James Turrell: "Second Meeting" | "Exclusive" | Art21

Episode #180: Filmed in early 2013, this "Exclusive" shows James Turrell revisiting his installation "Second Meeting" (1989) at the home of private collectors in Los Angeles, California. As one of his first skyspaces, "Second Meeting" was originally installed at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 1986. In the film, Turrell describes what initially attracted him to working with light and how skyspaces encourage a closer examination of our visual perceptions. "Second Meeting" was preceded by a similar work titled "Meeting" which has been on public view at MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York since 1986.

James Turrell's explorations in light and space impact the eye, body, and mind with the force of a spiritual awakening. Informed by his studies in perceptual psychology and optical illusions, Turrell's work allows us to see ourselves "seeing."

CREDITS: Producer: Ian Forster & Eve Moros Ortega. Director: David Howe. Camera: Marc Levy. Sound: Neal Doxsee. Editor: Morgan Riles. Artwork Courtesy: James Turrell, Clifford Einstein & Mandy Einstein.

[James Turrell: "Second Meeting"]

You don't normally look at light,

we're generally looking at something light reveals.

For me, it was important that people come to value light--

to value light as we value gold, silver, paintings, objects.

It's not something that you form with the hands like wax or clay.

You don't carve it away like with wood or stone.

You don't assemble it like welding it.

And it's kind of learning your craft--

it took a while for me to learn to work with light

so that you really felt its physical presence and came to value it.

I started making these kinds of spaces first in my studio,

but the idea began to evolve so that I actually was making these spaces outside--

that you actually entered to then look out from,

as opposed to gain outlook or even insight on how we perceive sky.

This is a space where I want to bring the space of the sky down to the top of the space you're in,

so that you really feel to be at the bottom of the ocean of air,

and you really then experience this quality that can happen at the change of day to night and night to day.

But doing this right at the cusp of change was very important.

[WOMAN] I mean, it looks pretty dark in here...

[TURRELL] Light out there...

[WOMAN] And you go outside, and you're out there for maybe 30 seconds looking at the sky,

you come back in, and you see more blue than you did when you left.

[TURRELL] Yes.

[WOMAN] Your eye has just adjusted again. It's amazing...

[MAN] Or if you would do this, it gets blue again. Look.

[WOMAN] That's a trick someone... [LAUGHS]

[TURRELL] So what about color? How is it formed?

Basically, we feel, when we look at the sky, that we receive this blue, this color.

This light, lighting the space in relationship to the sky outside,

would definitely intensify, greatly, the blue.

There are a number of painters who've really intensified color by the surround or the context of a shape or area.

You could be not only looking at a painting or a work of art, but you're actually looking at yourself perceiving.

This world that we have around us is not a world that we receive, but more a world that we create and make.

Now, this seems a bit of a surprise because we really feel--and we are very much attached to the fact--

that we are receiving these perceptions as opposed to creating them.

But we do create the reality in which we live.