James Turrell

A leading figure of the Light and Space movement, James Turrell creates colored light installations and holographs that produce awe-inspiring optical illusions: Turrell’s pieces can look like cubes, flat planes, pyramids, or tunnels, when they’re simply composed of light. The artist studied at the University of California, Irvine, before attending the art and technology program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. There, he worked alongside fellow light artist Robert Irwin and honed his now-signature process and aesthetic. Turrell’s work has been shown in institutions around the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Museo Jumex, among others. Since the 1970s, Turrell has been working on a celestial light observatory at the Roden Crater in Arizona.