Pace Gallery presents an exhibition of work by James Turrell in anticipation of his unprecedented three-venue museum exhibition on view concurrently at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston this spring. Known for his work with light and visual perception, Turrell is among the most influential artists of the past fifty years. He has been represented by Pace since 2000. This is the gallery's fifth exhibition of his work.

The exhibition will focus on the Roden Crater, an extinct volcano in the Painted Desert of Northern Arizona that Turrell has been transforming into a monumental work of art since the 1970s. One of the most ambitious projects ever envisioned by an artist, Turrell’s masterwork will convert the inner cone of the 400,000-year-old crater into a massive naked-eye observatory, designed specifically for viewing and experiencing skylight, solar, and celestial phenomena. Pace will present bronze and plaster models of spaces within the crater, as well as photographs of the project by Turrell, including the first known aerial photo of the Roden Crater, taken from the artist’s plane. 

The exhibition will also feature fiffeen Autonomous Structures, freestanding chambers designed for experiencing visual phenomena and connecting visitors with the movements of the cosmos. As Turrell explains, “Autonomous Structures are just containers for the light; the art is in the experience of the viewer.” Made between 1989 and 2010, the models evolved from spaces Turrell built and designed within the Roden Crater and, like the crater’s chambers, contain Skypaces (apertures to the sky carved into an enclosed space) or Ganzfeld pieces (unmodulated field of light that dissolve architectural space). Influenced by the design of ancient observatories, including Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu in Peru, and the Mayan and Egyptian pyramids, the structures are simultaneously ancient and futuristic. Though most of the Autonomous Structures are unrealized, four of the models on view have been built, including Light Reign (2003) for the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle. University in Houston.

Image: © James Turrell, Pace Gallery