james turrell – ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon

James Turrell, “Twilight Epiphany”, Light Sculpture Installation, Rice University, Houston, Texas

The Mayan looking mound with the flat roof suspended above it at the head of Rice University’s forlorn upper quad is artist James Turrell’s latest Skyspace — one of only 73 in various incarnations he’s made so far, and the the second in Houston. But it’s the first Skyspace designed for music — the kind you’d want to listen to while staring through a 14-ft.-by-14-ft. opening in a raised roof at the darkening sky around sundown, or a lightening one at dawn.

The structure has been named “Twilight Epiphany”. It sits just outside the east entrance of Rice’s Shepherd School of Music. A sold-out, silent performance in the space marked the space’s public opening. The new structure was designed by Turrell with New York architects Thomas Phifer and Partners. An array of computer-controlled LEDs at the top of the mound projects a 40-minute light show on the underside of the roof, matched — for the audience inside — against the single lot of aerial real estate seen through the center opening.

Dawn and dusk light shows are planned daily; A website set up by Rice (http://skyspace.rice.edu/cms/visit-skyspace/) shows the schedules and a continuous countdown clock showing the time till the next performance.

Light Installations by James Turrell

A MacArthur Fellow in 1984, James Turrell is an American artist primarily concered with light and space. He received his BA degree from Pomona College in the field of perceptual psychology.in 1965 and also studied mathematics, geology and astronomy at Pomona College. He began making artwork using light projection while enrolled in the graduate Studio Art program at the University of California, Irvine in 1966. Later in 1973 he received an MA degree in art from Claremont Graduate University and an honorary doctorate in 2004 by Haverford College.

Turrell is also known for his light tunnels and light projections that create shapes that seem to have mass and weight, though they are created with only light. Turrell’s 1968 projection of a suspended luminous pink pyramid, Raethro Pink, was acquired by the Welsh National Museum of Art. His work “Acton” is a very popular exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It consists of a room that appears to have a blank canvas on display, but the “canvas” is actually a rectangular hole in the wall, lit to look otherwise.

“I had an interest in art, but my first interest was in light. I was fascinated by light.”

-James Turrell