If you didn’t know about James Turrell before, you most certainly heard about him recently. James Turrell seems to be unavoidable this summer. He also appeared to be the artworld’s 2013 American superstar. Well… until Jay-Z decided to become a performance artist anyway. Still, with three simultaneous retrospectives this summer and loads of other locations to be seen, you can’t really avoid him even if you’re trying.

photo wwd.com

James Turrell doesn’t paint, sculpt, or shoot photographs. He works with light. To be more specific, his art is light. And this is the only sure thing I can say about his work since I soon found out that there is certainly no easy way to explain his art. Putting his work into words is almost as difficult as capturing it in a photograph or even more disturbing, as simply observing it. As a viewer, you can’t just look at his installations, you become immersed in them.

hoto livingcool.com

In most of his projects Turrell manages to show us something we rarely see: light as a physical presence, a material in its own right, not just something that illuminates the rest of the world. This is also the case of his famous Aten Reign installation at The Guggenheim rotunda in New York. Here, Turrell transformed the space into an enclosed, light-filled cone where colors seem to change in a pattern similar to the light in the sky during a 24-hour period: dawn, mid-day, afternoon, evening, dusk, and night. The top circle allows daylight to mix with Aten Reign‘s LED lights and will change depending on the time of day and the weather.

photo vulture.com

Some of his works can be highly disorienting. Take his Perceptual Cells for example — a large sphere where a person can lay down and be bombarded by lights so bright you can see the biological structure of your own eye. Or his recent Ganzfeld effect work at the Louis Vuitton store in Las Vegas titled “Akhob,”. This installation consists of two chambers, each with a circular opening, and a pattern of slowly changing light, which repeats every 24 minutes. The rooms flood the retina with high pigment fields of light that can make you feel like you’re in a different realm.

photo jamesturrell.com

But one have to know that he won’t find James Turrell’s most impressive work in any museum but somewhere in Flagstaff, Arizona. Here is his thirty-five-years-in-the-making (and counting) Roden Crater, an extinct volcano consisting of a labyrinth of rooms turned by the artist into massive celestial observatories. It will be your perceptions and interactions with the space and the ever-changing nature of light created by the light of the sun, moon, stars and other celestial events that will drive the art.

photo wwd.com

Here is a map with some locations where you can see James Turrell’s installations. So… if you’re anywhere near them, get your act together and go check out his pieces in real life. https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=2017896932121689914 54.0004c25e698154ec9d9a1

photo art21.com

If not, then take a break from whatever you’re doing and take a look at this massive article NewYorkTimes wrote about him. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/magazine/how-james-turrell-knocked-the-art-world-off- its-feet.html?pagewanted=all

photo jamesturrell.com

Current exhibitions:
/ Houston Museum of Fine Arts: April 7 – August 18
/ LACMA, Los Angeles: May 26 2013 – April 6 2014
/ Guggenheim, New York: June 21 – September 25 2013
/ Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles: May 25 – July 20, 2013 / Louis Vuitton City Center, Las Vegas

/ The Shops at Crystals, Las Vegas

by Geo Fita

Geo Fita is an art & internet enthusiast living in Bucharest.

The post THE IMMERSIVE ART OF JAMES TURRELL appeared first on INHALE MAG.

Ernesto Neto at Espace Louis Vuitton
photo 4.bp.blogspot.com

Most of his works explicitly refer to the human body. However, he does not want to make works that depict a body but he wants them “to be a body, exist as a body or as close to that as possible”. He’s interested in the way people move through and investigate space, how the body interacts with the work, stripping away the inhibitions with which people approach art. Usually he tries to understand the world through touch, not just through the skin, but also through other senses – touching with your gaze, your sense of smell, and as Neto put it “touching with your mind” . And he hopes viewers will explore his work the same way, using all their senses.

Horizonmembranenave
Ernesto Neto at Hayward Gallery
photo guardian.co.uk

Probably the best example for the Neto – specific sensorial journey is The Edges of the World. It is the largest work Neto made to this date and consisted of a series of site specific installations in and around the Hayward Gallery in London that people had to enter, explore or just relax in. There were seven different sculptures conceived as a whole including a strawberry shaped pavilion made of plush and translucent pink fabric, a tunnel of “bones”, wooden biomorphic shapes locked together, “membranes”, translucent fabrics in pastel colors and a pool with two changing rooms. Smells of lavender and chamomile floated towards the visitor.

Breathing the Voyage, an interactive work incorporating camomile and lavender
photo guardian.co.uk

Edges of the World
photo theartblog.org

Edges of the World
photo nicolaanthony.wordpress.com

Neto’s works experiment with new forms of communication and interpersonal relationships. He tends to incorporate interactivity in his large sculptures precisely to activate that sense of community and mass participation. While giving people an individual experience, his works become, at the same time, a collective experience in a shared social space. Participants complete the art work, interaction being by far the most important part of these pieces.
For his latest work, While Culture Moves Us Apart, Nature Brings Us Together made for Sharjah Biennial 11 in the United Arab Emirates, he created a dome-like frame draped with netted ropes, a calm and intimate space that resembles the traditional Islamic courtyards containing shade, benches, greenery, and a small pond.

While Culture Moves Us Apart, Nature Brings Us Together
photo http://artreview.com/

While Culture Moves Us Apart, Nature Brings Us Together
photo blog.archpaper.com

You can see his latest sculpture until May 13 at Sharjah Biennial 11/ United Arab Emirates.

By Geo Fita

Geo Fita is an art & internet enthusiast living in Bucharest.

The post ERNESTO NETO | SENSORIAL JOURNEY appeared first on INHALE MAG.

http://random-international.com/

rAndom International was formed in 2005 by three self-proclaimed happy geeks: Hannes Koch, Florian Ortkrass and Stuart Wood. They all seemed to share the same interest in experimenting into human behavior and interaction while employing the latest technologies. Whether you call them artists or designers, most of their projects consist of experiential and cross-disciplinary approaches that prompt visitors to actively participate in them. Their pieces could easily be considered social experiments as much as works of art, investigating how humans interact with technology and the emotional responses generated when a space or an object responds to them.

So what is all the hype about?! With Rain Room is mainly the curiosity of how it is to walk through the rain and still remain untouched by a single drop. It’s also about a unique experience, a sense of playful empowerment given to the visitors as they entered a room of perpetual rainfall, being able to walk through it without getting wet as if they could control the weather. The installation, “a carefully choreographed downpour” as the artists themselves call it, encourages visitors to become performers. When people enter the space, 3D cameras placed around the room track visitors’ movements, allowing the water to part as they pass through. Though it can be intimidating, without the public engagement, the work is meaningless.

http://random-international.com/

Rain Room is not the first piece of these guys to rely on audience participation. In 2008 they made another installation called Audience which consisted of 64 mirrors placed low on the ground that responded to passers-by and turned to follow them as they moved. Therefore, the observer became observed, willing or not.

A similar project is Self portrait, which appeared to be a blank screen, however, when people came closer, an ephemeral representation of themselves appeared, capturing their portrait and momentary reaction, then quickly fading away.

http://random-international.com/

Given the fact that the studio is only 8 years old, they have an impressive portfolio. So, for more information about their work, check out their website> http://random-international.com/

By Geo Fita

Geo Fita is an art & internet enthusiast living in Bucharest.

The post rAndom INTERNATIONAL | EXPERIMENTAL WORKS appeared first on INHALE MAG.