James Turrell: Space That Sees

Space That Sees belongs to Turrell's "Skyspace" series, begun in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which can be seen as performance pieces responding to and interacting with environmental conditions and atmospheric fluctuations over time. Observing the shifting hues of the sky from inside a pristine, rectilinear space, viewers experience a connection to their surroundings. But more than that, the artist, by confronting us with the empty space, turns our mind to our own mode of seeing. For his Jerusalem Skyspace, Turrell chose a semicircular terrace along the western slope of the Art Garden. The site was cut in two and dug out, so that the terrace now enfolds a shrine-like inner space evoking places of worship such as pyramids, mausoleums, or temples. A square opening cut into its ceiling makes a frame for an ever-changing abstract "picture" of the sky, recalling by contrast Baroque illusionist ceilings crowded with painted clouds, saints, and angels. Turrell saw the installation as an "allegory of light that we generate from inside and light that comes from outside: the emergence into space where light comes forth as in a dream." The Israel Museum and Turrell have a long relationship: the artist's works were first displayed at the Museum in 1982, and ten years later he created this sculpture for the Billy Rose Art Garden.