Annual Review 2018

JAMES TURRELL NIGHT LIFE 2018 FROM 13 JULY | GOMA For more than half a century, American artist James Turrell has worked with light and space to create immersive and moving artworks that play with viewers’ perceptions. Among many strands of his practice are the monumental Architectural Light works, which give a new, nocturnal life to buildings around the world. As the Brisbane sky shifts to dusk, Turrell’s Night Life 2018 now illuminates the Gallery of Modern Art from within. The first of the artist’s Architectural Light works to be completed in Australia, its shifts in tempo, hue and intensity of colour invite us to consider how we are affected by light. A decade after GOMA opened, this work realises the architects’ vision of animating the building’s facade, with its 88-minute sequence that pulses across the building from sunset to midnight. Night Life was commissioned in 2017 to mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of GOMA, and was realised with generous support from the Queensland Government, Paul, Sue and Kate Taylor, the Neilson Foundation and the QAGOMA Foundation Appeal. Photograph: Natasha Harth