James Turrell: Aten Reign invites the viewer to feel aesthetic experience through its luminous artworks. James Turrell was a key figure in the Southern California Light and Space movement of the 1960s and 70s.
Pace Prints presents several editions of Turrell’s works, published by Pace Prints over two years. Each edition was inspired by Turrell’s installation of Aten Reign, a site-specific commission for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Turrell’s Aten Reign reminds us of Guggenheim Museum’s rotunda architecture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
James Turrell, Suite from Aten Reign (2014) Courtesy of Artist. https://paceprints.com/james-turrell
Turrell’s first edition, Suite from Aten Reign (2014), is a set of three Ukiyo-e woodcuts in gradation colors of green, blue, and sienna. The viewer who gazes into the luminous works can feel the mesmerizing experience of the radiance of pure color. These works are hand-carved and printed using fourteen colors, twelve woodblocks, and one metal plate. The artist utilizes aquatint for its transitional light effects.
James Turrell, From Aten Reign (2015). Courtesy of Artist. https://paceprints.com/james-turrell
Alongside Aten Reign (2014), another edition entitled From Aten Reign (2015) vibrates a spectrum of blue and purple colors. Turrell’s constellation work can dissolve the boundaries between the space made by his artwork and the real room. The artist calls his work “spaces within space”. The latest edition is Aten Reign (2015/2016). This edition concludes the series. It is intensely luminous and “challenge the limit of translating light through printed ink”
Installation view, James Turrell, February 11 – Aug 14, 2020, Pace Gallery, London © James Turrell. Photo: Damian Griffith. https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/james-turrell-9/
Turrell’s works are presented in site-specific chambers. “The elliptical and circular shapes with a frosted glass surface animated by an array of technically advanced LED lights”. The work is mounted to a wall and generated by computer programming. The subtle light changing on the perpetual loop brings a hypnotic effect to the viewer.
All editions of Aten Reign are constellation works that fuse the temporal, sensuous, and illusory qualities of the artworks with architectural installations. The artist wants the works to greet the viewer with “the physical manifestation of light.”
During his career, Turrell has been exploring perceptual art and investigating the material dimension of light. Turrell was inspired by the notion of pure feeling in pictorial art. Turrell builds space with light and produces the fusion of space, color, and perception. This exploration has appeared since his earliest work, Projection Pieces (1966–69), and developed in his most famous work Roden Crater Project (1977–), Arizona.
Turrell’s background as an avid pilot who has logged over twelve thousand hours flying, also influence him to consider “sky as his studio, material, and canvas”. Turrell’s training in perceptual psychology and a childhood interest in light also help him to form his art experiments.
Turrell’s artworks are remarkable as they are paths to the contemplation of light, time, and landscape. Like Turrell says, his artworks are not about his seeing, but our seeing. The artworks are made by the viewer’s perception itself, rather than by the artist.
James Turrell: Aten Reign is on view February 3 – March 19, 2022, at Pace Prints, 521 West 26th Street, New York.
James Turrell: Prints and Process
