LUMOS

For James Turrell, space, objects, the materials of the earth, distance, and even time are not only revealed by light, they are illusions created by light. For nearly two decades, he has explored light through site-specific installations in California, New York, and Italy. He also has carried out a series of explorations involving how people perceive light, with a background that includes an undergraduate major in psychology and an avid avocation of flying small aircraft. His most ambitious current project is the transformation of the Roden Crater near Sedona, Arizona, that will include a “sun and moon viewing room.” Like ambiguous figure-ground drawings, his works alternate between presenting themselves and serving merely as illusionary media through which external reality and an observer’s own perceptions become evident.