James Turrell
Site Plan Roden Crater

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Artist James Turrell (American, born 1943)American, born 1943

CultureAmerican

Titles

Site Plan Roden Crater

Date1990

MediumPhoto-emulsion, wax acrylic, and tushe on Mylar

DimensionsImage: 38 3/8 × 60 1/16 in. (97.5 × 152.5 cm)
Frame: 39 1/2 × 61 1/8 in. (100.3 × 155.3 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund, The Manfred Heiting Collection

Object number2002.2482

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Manfred Heiting Collection of Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionJames Turrell’s fascination with the sculptural
properties of light led him to purchase land with a 400,000-year-old extinct
volcano near Flagstaff, Arizona. Known as the Roden Crater, this has become the
major focus of Turrell’s investigation of our relationship with the cosmos.
Over the course of three decades, he has created a series of tunnels and
viewing chambers to frame the open sky. The largest of these chambers is the
crater of the volcano itself, from which (in the words of the artist) “the
entire sky will look like the inside of an enormous dome.” This
photo-documentation of the project demonstrates Turrell’s careful plotting of
the site and his plans to modify the natural form of the volcano in order to
map the celestial geometry of the heavens.
Provenance[Manfred Heiting, Malibu, California]; purchased by MFAH, 2002.
Exhibition History"Contemporary Photos from the Manfred Heiting Collection" at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, 5/17 through 8/10/03.

"Contemporary Photography from the Collection of the MFAH", at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, August 15, 2003-January 4, 2004.

"Second Nature: Contemporary Landscapes from the MFAH Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, July 10 - September 25, 2011

"James Turrell: The Light Inside," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 9 June - 22 September 2013.
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