewer in light and invites contemplation. As the colours develop deliberately, unhurried, the works draw the viewer into a kind of meditative space and open the possibility of pulling some quality of light and colour inside the body. 

The works upstairs, however, are an unfortunate counterbalance. The black and white prints are beautifully minimalist but in the wake of a light bath, fall flat in their small number and austere form. Meanwhile, the film documentation and didactic panels that illustrate the progress of Roden Crater are cerebral at best, commercial at worst. It is as if to advertise for a future wellness retreat. 

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James Turrell, still from a video (photo by Elvis Yang, courtesy of CICA)

My visit was a concert of unmatched or mismatched expectations. There is a kind of scale demanded by Turrell’s work that can perhaps only be served by either going intensely minimal or seriously maximal – either show only the two glass pieces or show absolutely everything. Neither scale is well addressed by the size of the space. This is where I’d circle back to that question of value. For instance, it costs $28 (USD mind you) to enter MoMA, an institution that takes hours to explore because of the sheer volume of work. 

On the other hand, you would struggle to spend an hour in CICA. Turrell’s show in Vancouver is for the superfans. ■

James Turrell: Light, Space and the Art of Perception is on view at the Center of International Contemporary Art Vancouver (CICA Vancouver) until Feb. 17. 

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