Skyspace
James Turrell: Green Mountain Falls Skyspace
Green Mountain Falls, CO 80819
Permanent installation
Admission: $5 for Sunrise, Sunset, and Closed Roof Shows, free after sunrise and before sunset
Review by Jillian Blackwell
Green Box Arts opened James Turrell’s Green Mountain Falls Skyspace in the Red Butte Recreational Area near Pikes Peak this past year. Visiting the installation for the formal Sunset or Sunrise Shows feels like a pilgrimage, requiring an arduous journey to get to the building that houses the artwork, but viewing the sky at the final destination is well worth the trek.
An exterior view of James Turrell’s Green Mountain Falls Skyspace, 2022. Image by David Lauer Photography, courtesy of Green Box Arts, © James Turrell.
The trail to the Skyspace is relatively short, but quite steep, climbing up and then dropping over the rise. Only upon cresting the butte’s peak does the Skyspace building appear, nestled just below the ridgeline. A square hole called the “oculus” pierces the center of its roof.
A view of the interior and oculus in James Turrell’s Green Mountain Falls Skyspace, 2022. Image by David Lauer Photography, courtesy of Green Box Arts, © James Turrell.
Once in the antechamber, I sat and removed my shoes. I softly shuffled into the main room in my socks, slipping slightly on the smooth stone floor. Wooden benches with high, sloping backs encircled the square room.
Visitors viewing the oculus in James Turrell’s Green Mountain Falls Skyspace, 2022. Image by David Lauer Photography, courtesy of Green Box Arts, © James Turrell.
The show began. The white ceiling shifted from one color to another, with a slowness that felt remarkable. Some colors were intensely chromatic—magentas, lime greens, and electric blues. Other colors were muted and unnameable, the grays that lie between other colors. Each new shade of the ceiling transformed the square of sky visible through the opening, which sometimes felt so blue and sometimes black and deep as velvet. The experience felt like a love letter to Josef Albers; it was the purest investigation of light and hue.
A view of the interior of James Turrell’s Green Mountain Falls Skyspace, 2022. Image by Jeff Kearney, TDC Photography, courtesy of Green Box Arts, © James Turrell.
The sky framed by the square oculus also changed slowly on its own, at the speed of the natural world. Wisps of clouds trailed across. Once, a single black dot of a bird flitted past. At sunset, the square slowly faded to black, while at sunrise, the light and color of day gradually crept in. We heard the world wake up and the birds begin to sing. Inside the room, we barely moved, we barely breathed, held in suspension for close to an hour.
A view of entrance to James Turrell’s Green Mountain Falls Skyspace, 2022. Image by David Lauer Photography, courtesy of Green Box Arts, © James Turrell.
A show at the Green Mountain Falls Skyspace is a singular experience. Most artworks are viewed for a few seconds as we walk by, on to the next work. Turrell requires that we pilgrims invest hours for the slow experience of this artwork. It is a high demand for a high reward.
Jillian Blackwell is an Editorial Coordinator at DARIA as well as an artist and art educator. She holds a BA in Fine Arts with a Concentration in Ceramics from the University of Pennsylvania. In the fall of 2022, she began the master’s degree Painting program at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
