James Turrell
«Works 1984 – 2023»
Gallery

Opening:
Friday, September 15, 2023 
Exhibition:
until March 1, 2024

Häusler Contemporary is pleased to open the new season with a solo exhibition by James Turrell. The show documents Turrell's many years of groundbreaking artistic research on the subject of light and allows us to experience it up close in the exclusive presentation of the work type «Tall Glass».

"My works are not about light, they are light," says James Turrell (born 1943 in Los Angeles, lives and works in Flagstaff, Arizona) about his work. The artist makes spaces glow, using natural and artificial light in which he immerses the viewer. Turrell began his experiments with light and space at the age of 23. Since then, he has used light in its many forms to explore the boundaries of perception. Light, an omnipresent yet intangible matter, becomes almost physically palpable in the spatial situations of the now 80-year-old. Thus, Turrell's interest also lies "In the perception of light, which one can almost feel. More a feeling than an intellectual idea." Light that appropriates space reifies itself in an expansive way: this is James Turrell's medium.

This solo exhibition is the 11th Häusler Contemporary has hosted for the artist. It presents an overview of Turrell's groundbreaking artistic research and simultaneously documents the longstanding and appreciative partnership between the light artist and the gallery. As of September, the gallery space on Stampfenbachstrasse will present a wide variety of objects from Turrell's many years of artistic engagement with the material light: the subtly shaded «Deep Sky» aquatint series, for example - rare prints from 1984 that address Turrell's «opus magnum», the gigantic land art project Roden Crater. 


In them, Turrell abstracts the light fields and shadows cast by the volcanic crater or presents the Arizona night sky, under whose sea of stars he has been expanding his celestial observatory since 1977. The astronomically calculated sky openings of the crater let the light of individual stars fall into the volcano's interior, where artificial light responsively-subtly dims the incoming rays. James Turrell describes how he unites nature and art to create a total work of art as: "It is an artistic intervention, but in harmony with nature." Editions of models of the crater out of bronze and plaster produced by Häusler Contemporary Zurich are in the upcoming exhibition: These «Roden Crater Bronzes» illustrate individual chambers Turrell drilled into the volcano on a small scale and give a sense of the actual crater spaces.

Furthermore, rare works from his deep-spatial hologram series will be on display. James Turrell has been working on this series of work since the early 1980s. In his holograms, Turrell captures the otherwise fleeting light - cast in geometric form - behind glass, giving it three- dimensionality. And similar to the opening of the Zurich gallery space in 2007, when the «Tall Glass» premiered in Europe, a new example of these large-format works with rear controlled light-emitting diodes found its way to Switzerland this year.

For over three decades, the couple Wolfgang and Christa Häusler has been promoting awareness of Turrell's extraordinary artistic vision internationally by organizing exhibitions and mediating projects in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Uruguay and even Mexico.

With the upcoming exhibition in Zurich, the gallery is redefining its profile to dedicate itself in the future primarily to the œuvre of James Turrell and the realization of further projects. This transition will be initiated with this show of works by the very artist who designed and inaugurated the gallery space 16 years ago. What will come? More light! By and on James Turrell.

Häusler Contemporary Zürich defines itself - even more concentrated - as a mediator of James Turrell's artistic concepts, a hub for their realization, and as a point of contact for institutions, collectors, and supporters of his art. Three recent realizations can be singled out as examples to illustrate the breadth of this future focus: a full-field installation in Freising, Bavaria, a Skylight in Lower Saxony, and a Skyspace in Zurich:

The Freising Diocesan Museum is one of the largest museums of religious history. Since its reopening (October 2022), it has encompassed a full-field installation - a homogeneously illuminated surface filling the entire field of vision. The space dissolves into grainy, diffuse light. James Turrell's title choice, «A CHAPEL FOR LUKE and his scribe Lucius the Cyrene», alludes to the precious icon of Mary in the visual axis of the Ganzfeld entrance.

Turrell's Skylight brings "light into the darkness of the soul," says Dr. Matthias Wilkening, CEO of the Wahrendorff Clinic in Lower Saxony, outlining the experience of art combined with the therapeutic effect of light, color, and space. Via a movable dome this interplay is brought to life as soon as the roof of the dining room opens to the sky (February 2023).

The «My Sky» Skyspace, which will open next fall in Zurich, also specifically addresses the needs of the local Children's Hospital. The walk-in room in an elliptical cylinder form is large enough for a hospital bed. The roof is open and shows the sky; closed, it becomes a luminous ellipse. The movable ceiling closes in case of severe weather or helicopter approaches. The hospital is known for research as well as compassionate care. The Skyspace - a gift from the artist to the clinic - is intended to provide soulful support for its patients.