James Turrell

“I was waiting for L.A. to always become something important. I gave up... I left in 1974.”

“I live in the sky as a pilot, so it has great meaning to me.”

“At my first exhibits, people were saying that's just a light on the wall.”

“I want people to treasure light.”

“My aunt was Frances Hodges, who in the Fifties was the editor of 'Seventeen' and later one of the creators of 'Mademoiselle.' She was my Auntie Mame; she loved culture. She was a Quaker, but she became a milliner against all Quaker logic - they feel that fashion and art are vanities - because she loved fashion.”

“There are different stages when you fly. The first stage is the dollhouse effect, seeing everything on Earth like it's a model. Suddenly, all of your concerns seem very small.”

“When you sit down and see someone play at a piano, you don't think, 'Wow - what a fantastic machine.'”

“There's traditionally been a large disconnection in contemporary art between the audience and the artist. Generally, audiences are looking towards what they like, and I can tell you, that's the last thing on an artist's mind.”

“I hope that when you see my work, you are looking at yourself looking.”

“I feel my work is made for one being, one individual. You could say that's me, but that's not really true. It's for an idealized viewer.”

“New York has changed amazingly; it's gentrified everywhere, and it's a much gentler place.”

“Light is a powerful substance. We have a primal connection to it. But, for something so powerful, situations for its felt presence are fragile.”

“I come from L.A. where there's a sense of show. But that's not a bad word in my mind. We say art 'show,' don't we? 'Show' implies entertainment.”

“We use the vocabulary of light to describe a spiritual experience.”

“The lunar cycle within the solar season: that kind of syncopated rhythm is what life relates to.”

“I started out with projected-light works and working indoors, but I'd prepare the walls - by sanding, etcetera - the way you'd prepare a canvas for painting.”

“It is only when light is reduced that the pupil opens and feeling goes out of the eyes like touch.”

“I always thought that people who live in the desert are a little crazy. It could be that the desert attracts that kind of person, or that after living there, you become that. It doesn't make much difference. But now I've done my 40 years in the desert.”

“Generally, we use light to illuminate other things. I like the thingness, the materiality of light itself. So it feels like it's occupying the space, making a plane, being something that was there, not just passing through. Because light is just passing through. I make these spaces that seem to arrest it for our perception.”