JAMES TURRELL spoke at a University of Toronto Architecture, Landscape and Design lecture last night. He began his talk by referring to the story of Plato’s cave.

Image: mlahanas.de

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He spoke of the idea of gaining outlook by going within, as we do in meditation. Turrell’s work changes perspective, much like Christo and Jeanne Claude’s:

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or even Claes Oldenberg’s fantastic large-scale city sculptures:

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Historically, ever since the Renaissance, humankind has sought to dominate nature. The camera obscura was instrumental in allowing us to isolate a scene from nature, capture it and reduce it, literally standing above nature. Nature was under our control. This is reflected in the Industrial revolution and the invention of photography. Now that certain trends in art have exposed the camera’s untruth, other artists (like Turrell) are emphasizing, through their work, humankind’s new relationship to nature, which is, as Turrell put it, that we have the same relationship to nature as a small piece of coral in the Great Barrier Reef.

Image: visibleearth.nasa.gov

Someone commented that the Roden Crater project reminded them of Mark Rothko’s chapel:

Image: dic.co.jp

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Sure, in terms of spirituality in art. Interestingly, Turrell reverses the entire situation. Rather than the viewer finding expression on spirituality in a canvas, in a gallery, where he or she can be in control of sensations, Turrell places the viewer in a much less stable situation - in an underground gallery that frames the night sky as the work of art that it is.

Image: depauw.edu

Image: mocaminsk.com

Image: arizonaengineering.com

More about James Turrell and the Roden Crater HERE