James Turrell

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Both this book and the one from LACMA are complementary, as the number of same works that are featured is very, very small. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but I’d say the quality of printing is even better in this book, and as such the reproductions of Florian Holzherr’s pictures are a bit more lush – even though the difference is small.

The book has a whole lot less text: a 4-page discussion between Turrell and Krupp, a 4-page conversation between Turrell and Michael Govan, a 2-page introduction by Richard Andrews, president of the Skystone Foundation, the organization responsible for the realization of the Roden Crater Project, a 2-page essay by Arthur Zajonc, a physicist, and a 3-page essay on the healing powers of light by Martin Meuli and Michael Grotzer, both medical professors in Zurich.

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Full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten it.… (más)

The second book (of now four) I bought on James Turrell was published 15 years before "Into the Light" (Mattress Factory), and likewise it is a companion to an exhibition, this time at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Like the other book, this one has an interview with the artist, but also numerous contributions by "distinguished members of the art community," such as poet John Coplans, architect Craig Hodgetts, and art critic Theodore F. Wolff. But the highlight is surely Craig Adcock's lengthy discussion of the Roden Crater project, what even then was considered Turrell's magnum opus even as very little work had been done on it. The many illustrations that accompany the essay help to make this book worthwhile.… (más)

On a trip to Pittsburgh in 2006, a friend and I went to the Mattress Factory, a place whose name did not get me too excited. Little did I know that it wasn't a factory, but instead a great contemporary art museum with a solid permanent collection of James Turrell's artworks. Unfortunately I came to the factory/museum a few years after a major exhibition on Turrell that featured about a dozen installations as well as models on the in-progress magnum opus, the Roden Crater in Arizona. Nevertheless this slim book, a companion to the exhibition, is a great book to have, with a catalog of his works in the show and an excellent interview with Turrell. Now that Turrell has had not one, not two, but three retrospectives (simultaneous ones, to boot) since then, this publication is hardly comprehensive, but it does stuff a lot into a small, handsome package.… (más)