Museum Visit: James Turrell's "Aten Reign" at Guggenheim

[Installation view of Aten Reign//source]

There is an appreciated quality in the engulfing disseminated light that Turrell has harnessed in his new installation at the Guggenheim.  Turrell provides an experience for his audience that is unlike any other in New York's current art scene.  By transforming the Museum's famous inner structural frame work (the swirling rotunda) into a capsule of natural and simulated light,  Turrell extracts us viewers from our bustling city lives and catapults us into his serene and quiet wish for reality.   

[Guggenheim's interior, pre-Aten Reign//source]

My favorite part of experiencing this installation is when the light from above transitions to a blue hue.   This is when I feel most transported from my worldly environment into one that is more ethereal and alien like. 

Seeing other museum visitors lounge alone the outer rim of the oval installation space, I notice they appear transfixed into a relaxed state of child like giddiness and wonder.  This enhances the element of taking delight for me.  I feel as though this is what the artist, Turrell, wanted and I feel glad that an artist has accomplished his mission. 

I myself, however, do not feel "transfixed".  Maybe my expectations were too high.  Perhaps I'm just too jaded from seeing other ambitions exhibitions to really appreciate Aten Reign's dramatic effects.  While standing within the installation, I hear people say, "This is so cool," and I see people closing their eyes while lounging, as if the light and dimensions of the room are sending them into a restful, meditative state.  Visitors appear to be put at ease though, are resentful to the gallery assistants when they are asked not to take photos. They rebel with a click of a flash.  

I admire the ambitiousness of the installation and the precision that went into the construction of it. 

The most attractive part of Aten Reign is the view from the center of the room.  As you look up to the ceiling and see the eye of natural light transcending down to you, one certainly feels in the center of a dream or otherworldly midst.

There is both light traveling toward the ceiling (which is artificial light), as well as natural light made available through a sky light/filtered though a tinted net. 

When seen from the center of the room, the installation space is more egg shaped then oval.  From other positions in the room, the opening in the ceiling (light source) appears to be more round.  

Aten Reign exhibition is interesting, but feels more like a tourist driven attraction than a design for communal space.  Though it definitely allows one to relate the design of the piece to a space shuttle or futuristic utopian dome, meeting ground, or forum of some kind.