{"id":22778,"date":"2026-03-22T19:12:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T23:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/?p=22778"},"modified":"2026-03-22T19:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T23:13:12","slug":"james-turrells-avaar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/2026\/03\/james-turrells-avaar\/","title":{"rendered":"James Turrell\u2019s Avaar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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James Turrell, Avaar<\/em>, 1982. Photo by Noah Kalina<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We took a drive to the Catskill Art Space<\/a> in Livingston Manor this weekend to see James Turrell’s Avaar<\/em><\/a>. The installation is essentially a pitch-black room, through which you navigate by feel, for minutes, until your eyes eventually adjust and a large canvas emerges from the darkness:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As visitors enter a seemingly pitch-black space, the eyes need several minutes to adjust before the aperture becomes apparent, looming first like a flat field, then seeming to open into a never-ending abyss of pure light. The artist has compared such works to how, shortly after you turn off a porch light, your vision can penetrate the night.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I recommend it, just perhaps warn any of your claustrophobic companions what they’re signing up for. My wife and I went in completely unprepared (blind, literally and otherwise).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We took a drive to the Catskill Art Space in Livingston Manor this weekend to see James Turrell’s Avaar. The installation is essentially a pitch-black room, through which you navigate by feel, for minutes, until your eyes eventually adjust and a large canvas emerges from the darkness: As visitors enter a seemingly pitch-black space, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,288,290],"class_list":["post-22778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-catskills","tag-james-turrell"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G65p-5Vo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22778"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22782,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22778\/revisions\/22782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}