Published in conjunction with the artist's major retrospective exhibition, this comprehensive volume traces James Turrell's artistic practice from his years at the Mendota studio in Santa Monica, California, to his monumental work-in-progress at Roden Crater, an extinct volcano that he has been transforming into a naked-eye observatory since 1975. Whether he's projecting three-dimensional shapes into the corner of a gallery space or creating immersive environments that allow viewers to better understand their own perception, Turrell invites us to "go inside and greet the light", evoking the meditative practices of his Quaker upbringing. A critical figure emerging from Los Angeles's exploding art scene of the 1960s, Turrell draws from aviation, psychology, and astronomy in his art. Through ten chapters that survey his various bodies of work, enhanced by thoughtful essays and an illuminating interview with the artist, this monograph explores every aspect of Turrell's oeuvre to date-from his early geometric projections, prints, and drawings, through his installations exploring sensory deprivation and seemingly unmodulated fields of colored light, to recent holographie works. It also features an in-depth look at the Roden Crater Project through models, plans, photographs, and drawings, which reveal the power and beauty of his magnum opus and its surrounding landscape. This publication also features extraordinary images by Florian Holzherr-many of which were specially commissioned and are published here for the first time.

Introduction : marking time -- What is slow art? (when images swell into events and events condense into images) -- Living pictures -- Before slow art -- Slow art emerges in modernity I : secularization from Diderot to Wilde -- Slow art emerges in modernity II : the great age of speed -- Slow fiction, film, video, performance, 1960 to 2010 -- Slow photography, painting, installation art, sculpture, 1960 to 2010 -- Angel and devil of slow art

During the 1960s and 1970s, a loosely affiliated group of Los Angeles artists--including Larry Bell, Mary Corse, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, and Doug Wheeler--more intrigued by questions of perception than by the crafting of discrete objects, embraced light as their primary medium. Whether by directing the flow of natural light, embedding artificial light within objects or architecture, or playing with light through the use of reflective, translucent, or transparent materials, each of these artists created situations capable of stimulating heightened sensory awareness in the receptive viewer. Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface, companion book to the exhibition of the same name, explores and documents the unique traits of the phenomenologically engaged work produced in Southern California during those decades and traces its ongoing influence on current generations of international artists. Foreword by Hugh M. Davies Additional contributors: Michael Auping Stephanie Hanor Adrian Kohn Dawna Schuld Artists: Peter Alexander Larry Bell Ron Cooper Mary Corse Robert Irwin Craig Kauffman John McCracken Bruce Nauman Eric Orr Helen Pashgian James Turrell De Wain Valentine Doug Wheeler