Color Squared

Light projections by James Turrell &
Amish Quilts

13 June - 4 Oct 2015
work in collection

In this exhibition De Pont presents historical Amish quilts from a major private collection in Germany together with works by American artist James Turrell (1943). Expanses of monochrome color are at the heart of the simple compositions made up of basic geometric shapes that distinguish both the Amish quilts and Turrell's installations and graphic art. Monochrome fabrics in rich colors are combined to form patterns whose repertoire is consciously limited. Here, the principle of repetition is an integral part of the genre, something that also plays a fundamental part in Turrell's oeuvre. Rarely shown installations from the early days in the work of this artist who is considered one of the most important exponents of international lighting art fascinate viewers with their geometric shapes of colored light placed precisely in space. In the later cycles First Light and Still Light, Turrell combines projection motifs inspired by Minimal Art to create graphic art in delicately nuanced hues. His formal vocabulary thus dates from the 1960s and 1970s, a time when a consciousness of the Amish quilts sprang up in the art world, anticipating the abstract art of the period. The exhibition was first shown at the Neues Museum in Nuremberg.