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James Turrell writes:
"My works don't illustrate scientific principle, but I
want them to express a certain consciousness, a certain
knowing. My spaces must be sensitive to events outside
themselves. They must bring external events into themselves.
I think of my works as being important in terms of what they
have to do with us and our relationship to the universe, but
not necessarily in scientific terms. I'm concerned with what
my spaces direct their seeing to, and hence what they direct
our seeing to. At the same time, I'm interested in the
expression of time. Because, eventhough you may have
expressions of our particular historical moment in, say, the
art of Andy Warhol, there are also expressions that go
through time, beyond time, and have a sense of themselves
that transcends anyspecific period. That's the part of art
I'm interested in. This said, however, I do want to be
involved with the here and now. I want my art to function in
contemporary terms..."
Adolf Krischanitz writes:
"Light, as substance, is liberated in James Turrell's
art, so that it no longer generates random illusionist
images (whether photographs, film or video), but a pure
picture of light. The limiting, dissolving and therefore
material properties of light have an emancipating effect on
it, so that light becomes constituent energy. The
contrastive juxtaposition of the compact machinery(vessels)
and the flowing material of light brings forth that bipolar
tension which flashes up when we realize that the essence of
art is a complex interaction between the machinery and its
effect. Furthermore, the viewer himself is a living vessel
and therefore space. He is not simply thrown back upon
himself, but his sensory apparatus is both a reflexive
end-user and an extension of the machine..."
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