James Turrell (American, born 1943). Gap from the series “Tiny Town,” 2001. Light installation, dimensions variable. Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; General Purchase Funds, 2005 (2005:44). Photograph by Tom Loonan. © James Turrell.
Since the 1960s, light itself has been artist James Turrell’s primary medium. In Gap, he plays on our sometimes easily misled powers of perception, calibrating the gallery space to project the initial illusion of a flat surface. However, the mysterious glowing rectangle at the rear of this darkened gallery is actually an opening into a carefully lit inner chamber. For Turrell, direct interaction with light offers experiences of “wordless thought” and the meditative space to contemplate other intangible notions, such as the infinite or the sublime.
Label from Out of Sight! Art of the Senses, November 4, 2017–February 4, 2018
