James Turrell: Lifting the Veil

Gagosian is pleased to announce _Lifting the Veil,_ an exhibition of works by James Turrell that opens on May 28. The exhibition surveys the artist’s practice of shaping light and perception with holograms, prints, and three _Glasswork_ pieces, along with site plans, photographs, and models of Skyspaces and Turrell’s magnum opus, _Roden Crater_. Turrell’s Skyspaces are individual architectural chambers with an aperture in the ceiling open to the sky; framing its expanse and incorporating both natural and artificial light, they amplify the senses. Under construction since 1977, _Roden Crater_ is an unprecedented large-scale artwork created within a volcanic cinder cone located in the Painted Desert region of Northern Arizona. For over five decades, Turrell has pushed the limits of perception through a practice centered on light as his primary material. Beginning in the 1960s with installations of projected and natural illumination in his studio in Santa Monica, California, his focus has been on the materiality of light and its ability to shape experience. The artist explains: “Generally, light is used to reveal something about the object. I use light as the revelation itself.” In the context of Hong Kong, a city defined by density, verticality, and luminous intensity, Turrell’s work invites a recalibration of perception, proposing light not as spectacle, but as a contemplative and durational encounter. _Lifting the Veil_ features three _Glassworks—Resolute_ (2025), _Patmos_ (2024), and _Of One Mind_ (2024)—each in a chamber constructed within the gallery for this exhibition. Initiated in 2001, each work in this series includes computer-controlled LED lights installed behind a shaped aperture in the wall—ellipse, diamond, and rectangle, respectively. Slowly changing fields of color pulse between the works’ centers and their edges, at times resolving into single hues. Producing alternating impressions of depth and flatness, the _Glassworks_ cast light outward, transforming their spaces through illumination. Installed as a sequence, these works unfold as perceptual environments, guiding viewers through a calibrated progression of sensory awareness.