Gallery 400 Exhibition On the occasion of UIC Skyspace's installation Gallery 400 of the College of Architecture and the Arts at the University of Illinois at Chicago is organized an exhibition of works by James Turrell. Often ephemeral but always stimulating, Turrell's oeuvre of perceptual installations, light projections and skyspaces explore the complex relationship between light and space, often to dramatic effect. The show at Gallery 400_UIC September 17 through October 30, 2004 featured Rayna (1976), a piece from Turrell's Space Division Construction series and ten Turrell First Light aquatint prints (1989-90).
Rayna, first exhibited in 1979 at the Arco Center for Visual Art in Los Angeles, is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago and has not been built or exhibited since 1982. As part of the Space Division series, Rayna is a room divided into a 'sensing space' behind a rectangular aperture in the central dividing wall and a viewing space in front of it. Seemingly opaque at first, the aperture over time dissolves into what seems to be a translucent scrim that reveal the receding space, fog filled and of uncertain depth.
Using space to expand or enhance perceptions, the works in the Space Divisions series explore spatial sensation and perception. Turrell, commenting on what could be seen as the revelatory nature of vision, notes "I am really interested in the qualities of one space sensing another. It is like looking at someone looking. Objectivity is gained by being once removed. As you plumb a space with vision, it is possible to 'see yourself see.' This seeing, this plumbing, imbues space with consciousness." Deceptively simple, Turrell's Space Divisions are challenging endeavors in individuation and personal awakening.
Part of a collection of twenty, the ten First Light aquatints on display at Gallery 400_UIC represent some of Turrell's only work in print media. A physical and material record of a projected light moving across a dark room, each print, exquisite and glowing, captures the ephemeral luminescence of flickering light. The aquatints, essentially meditations on light and space, are modeled on Turrell's early experiments with projected light, as seen in his first corner projection piece Afrum-Proto (1966). Created while a graduate student at the University of California at Irvine, Afrum-Proto is a virtual and illusory projected cube of light.
Luminous projections, like that of Afrum-Proto, which Turrell terms "holes in reality," led to further experimentation with other floating forms, eventually spawning the First Light aquatints. The First Light prints shown at Gallery 400_UIC are from the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin. A catalogue with texts by Dean Judith Kirshner of the College of Architecture and the Arts and others and edited by Maureen Pskowski will accompany the exhibition. Additionally, in March 2005 the College will host a symposium on aesthetic and scientific ideas related to UIC Skyspace. James Turrell: In Light is generously supported by Howard and Donna Stone, Penny Pritzker and Brian Traubert, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. Special assistance has been provided by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum. |
