Quotes from James Turrell

Sometimes I'm kind of cranky coming to see something. I saw the Mona Lisa when it was in L.A., saw it for 13 seconds and had to move on.

There are different stages when you fly. The first stage is the dollhouse effect, seeing everything on Earth like it's a model. Suddenly, all of your concerns seem very small.

All art is contemporary art because it had to be made when it was now.

My art has no object, no image, no point of focus.

My desire is to bring astronomical events and objects down into your personal, lived-in space.

My work is about your seeing. There is a rich tradition in painting of work about light, but it is not light -- it is the record of seeing. My material is light, and it is responsive to your seeing.

I'm known as a light artist. But rather than be someone who depicted light, or painted light in some way, I wanted to have the work be light.

Remember technology does not make good work. You can still write a poem on a brown paper bag, and haiku is just as profound as the pyramids.

One way to understand light in the ocean of air is by flying it. Life in the air is an extension of perceiving.

I haven't been that great at attending my own openings. Still, I'm learning to enjoy this a lot more than I used to.

I like to use light as a material, but my medium is actually perception. I want you to sense yourself sensing - to see yourself seeing.

If you're not an optimist, forget being an artist.

Las Vegas is about distraction.

I've always thought of Las Vegas as Los Angeles on its day off. There's not any hierarchy of taste, and that's what L.A. always was to me: It's not really a town of culture - it's a town of entertainment.

Light is a powerful substance. We have a primal connection to it. But, for something so powerful, situations for its felt presence are fragile.

I know that science is very interested in answers, and I'm just happy with a good question.

I am involved in the architecture of space.

I feel that I want to use light as this wonderful and magic elixir that we drink as Vitamin D through the skin - and I mean, we are literally light-eaters - to then affect the way that we see.

I feel my work is made for one being, one individual. You could say that's me, but that's not really true. It's for an idealized viewer.

Color is just in a small area of our vision, and the rest we add with the mind.

I want to create an atmosphere that can be consciously plumbed with seeing, like the wordless thought that comes from looking in a fire.

I've always been interested in arrival, and coming to a space, and even to looking back at where you were.

My desire is to set up a situation to which I take you and let you see. It becomes your experience.