james turrell & lalique design desert-inspired perfumes & rippling crystal light panels

james turrell & lalique share the same light & space

American light artist James Turrell, famous for his Skyspaces, and French glassmaker Lalique work on a modern collection of crystal light panels and perfumes which will debut at Paris+ Art Basel on October 20th. Turrell wants to let people see light even when their eyes are closed. Not the kind of beam that artificial light emits, but the one that appears in their dream whether as a supporting character or the main. He is interested in bringing the dreamy light to life: the burst that veers from being another déjà vu phenomenon, the beam that shows itself even when people are awake, and the ray that gains momentum and value over time. ‘We are quite unaware of the power of light. I would like to make light such that it is an inspiration to things beyond, beyond what we think we know,’ he mentions in the interview found inside the ‘Crystal Light’ catalogue by Lalique.

The light that Turrell wants to produce, the same one he gives birth to for the collection with Lalique, is all-encompassing: it envelops, it is experienced, it makes viewers think, and it reconfigures their being. The search to manifest such light has come to the fore as Turrell works with Lalique to create Crystal Light Panels, an anthology of photographic works that showcase 30 different color sequences made to trigger a vibrational reaction, and Ranger Rider and Purple Sage, two exclusive fragrances made for the masculine and feminine respectively, inspired by desert ranges and light horizons, and the Great American West depicted by Zane Gray in his novel, Riders of the Purple Sage. ‘The nature of my work is the shaping of light. Light is the material; perception is the medium. There is no image in my work because I am not interested in representation,’ Turrell shares in the catalog interview.

images courtesy of Lalique & James Turrell | photos of the perfumes by Maxime Tetard

James Turrell finds the scent of the Colorado Plateau

James Turrell seeks to uncover the scent of the Colorado Plateau and that of the purple sage that Zane Gray describes in his novel, Riders of the Purple Sage. The American artist then combines the scents to create an evocative fragrance of purple sage and old rubbed leather, ‘the same ones that cling to our chaps when my wife Kyung and I return to our ranch,’ he notes. The result with Lalique grows as Ranger Rider and Purple Sage, a homage to the Gray novel and Turrell’s fragrance for men and women. Now that the scents have been concocted, tweaked, and unveiled, Turrell moves on to the shape of the bottles.

‘I created these two fragrances, Range Rider and Purple Sage, to capture the scents of my country. A concentration of skies, horizons and light,’ Turrell shares in the ‘Crystal Light’ interview. ‘Range Rider captures and releases the substantial fragrances of my land: those of animal, sage-scratched leather chaps, pepper, amber and citrus. An olfactory architecture that speaks of the sun-drenched Western ranching. Purple Sage, named after this delicate, queen of plants that blooms exclusively in Arizona, offers a different interpretation of my relationship with the great American West, undulating between delicacy and strength. This is the first time I have designed perfumes and made crystal pieces. Creating a perfume is a bit like creating a world you have known.’

The artist has long been fascinated by Egypt and the stupa shapes found in Asia, especially in Tibet, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Burma, China, and Japan. He marvels at their architectural structure, noting the rigid lines and pointed tip of the pyramids, and observes how light sweep in to play its role as a highly spiritual and valuable character that underlines these architectural wonders. Turrell takes his inspirational cues from this well and comes out with two bottle designs: one shaped like the Egyptian pyramids and the other forming a dome curve. The resulting design ensures the flow and cadence of light, all while allowing a slight coloring to shine through. The artist has been present throughout the production and even stopped by Wingen-sur-Moder, a comune in France, to see the bottles be brought to life, an experience that made him remember René Lalique and how he got started.

Ranger Rider perfume

Light Panels study the brilliance of crystal

The Crystal Light series for Lalique hypnotizes viewers with its light patterns, drawing their gazes into the rounds of beams enveloping the pictorial works. Turrell has used light directly instead of reflecting it on a surface and quotes that several scientific studies have revealed that light has characteristics, including behavioral ones. ‘It knows when we are looking at it,’ he shares.

‘In this light panel, specially created for Lalique, the color sequences trigger vibrations. As in my other works, this ripple effect is intended to draw the viewer into an intimacy that is both open and closed, offering a paradigm of life. First of all, light is a substance. It is important to know this because we have no physical perception of it, except on our skin in the form of vitamin D. However, it also has a spiritual dimension, which can be found not only in the Bible but also in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. We also speak of light in the near-death experience, the light at the end of the tunnel, a vision bathed in celestial light.’

Like a mentor to his mentee, James Turrell reminds his art enthusiasts about the fluidity of crystal. ‘Of course, this is not evident at room temperature,’ he adds. Holding the glass, one may not immediately realize how beautiful the liquid inside is, focusing rather on the structure of the glass, the way the hand folds around it and the way the bottom slopes so the person could drink up every last drop.‘Liquid crystal can take on a shape and keep that shape,’ Turrell says. ‘But after a hundred or two years, it succumbs to gravity. This is why we have to turn the lenses in telescopes.’

The character of crystal comes to the fore from here. It becomes a spiritual medium that possesses underrated brilliance, a material that creatives can toy with. In his Crystal Light Panels, that is how exactly Turrell approached it. He manipulates it so well that viewers have to halt to triple-check whether what they are looking at overlaps or is just a sphere in a single loop. Along with the perfumes, Turrell captures the essence of light and space, the two elements that have long marked his artistic identity.

james turrell & lalique design desert-inspired perfumes & rippling crystal light panels

Roden Crater, Winter ©James Turrell, photo: James Turrell | as featured in Lalique’s Crystal Light Catalogue

Crystal Light | images ©James Turrell & ©Lalique, photos of Crystal Light by Florian Holzherr

CRYSTAL LIGHT, James Turrell x Lalique, 2022 | Edition of 42 + 2 AP + 5 HC, engraved with the signatures of James Turrell and Lalique | clear crystal, weight: 22,78 kg / 50,2 pounds | dimensions: H.: 466,5 mm / 18.37’’ W.: 388 mm / 15.28’’ D.: 200 mm / 7.87’’