Gagosian to Present James Turrell: Lifting the Veil in Hong Kong, with Five Decades of Works Shaping Light and Exploring Perception
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Rare Survey Exhibition in Asia Featuring Glassworks, Holograms, Prints, Site Plans, and Models
Opens May 28
James Turrell, Roden Crater Site Plan, 1983, color carbon print, image: 24 1/4 Å~ 24 5/8 inches (62.2 Å~ 62.5 cm), paper: 39 3/8 Å~ 29 7/8 inches (100 Å~ 75.9 cm), edition of 50 © James Turrell. Photo: Thomas Lannes
HONG KONG, May 14, 2026—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.
Gagosian to Present James Turrell: Lifting the Veil in Hong Kong, with Five Decades of Works
Shaping Light and Exploring Perception
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.
First introduced four decades ago, Turrell’s holograms reflect and transmit light to create the illusion
of tangible forms. These works vary in the apparent color, position, and depth of their ephemeral
shapes, which appear to float in front of or behind the picture plane. Their immaterial presence
resonates with long-standing philosophical and aesthetic traditions in Asia that privilege emptiness,
atmosphere, and the threshold between presence and absence. Accompanying them are prints
related to Aten Reign (2013), a temporary site-specific installation that was the core of an exhibition at
New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum that attracted nearly half a million visitors, making it
the city’s most attended that year.
In emphasizing both finished works and preparatory structures, Lifting the Veil functions as a survey
not through chronology alone, but through states of perception—charting how light, space, and
consciousness converge across different formats and decades. Maquettes of the artist’s Skyspaces
and site plans, photographs, and models created for Roden Crater are on view. The culmination of
Turrell’s work, Roden Crater is a naked-eye observatory for the contemplation of light, time, and
landscape. Fundraising is underway to complete its construction and open it to the public.
As Seen Below (2026) opens at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark, on June 19, 2026. Measuring
over 130 feet (40 meters) in diameter and over 50 feet (16 meters) high, this massive permanent
installation is the largest Skyspace in a museum context, which Turrell describes as his most
ambitious to date.
For James Turrell’s biographical information and exhibition history, please visit gagosian.com.
JAMES TURRELL
Lifting the Veil
Opening reception: Thursday, May 28, 6–8pm
May 28–August 1, 2026
7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, Hong Kong
