For most of the past dozen years, a James Turrell artwork on the University of Washington campus in Seattle — built to glow at sunrise and sunset — has been running on daylight alone.
That changes Nov. 14, when UW’s Henry Art Gallery relights “Light Reign,” its Turrell Skyspace, after a restoration that replaced aging lights with hundreds of new fixtures and a control system synced to the sun.
Originally installed in 2003 near the Henry’s entrance along 15th Avenue N.E., “Light Reign” is one of dozens of skyspaces by Turrell, the 83-year-old artist known for turning light itself into his medium.
Inside the artwork’s oval chamber, LEDs bathe the walls in slowly shifting color, and when the weather cooperates, a retractable lid opens to an oculus that frames the sky. From outside, the glass-paneled shell lights up with its own program — a 21st-century mood ring just steps from a bronze George Washington who has been gazing west toward the Olympics since 1909.
The relighting comes as the Henry, Washington’s first public art museum, heads into its 100th year. The museum opened on campus in February 1927, and officials are hinting that bigger changes are on the way for the centennial.
Trouble with “Light Reign” started around 2015, said Sage Sommer, the Henry’s director of exhibitions and collections. The original lights, by then more than a decade old, were reaching the end of their lifespan, and over time the museum lost the ability to run them.
Through those years, the Skyspace stayed open. Visitors could still sit inside, meditate and watch clouds and birds pass over the oculus, just without the color.
After years of planning, the Henry settled on a full lighting overhaul that also folds in ideas Turrell has used in his newer skyspaces. The exterior already ran on LEDs, but a very early generation of them, while the interior and oculus were lit by neon tubes made by Western Neon.
The museum didn’t work with Turrell directly. Instead it worked with lighting designer Ryan Pike, whose company, RHMP, works only on Turrell installations, from upgrades of existing pieces to new projects. Pike has worked on Turrell artworks since 2013.
For Pike, the toughest part was the exterior. “It’s just over 700 lights, in nine DMX universes, so each fixture can output independently of the rest,” he said in an email. DMX is the standard protocol for controlling stage and architectural lighting. Splitting the facade across multiple universes lets every fixture be programmed on its own.
Sommer said the Skyspace isn’t strictly time-based media, a museum term for art that relies on equipment and unfolds over time. But it raises the same questions. Sometimes the fix is simple, like converting a VHS tape to a digital file. Other times the hardware is integral to the work. Some artists insist a piece be shown only on a CRT TV, and some come back with a remastered version and want only that one shown.
“We work really closely with the artists to make sure that it is as they envision,” she said.
The Henry isn’t the only museum to face the problem. In 2023, Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center restored its own Turrell skyspace, “Sky Pesher,” after it became impossible to find the cold cathode tubes — a 1920s-era technology — that powered its sunrise and sunset lighting program.
Working with Turrell and his studio, the Walker switched to LEDs, which allowed more control and a much wider range of color. What had been “shades of tinted white” is now multicolored, Joe King, the Walker’s director of collections and exhibition management, said in an interview published by the museum.
The Henry’s new system uses roughly 840 LED fixtures, about 710 outside and 130 inside, Sommer said. The exterior program kicks in a half-hour before dawn and dusk. The morning show is brief, about 36 minutes, while the evening one currently runs about four hours after sunset.
“The very cool thing about this space, because we are so far north, is just how connected to sunrise and sunset it is, and how drastically different it is throughout the year,” Sommer said.
The roof has its own engineering pedigree. The Skyspace’s hydraulic lid, which lifts and slides out of the way, was designed by submarine manufacturers in Everett. It stays shut in the rain.
The museum closed the Skyspace in late July and used the downtime for physical restoration, too: repainting the interior, refinishing the teak benches, waxing floors, replacing worn locks, refitting doors that had swollen and cleaning out the gutters. Everything had to be rewired, and the project took longer than expected.
“Light Reign” is the most visible piece in the Henry’s collection of about 30,000 objects, including more than 18,000 textiles and 7,000 works on paper. Only a sliver is ever on view, so the Henry is putting its collection database online. The project was funded by UW’s Student Technology Fee. Anyone can book an appointment at its study center to see a piece up close.
Technology is also the focus of the Henry’s centennial exhibition, opening in late February. Swagato Chakravorty, associate curator, said he was surprised that no major museum had mounted a large, ambitious show on contemporary art and technology in decades, even as Seattle was transformed around it. His show looks at technology “from below,” focusing on the people and communities most directly affected rather than a “great man” story.
The exhibition is loosely organized around three threads. One is bioethics, including a work the Henry commissioned in 2002 with UW geneticist Mary-Claire King, which is being revived 25 years later. Another pairs Indigenous knowledge with tools like 3D printing and algorithms. The third is technology’s material toll, from data centers to water use.
Chakravorty said he deliberately avoids taking a side on whether technology is good or bad for art.
“Writing is a technology. Cave painting was a technology,” he said. As for AI: “It’s not going to kill art.”
The public unveiling of the refurbished “Light Reign” runs 3:30 to 6 p.m. Nov. 14, with remarks from Henry Executive Director Kris Lewis and the exterior illumination starting at 4 p.m. Admission is free, though the Henry encourages RSVPs, and interior viewing is limited to 25 people at a time for about 10 minutes each.
https://ift.tt/wZKIT1j November 6, 2026 at 04:01PM GeekWire
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