James Turrell Exhibition

I went to the Gagosian Gallery to see the James Turrell Exhibition which is currently on. In particular I wanted to refer to my experience of the ‘Dhatu’ installation.

You enter a large white room where on one wall there appears to be a square of coloured light projected onto it, as in the room before. Looking at the square of light, I saw the image of a man of what I thought was a man projected also onto the wall. His body was outlined with a thin blue line, as if it was a slightly hazy three-dimensional film. But as the image of the man began to get bigger as he walked forwards towards the camera, he stepped out of the ‘screen’ and walked down the carpeted steps, breaking my expectations.

It was only then, that I realised the square of colour was actually a space you could enter at the top of the stairs. After taking off my shoes and walking up the carpeted steps which led you to the soft diffuse pastel light source, the coloured square only transforms to become a void with depth as you cross the threshold of the space. Before then it still looks unreal, like a flat screen or panel of projected light.

Once inside the pink mist, you can’t see the space either, just a haze of pink and everything disappears. I found myself having no perception of the depth of the space I was in. I could not tell where the space ended and where the walls were until I was about an inch away, or I found the ground beneath my feet curving upwards into the walls, giving a sense of disorientation.

When looking back out of the square void we had entered through, the room which had been white, appeared to be green, through the pink light that filled the space I now stood in. The colour of the room was always temporary, changing its colour what felt like every few mintues which gave a rhythm to the space and some sense of scale to the otherwise dimensionless scenario.

I will use this as the installation for my five references.