My first impressions of the ICA after walking through the main gallery space were pretty average. It was cool stuff, but as my friend Allie Cohen (who went with me) mentioned it could have been so much better. Alot of the art seemed to be a bit pretentious and nothing really stood out as being unique. However this changed upon entering the next section of the museum entitled "Super Vision"
This was a collection of sculpture that played with your perception of it. This is also where James Turrel's peice was. Turrels work seemed at first to be very disappointing. When we first entered the darkened room we discovered an illuminated red rectangle on the wall, about three feet raised off the ground. We stood there staring at it for about three minutes waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen, but avast, nothing. Our eyes hurt a bit, and it was kind of a nice rectangle, but I personally don't think a rectangle of color is too impressive. We ventured outside the room to read the wall mounted description. It revealed no additional information. We went back in anyway and approached the square. It wasn't projected... We didn't notice this the first time. if it wasn't projected than how was it so illuminated? We moved closer, and upon asking Allie how she thought this was possible I heard an eccho. Not from the room we were in, but from the red rectangle. This surprised me, that a shape could have an echo. Allie cautiously reached out her hand and moved straight through the rectangle! This was when the peice became very interesting.
It wasn't a rectangle projected onto the wall, or even a rectangle lit up. It was an entire seperate room all illuminated to be the same color! I couldn't tell how big the room was but I was impressed. Turrel's illusion may not even have been intended as an illusion but that is how I was effected by it, and it recovered the ICA for me. It was a beautiful building though.
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