Exhibitions
Exploring Light in the Heart of Bangkok by James Turrell
American artist James Turrell expands his international presence with Straight Up , an installation conceived as an architectural and perceptual experience that has been permanently incorporated into the DIB Bangkok. This is Turrell's first major permanent structure in Thailand, a project in which light, sky, and the viewer's own gaze become artistic material.
The work is distributed across two levels and brings together two of the most characteristic spatial resources of Turrell's career. On the first floor is one of his unusual camera obscuras . Through a small lens, the image of the outside sky is projected onto the floor of the interior space. This process draws a parallel with the workings of the human eye, where the pupil filters light before projecting it onto the retina.
The second level houses one of Turrell's renowned skyspaces, rooms designed around an opening in the ceiling that allows for a direct view of the sky. In these spaces, the artist transforms a portion of the firmament into a kind of framed image. The opening acts as a frame towards infinity and alters the perception of distance and outer space.
For Turrell, the sky is not simply above our heads. Through these architectural interventions, it seems to descend into the space we inhabit. The experience compels the visitor to stop and look, but also to become aware of the very act of observing. The work thus shifts attention from what we see to how we see.
James Turrell is a key figure in the Light and Space movement, which emerged in Southern California during the 1960s. His artistic practice has developed around a constant investigation into perception, using light and architecture to make visible a phenomenon that normally remains invisible: the process by which we construct our visual experience.
His career is closely linked to different fields of knowledge and experience, including Quaker spirituality, aviation, and optical technologies. This combination of interests is evident in much of his work, especially in his research on lenses, projections, and architectural spaces.
Among his early works, the Projection Pieces , developed between 1966 and 1969, stand out. In these, Turrell used concentrated, intense beams of light to project geometric forms that seemed to acquire a physical presence within darkened rooms. Light ceased to be an element intended to illuminate an object and became, in itself, the object of the artistic experience.
Over the following decades, the artist has developed immersive architectures meticulously designed to alter our perception of space. His installations make something as intangible as light seem to acquire an almost material dimension, while everyday elements such as a wall, a room, or an opening to the sky become part of a complex perceptual device.
The arrival of Straight Up in Thailand also introduces a particularly significant cultural and spiritual dimension. The project engages with a tradition in which the sky holds profound symbolic meaning, especially within the context of the country's predominant Buddhist spirituality.
Within Buddhism, the sky can be associated with a dimension of transcendence that human beings can only reach through processes of meditation, discipline, and the pursuit of enlightenment. From this perspective, the experience proposed by Turrell acquires a new resonance: by directing and disciplining our attention toward the sky, the work establishes a spatial metaphor for the possibility of accessing a transcendent reality.
In Straight Up , the sky ceases to be merely an element situated outside the architecture. It becomes the center of the architecture and the motif that articulates the entire experience. The work invites contemplation, but also questions the boundary between interior and exterior, between physical space and perception, between what exists before our eyes and the intimate experience of observing it.
Permanently installed at DIB Bangkok, Straight Up has become part of the city's cultural landscape as a work that combines architecture, optical technology, light, and spirituality. In this intervention, Turrell once again demonstrates that, sometimes, transforming our perception of the world doesn't require adding anything to what we see, but simply teaching us to look differently.
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