Book Description

Published in conjunction with the artist's major retrospective exhibition, this comprehensive volume traces James Turrell's artistic practice from his years at the Mendota studio in Santa Monica, California, to his monumental work-in-progress at Roden Crater, an extinct volcano that he has been transforming into a naked-eye observatory since 1975. Whether he's projecting three-dimensional shapes into the corner of a gallery space or creating immersive environments that allow viewers to better understand their own perception, Turrell invites us to "go inside and greet the light", evoking the meditative practices of his Quaker upbringing. A critical figure emerging from Los Angeles's exploding art scene of the 1960s, Turrell draws from aviation, psychology, and astronomy in his art. Through ten chapters that survey his various bodies of work, enhanced by thoughtful essays and an illuminating interview with the artist, this monograph explores every aspect of Turrell's oeuvre to date-from his early geometric projections, prints, and drawings, through his installations exploring sensory deprivation and seemingly unmodulated fields of colored light, to recent holographie works. It also features an in-depth look at the Roden Crater Project through models, plans, photographs, and drawings, which reveal the power and beauty of his magnum opus and its surrounding landscape. This publication also features extraordinary images by Florian Holzherr-many of which were specially commissioned and are published here for the first time.