Talking with Doug Wheeler III

In the early 1970s Doug Wheeler was a Light and Space darling who exhibited across the United States and Europe. He was featured in shows not only in the U.S., but at the Stedelijk, the Tate and the Moderna Musset. Then, as quickly as he'd emerged, Wheeler seemingly disappeared. As James Turrell and Robert Irwin continued to exhibit widely, the art historical narrative around Light and Space focused around them and increasingly excluded Wheeler. So what happened?

There's no one reason. For a year and a half Wheeler and his wife moved to Italy, to oversee a plan of Panza's to turn empty Italian 'castles' into places where Panza's contemporary art collection could be shown. That ambitious plan failed when Panza came under attack for owning too many American and European artists, and not enough Italians. Wheeler left Italy and moved back to California, where he had studios in Ocean Park and in Venice. Before long he gave up Los Angeles for New Mexico, where he lives now.

Over the last 20 years Wheeler has spent little time focusing on exhibiting in commercial spaces. Regardless, he's never stopped making art and designing new environments. (More on that tomorrow.) Wheeler's most recent museum commission was for a Panza-related show at the Bilbao Guggenheim in 2000.

"They delayed the opening and I kept working on it," Wheeler said. "Then they started letting people in anyway. I was flummoxed by that. Then a woman came in, very attractive, with her son. He was only so big [about four feet tall]... So the piece I was working on, when you enter you first walk into this enormous gray gallery type of space, with carpeted floor, white walls white ceiling. It looks like a white wall, only the white wall isn't a wall, it just looks like one. So the mother and her son both stop at the edge of the carpet. He puts his hands up -- and then he realized it's not a wall. I realized that it works! I can leave! Children are the most open and see the best. The look on that little boy's face was great, and I realized that. Those are the kinds of things you look for."

I asked Wheeler if the ephemerality of his work and his spaces, how difficult they are to photograph and even collect had helped hurt his place in art history.

"I never worried so much about permanence because I make things that you experience, and then it's in your mind. Most of my stuff is site specific or site-related, but I feel that's what we do in life. We have first-hand experiences, and those are the ones we don't forget. They stay with us and hopefully they're meaningful enough that they're with you the rest of your life. That's pretty much what I've always been after. I've always tried to do that stuff that has an effect on you that you never forget the first time."

Tomorrow: Where Wheeler is now, what he's working on, and how he feels about what he calls "keeping away." Previously: Re-introducing Doug Wheeler. Talking with Wheeler part one, two. LAT art critic William Wilson reviews a 1968 Wheeler show.

Related: Speaking of experiences, earlier this year Wheeler was the artistic director for an exhibit at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris: Upside Down: The Arctic Regions. [Photo above.] More here.

[Image at top: A 1971 Wheeler acylic-and-neon light encasement in the collection of the Ludwig Forum for International Art.]