Simplicity, The art of the light
James Turrell
Barbara Gladstone Gallery, NYC

A dromology Exhibition review by Shirley Shor,
shirley@dromology.com
http://www.dromology.com

"The Wedgework piece 'Cross-Cut' has a very fragile floor. Do not under
any circumstances walk forward beyond the yellow light. There is an
alarm to alert you that you have come too close. Please follow the taped
line through the dark entryway. There is a bench at the rear of the
space. Your eyes will adjust to darkness in a few minutes."

This sign is hung on the entry wall. Admit it, it sounds a little
scurry, after all, most of us come to a gallery not to a crime scene.
So, I carefully tip-toed into the chamber… After three steps in total
darkness, an impressive space appeared in front of me.

A hazy corridor in shiny pink hues creates a meditative ambient
atmosphere. The corridor looks very deep and fuzzy as if it tunnels into
the horizon, without an apparent ending. However, the viewers are not
allowed to expose the light secret, the illusion, by stepping into it.

Yellow light stripes block your movement forward. They function as if
they were fencing a crime scene. The impression this leaves on the
viewer is shifting between confusion and astonishment.

You can experience the gap between what your eyes really see and what
your mind thinks you see. "My works don't illustrate scientific
principle, but I want them to express a certain consciousness, a certain
knowing." Turrell plays and works with natural and artificial light in
interesting and unique ways.

For him, light is more than just as a material to create light
sculptures with. He uses it to produce the space itself. The sculpture
is perceived as real or virtual but the experience is quite tangible.

Technically, the work is made out of two opposing parallel walls, one
shorter than the other and a color florescent light source that is
located on the opposite side of the shorter wall, concealed from the
viewer sight.

The light passes across the viewing space from the leading edge of the
short wall at an angle toward the opposite corner.

In this work, the light assumes several rolls; it re-divides, cuts,
maps, and marks the site. It opens a wide place in space but in doing
so, it does not fixate the space.

The light walls look infinitely condensed but at the same time, they
seem to be penetrable to touch.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness as promised in the work synopsis but
the illusion persisted. It is immune to the passing of time. So, is it
real? Where can we find more virtual places like this in everyday life?

The 'Magnatron Television' piece contains a wall with two television
sinks and two armchairs. After sitting on one of the armchairs, in front
of one of the TV screens for a while, you suddenly figure out that it is
nothing but an aperture in the wall. Again, it is all about light, There
is no object in Turrell's art, only a scenery that contains and
encapsulates light. The artist has figured out how to balance the colors
and the intensity of light to make it look flat like a TV screen. We can
call it simulation: An aperture mimicking the gentle curves of a
television screen is cut into the partition dividing the space. The
subtle color modulation and the benign shape of the screen seem at odd
with this intrusive medium, reversing the usually passive experience of
the television viewer. The work seduces you to approach, to reduce the
distance between you and your television. It tempts you to touch and
insert your hands into the wall. It is so natural for any TV browser to
refuse to believe that there is nothing out there…

By using light, Turrell illustrates the dialectical materialistic
relationship between the Bulk and the Empty, between the Real and the
Virtual. He creates bulks - places without fillings, without objects.
The white wall is punched with two empty holes. Nothing exists beyond
this virtual screen. The real TV set as an empty illusion box.

Turrell's work demonstrates how virtual spaces function as physical
places and how real spaces function as virtual ones. It deals with the
relationship between those two forms of existence.