James Turrell's Knight Rise

" ... this ability to feel with the eyes really doesn't happen until the eyes begin to open. We aren't made for bright light because it almost completely closes our eyes. We're made for twilight. That's when our eyes truly open and feeling goes out of them like touch."
                                                                           -- James Turrell

James Turrell is a master of light. His art installations actively involve the viewer, using light as an object, a sedative, a stimulus -- ultimately compelling us to question the interaction of our own senses with our surroundings. The piece seen here, Knight Rise, is a permanent display at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Scottsdale, Arizona. The walk-in "skyspace" is meant to be experienced in time as well as space -- as daylight progresses to twilight, the sky seen through the ceiling opening gradually changes color and brightness, while recessed lighting changes the hue of the interior to accentuate the color contrast. In this photograph I have emulated the changing sky brightness with a polarizing filter.

Turrell's biggest artwork is still to be unveiled. For over 30 years, he has been working on the Roden Crater Project, re-shaping an extinct volcanic crater near Flagstaff, Arizona into an open-air observatory -- a place where one can experience the sky on a deeply artistic and mythological level. Roden Crater will be the consummation of James Turrell's quest to explore the relationship between natural light and the human eye.

For photos of another Turrell installation, see my Mohl ip page.

Date: April 6, 2006
Time: 1:01 a.m. MST
Location: Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona
Camera: Olympus OM-1 35mm SLR
Film: Kodak Elite Chrome 400 slide (pushed one stop)
Focal length: 24 mm with polarizer
Aperture: f/8-11
Exposure time: 1/125 second
Scanner: Nikon Coolscan LS-2000