James Turrell Exhibition at The National Art Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Related Post: Sculpting and Manipulating Space With Light.

Since the 1960s, James Turrell has made art from light. He studied mathematics and perceptual psychology, and his background as a Quaker and training as a pilot also inform his practice. James Turrell: A Retrospective at the National Gallery of Australia explores the artist’s work over almost 50 years, bringing together projection pieces, built spaces, holograms, drawings, prints and photographs. It celebrates Skyspaces, viewing chambers that affect our perception of the sky, and surveys Turrell’s life work, Roden Crater, a naked eye observatory in an extinct volcano on the edge of the Painted Desert, Arizona. The exhibition follows three highly successful shows throughout 2013—at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Guggenheim in New York—with works from LACMA’s tour and spectacular installations purpose-built for Canberra.

In the 1980s and 90s Turrell developed works that expose visitors to total darkness or isolate an individual in a contained environment. After Green 1993 is an immersive installation: its intense red, with soft and hard edges, make it disorientating and exquisite. Ganzfeld is part of Turrell’s largest and most marvellous series to date. Once inside, saturated in colour, with no edges or corners, we are uncertain of our surrounds—a feeling akin to walking on clouds.

This is contemporary art as you’ve never seen before, and promises an experience not to be missed.

James Turrell: A Retrospective is exclusive to the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
On until 8th June 2015. Tickets on sale via Ticketek.

[Images courtesy of NGA.]