Turrell Transforms the Guggenheim

This is the summer of artist James Turrell. Gentle readers may remember our earlier posts on this Light and Space artist's retrospective at LACMA and show at Kayne Griffin Corcoran Gallery.  A monumental site-specific installation at New York City's Guggenheim Museum has visitors lined up around the block.  

The Guggenheim rotunda in its natural state:

The Guggenheim rotunda Turrell-ified into an oval of tiered, shifting natural and artificial light:

As with Turrell's skyspaces, the museum installed a reclined bench along the edge of the room for visitors to sit, look up and experience the 60 minute cycle of changing colors.  From the point of view of the bench, however, one could not see the entire space.

View from the bench

Visitors populate the benches and floor

As you can see in photo above, some visitors took to the floor in the center of the space in order to be able to view the work in its entirety.  I resisted at first (floors are dirty...think of how many people have walked around there today...germs...yuck) but the temptation was too great.  I threw caution (and hygiene) to the wind and lay down on Frank Lloyd Wright's floor.

"Self-Portrait on Floor with Purse Pillow and Foot"

Interconnected rings lined with LED fixtures form concentric ellipses that echo the banded pattern of the museum's iconic architecture leading up to the oculus of daylight.  Here are a few photographs showing the radiating waves of vibrant color:

The museum also presented a few of Turrell's other works.

Again the museum guards scolded me for taking photographs!  This Art Girl can't catch a break!

"Excuse me, Miss - no photography, NO PHOTOGRAPHY!!!!"