Art:21 | James Turrell

James Turrell's work involves explorations in light and space that speak to viewers without words, impacting the eye, body, and mind with the force of a spiritual awakening. Situated near the Grand Canyon and Arizona's Painted Desert is Roden Crater, an extinct volcano the artist has been transforming into a celestial observatory for the past thirty years. Working with cosmological phenomena that have interested man since the dawn of civilization, Turrell's crater brings the heavens down to earth, linking the actions of people with the movements of planets and distant galaxies.

James Turrell is featured in the Season 1 episode "Spirituality" of the Art21 series "Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century".

Learn more about James Turrell: http://www.art21.org/artists/james-turrell

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Celestial events will be apparent
at the crater site that you won't be able to see,

only be able to see
in a few other spots on the earth.

To have a certain new
eight and a half minute old light from the sun,

to feel it physically almost as we taste things,

this where you can work with light like that.

Also, I wanted to use the very fine qualities of light

I wanted to gather starlight
that was from outside the planetary system,

which would be older than our solar system.

And you can gather that light
and physically have that in place

so that it is physically present
to feel this old light.

This is the opening to the crater

so it's an elliptical sky space.

The spaces really take you up into the sky

and certainly the events
from the sky come through them

down into the crater.