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Gagosian Is About to Stage James Turrell’s Largest Exhibition in Europe in Over 25 Years
In advance of Paris Art Week, this major survey will explore the artist's groundbreaking explorations of light, time and space.
If you’re making the rounds at the European art fairs this October and want to fill the gap between the London and Paris art weeks, Gagosian has you covered: the gallery just announced it will present the largest survey of James Turrell’s work in Europe in twenty-five years, opening on October 14 at its Le Bourget location in the northeastern Paris suburbs. The ground floor will feature two new mesmerizing large-scale installations by the renowned Light and Space artist: All Clear (a “Ganzfeld” piece) and Either Or (a “Wedgework” piece), both from 2024. All Clear envelops visitors in a pavilion where colored light saturates the space, creating a disorienting effect known as the “Ganzfeld effect,” where the lack of visual cues distorts depth and perspective. By flooding the room with light, Turrell overwhelms the senses, suspending the viewer in a sensory void. Meanwhile, Either Or manipulates projected light to create the illusion of architectural expansion beyond the room’s physical boundaries. Reflected off surfaces, the lights form ethereal yet tangible geometric shapes, giving the impression of a portal that appears simultaneously concrete and otherworldly.
The exhibition will also include a selection of Turrell’s seminal historical works, accompanied by archival materials that reveal the intricate engineering process behind his creations. Featured pieces include holograms, models, prints and plans for Roden Crater (1976–), his monumental project transforming a volcanic cinder cone in Northern Arizona into an immersive art experience. This masterpiece, integrating nature, technology and the cycles of geological and celestial time, is considered a culmination of Turrell’s exploration of human visual and psychological perception. After acquiring the dormant cinder cone in 1977, Turrell began constructing tunnels and apertures that interact with sunlight, working in harmony with nature to craft this unique light installation.
The surrounding hallways will display six new in-wall “Glassworks” connected to his recent exhibition at Gagosian Athens, alongside a collection of aquatints and woodcuts inspired by his Aten Reign installation at the Guggenheim Museum in 2013. As a master of light and space, Turrell has long investigated how to manipulate and compose complex phenomena that affect our perception, bridging optics with sensory, psychological and meditative aspects of light. “My desire is to set up a situation to which I take you and let you see,” the artist said in a statement. “It becomes your experience.”
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Focusing on the materiality of light and the possibility of painting with it, Turrell has been able to build on the sensorial experience of space, color and perception. “We usually use light to illuminate things,” he went on. “I am interested in the ‘thingness’ of light itself.” Somehow anticipating the experimental dimension of art that is so popular in today’s museum strategies, his practice combines scientific principles and cutting-edge technologies with spiritual concerns, aiming to craft experiences that inspire a deeper awareness of our interaction with light and space. “Light does not so much reveal as it is the revelation itself,” he concluded. His installations encourage viewers to contemplate the interplay of light, time and space, transcending physical limits and elevating the sensory experience into a timeless, interconnected dimension of spiritual insight and contemplation.
“James Turrell, At One” opens at Gagosian’s Le Bourget gallery on October 14.
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