wadi alfann presents james turrell opens alula arts festival
James Turrell brings his sensorial artworks to the historic old town of AlUla, Saudi Arabia, for the ‘Wadi AlFann presents James Turrell’ exhibition. A prelude to his Land Art commission for Wadi AlFann (an open-air museum translating to ‘Valley of the Arts’), the exhibition charts his legacy as a pioneering Light and Space artist and reveals a first glimpse at his upcoming colossal installation in the desert expanse. The untitled work is set to be constructed within the next four years and builds upon his ongoing explorations into the phenomena of color, space, and perception, while using AlUla’s dramatic natural landscape and its purity of light as muse. Beyond creating an ethereal space to stage optical encounters, it will also function as a permanent museum showcasing many of Turrell’s significant works and discoveries.
A sequence of vast pathways, tunnels, chambers, and staircases will be carved into the canyon floor. As visitors navigate through, under, and out of the earth, and between lightness and darkness, they traverse a sensorial, singular experience of the land and the sky. Wadi AlFann’s Lead Curator Iwona Blazwick notes that the outdoor subterranean oculi, called Skyspaces, will be ‘cosmic observatories’ that dissolve horizons and challenge perceptions of celestial light. These circular spaces frame the shifting hues of the sky above as Turrell manipulates the context of vision, while descending further leads into the Sun/Moon Chamber where the earth and cosmos are connected via what Turrell calls a ‘lensless telescope’. Above ground, the site expands into a planetary diagram etched into the earth, surrounded by the mountains and crowned by an obelisk marking the sun’s passage like a sun dial. Alongside revealing plans for the land art, the exhibition showcases some of Turrell’s most influential artificial light sculptures to kick off the AlUla Arts Festival which runs from January 16 to February 22. ‘Wadi AlFann presents James Turrell’ will remain on view across two sites at AlJadidah Arts District until April 19.
all images © James Turrell, courtesy of the Royal Commission for AlUla
surveying the artist’s mastery of light, color, and perception
Alongside presenting renders and a short film where James Turrell outlines his plans for the land art in Wadi AlFann, the exhibition gathers some of Turrell’s earliest light works alongside some of his most recent creations. The exhibition surveys the American artist’s mastery of holding and directing light — both artificial and celestial — as a medium for shaping sensory experiences. Immersing visitors in what Turrell describes as ‘the wordless thought that comes from looking at a fire,’ each work is then a meditation on the nature of perception. His cross corner projection work Alta, an ethereal pyramid of light first created in 1968, sculpts a translucent volume into darkness with the immaterial element. As we move from one of its edges to the other its appears to slightly rotate, its luminous pink-violet planes appear almost solid in this illusion.
His Jubilee installation pulses an intricately intense composition of color and light. Hypnotic discs of light seem to shift imperceptibly and emerge from another dimension, carrying viewers seamlessly from dazzling crimson to icy blue hues. As Guest Curator Michael Govan explains, the vibrant reds and blues we observe are not solely present in the light projected but are partially constructed in our minds. When our eyes encounter a vivid red and it disappears, the complementary afterimage of green overlays the subsequent hues, creating entirely new colors in our perception. Turrell reminds us that even the sky’s color is not fixed or given to us — it is ‘awarded’ through our context of vision. This interplay between light and perception mirrors the oculus Turrell plans to install in Wadi AlFann, a sphere that, like Jubilee, feels like a portal to an alternate reality. He builds on this optical illusion in a small, framed canvas with his Hologram series, where a slender shard of light appears to float, uncontained in the picture plane in juxtaposition.
James Turrell unveils renders for his upcoming land art installation in Wadi AlFann
the subterranean oculi — Skyspaces — are ‘cosmic observatories’ that frame the shifting hues of the sky above
the untitled work builds upon Turrell’s ongoing investigations into the phenomena of color, space, and perception
a sequence of vast pathways, tunnels, chambers, and staircases will be carved into the canyon floor
envisioned as a portal to an alternate reality through light
