Houston adventures can be somewhat hard to come by. BUT my dear friend
Jessica told me about the completed Turrell Skyspace at Rice University that was commissioned as a centennial project for the university. So with some planning and some reservations, we set off on an adventure last night. First we went to Shiva's in the Village...Indian food, very interesting, bold flavors, a rice/yogurt dessert, orange curry sauce chicken, LENTILS & RICE - yum, overall exotic and flavorful. Then it was off to Rice University for the light show!
About Turrell Skyspace
"Standing adjacent to the Shepherd School of Music on the Rice University campus, James Turrell’s “Twilight Epiphany” Skyspace has landed. The pyramidal structure accommodates 120 people on two levels and is acoustically engineered for musical performances and a laboratory for music school students. Constructed of grass, concrete, stone and composite steel, the structure is equipped with an LED light performance that projects onto the ceiling and through the 72-foot square knife-edge roof, which is open to the sky. Turrell’s composition of light complements the natural light present at sunrise and sunset, and transforms the Skyspace into a locale for experiencing beauty and reflective interaction with the surrounding campus and the natural world. “Twilight Epiphany” is made possible by Suzanne Deal Booth, member of the Rice Board of Trustees."
About James Turrell
For more than four decades, Turrell has used light and space to extend and enhance perception. His Rice Skyspace, one of his largest, is his 73rd worldwide. It is also the first to be engineered for acoustics, both for live performances and for electronic music. Turrell’s work has been the subject of more than 140 solo exhibitions worldwide since 1967. Since 1972, he has been transforming Roden Crater, a natural cinder volcano situated in Arizona’s Painted Desert, into a large-scale artwork. His permanent installations are on view at the Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main, Germany; and the Panza Collection in Varese, Italy, among others. In 2009, the James Turrell Museum officially opened at the Bodega Colomé in Salta, Argentina. Turrell is the recipient of Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships. The artist has two other major projects in Houston: the Quaker Meetinghouse and “The Light Inside,” a site-specific, neon and ambiently lit interior installation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Turrell received his B.A. from Pomona College and his M.F.A. from the Claremont Graduate School, University of California at Irvine.
