The works of James Turrell were not made for TikTok. Nor are the 78-year-old light artist’s works made for Instagram, or any social media platform offering up the attention span equivalent of hors d’oeuvres. Instead, the exhibits are designed to be savored over minutes and hours, the full impression of them only apparent to you only after a slow, gradual change in your own perception. Quite likely, you’ve seen the direct impact of Turrell without even knowing it. Despite his decades-long visionary status in the fine art world, the artist’s sway over the cultural mainstream generally recedes into the background, sometimes literally, as in the case of Drake’s “Hotline Bling.” In the 2015 music video, moody shades of bright pink, blue-purples and Drakeposting yellow intermittently bathe the rapper and his backup dancers, not entirely unlike the Breathing Light room at the artist’s LACMA retrospective, which ran from 2013 to 2014. “I fuck with Turrell,” Drake later told Rolling Stone, directly citing the Light and Space Movement pioneer as inspiration while preparing to enter one of the artist’s Perceptual Cells at the same exhibit, where I also first encountered Turrell as a high school art student. Though the immersive metal sphere shrouded the viewer—in this case, Drake—in a 12-minute mixture of colorful lights and atonal sound, many of Turrell’s other works restrict their manipulation of perception solely to light, time and space. While you can’t currently view his work at
We don’t want to jinx it, but L.A. has reopened enough of our favorite things that this city is finally starting to feel familiar again. But it’s also clear that we’re not all the way there yet, and so even as our favorite watering holes and cinemas swing their doors open again, they can still use your help.
Our editors have been seeking out the best of city life since 1968, when Time Out launched in London. We know that our cities are nothing without their restaurants, cafés, bars, theaters, music venues, nightclubs, movie theaters, art galleries—and all the other local, independently run places where people come together to eat, drink, laugh, think, create, cut loose and fall in love.
We love our neighborhoods and local culture just as much as ever, so that’s why we’ve launched our Love Local campaign to share some love and shine a spotlight on them—and we hope you will, too.
This month, we’re also asking you to vote for your favorite venues in L.A. for the Time Out Love Local Awards.