Chris Crosman, Crystal Bridges founding curator, who in December 2011 began the alarming exodus of top curatorial talent from the Arkansas museum that opened on Nov. 11, 2011, responds to Guggenheim’s “Aten Reign”: Turrell’s “Skyspace” Obscures the Sky. (All links below are mine, not his.):
I enjoyed your conversation [on New York Public Radio] with Deborah Solomon. And I tend to agree with you that [James Turrell‘s] skyspace at Crystal Bridges is a better example of this late stage of his work—the presence of sky itself is key, along with a more intimate, contemplative spatial setting as you noted.
You both need to see one of his early skyspaces—the Quaker Meeting House in Houston. No light show, but the purity is Turrell at his best. And, of course, all of these recent projects feed completing Roden Crater, which, for anyone who has visited it, reads as the very embodiment of “heroic” in an art context. Some benefactor really needs to help him finish it.