My desire is to set up a situation to which I take you and let you see. It becomes your experience. James Turrell More Quotes by James Turrell More Quotes From James Turrell We eat light, drink it in through our skins James Turrell drinkskinslight [My work] is using light as a material to influence or affect the medium of perception. I feel that I want to use light as this wonderful and magic elixir that we drink as Vitamin D through the skin - and I mean, we are literally light-eaters - to then affect the way that we see. James Turrell magiclightmean We think of color as a thing that we’re receiving. And if you go into one of the Skyspaces, you can see that it’s possible to change the color of the sky. Now, I obviously don’t change the color of the sky, but I changed the context of vision. James Turrell colorskythinking I'm known as a light artist. But rather than be someone who depicted light, or painted light in some way, I wanted to have the work be light. James Turrell lightartistway I’ve always felt that night doesn’t fall. Night rises. James Turrell feltnightfall Remember technology does not make good work. You can still write a poem on a brown paper bag, and haiku is just as profound as the pyramids. James Turrell technologypyramidswriting It was important that people come to value light as we value gold, silver, paintings, objects. James Turrell importantlightpeople In 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 lightpeoplethinking To have a certain new eight-and-a-hal f-minute-old light from the sun-to feel it physically, almost as we taste things-this is where you can work with light like that. James Turrell eightlighttaste It is interesting to work in Las Vegas. I've always thought of Las Vegas as Los Angeles on its day off. There's not any hierarchy of taste, and that's what L.A. always was to me: It's not really a town of culture, it's a town of entertainment. James Turrell vegasdays-offinteresting The Meeting is actually like the Gunpowder Meeting, or some of the earlier American Quaker MeetingsThe long house form is something that was traditionthat's what I started with as an idea. But then making this in terms of the sizing and the use that was asked for by Live Oak Meeting- I mean it's a very traditional form, except it's convertible. The top opens, and it makes a sky space where sky is really brought down to you; your awareness of it is made quite different. It was a little bit of a novel idea, that it's a roof that opens. James Turrell skymeanideas When you’re O.C.D., you want the most beautiful animals. James Turrell wantanimalbeautiful In age of consumerism and materialism, I traffic in blue sky and colored air. James Turrell trafficageskyblue I sell blue sky and coloured air. James Turrell blue-skyairskyblue I live in the sky as a pilot, so it has great meaning to me. James Turrell livegreatmesky If you think about art, if you look at Rembrandt and Vermeer and Caravaggio, if you look at Turner and Constable and all the Impressionists and the Hudson River School, there's a tradition of light in art, especially painting. James Turrell riveryoulightart There was a time when I restored antique planes to support my art habit. James Turrell supporthabittimeart My art has no object, no image, no point of focus. James Turrell imagepointfocusart All art is contemporary art because it had to be made when it was now. James Turrell becausenowmadeart You can't stop demographics. And show me a fence that ever worked. It didn't work at Hadrian's Wall. The Great Wall of China didn't work. The Berlin Wall. James Turrell greatmeyouwork
