I was maybe 5 or 6, and my grandmother would begin sitting me in the Quaker meeting house. I asked my grandmother, 'What am I supposed to do?' and she said, 'Just wait, we're going inside to greet the light.' I liked thatโthis idea to go inside to find that light within, literally as well as figuratively.
James TurrellWith no object no image and no focus, what are you looking at? You are looking at you looking.
James TurrellIt was important that people come to value light as we value gold, silver, paintings, objects.
James TurrellIโm interested that light has thingness itself, so itโs not something that reveals something about other things youโre looking at, but it becomes a revelation in itself.
James TurrellIn thinking of light, if we can think about what it can do, and what it is, by thinking about itself, not about what we wanted it to do for other things, because again we've used light as people might be used, in the sense that we use it to light paintings. We use it to light so that we can read. We don't really pay much attention to the light itself. And so turning that and letting light and sound speak for itself is that you figure out these different relationships and rules.
James Turrell