CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/24/2018

James Turrel, light and revelation

James Turrell's 2012 SKYSPACE, Twilight Epiphany (installed at Rice University in Houston, TX), is reproduced from James Turrell: Extraordinary Ideas—Realized, the remarkable new retrospective exhibition catalogue from Hatje Cantz. Deluxe papers, beautiful stamping on the cover and rainbow tinted edges befit this comprehensive overview on the Light and Space master whose work is at once subtle and ephemeral, yet overwhelming and mind-altering. In a published conversation with astronomer E.C. Krupp, Turrell says, "Generally we use light to reveal something about something. I didn't want something to be revealed, I wanted the light itself to be the revelation… I am also interested in light seen with the eyes shut. What does this mean? Well, you dream without your eyes open, but you have full vision, sometimes with greater clarity, resolution, and lushness of color. So I wanted to have something that looked like that, like light you saw in a dream, but with your eyes open."