Even in the buffet of amenities that New York City private schools offer — state-of-the-art gyms and science labs, black box theaters and greenhouses, bespoke college guidance and dream teacher-to-student ratios — having a museum-caliber James Turrell Skyspace on your rooftop is in a class of its own.
On the sixth floor of Friends Seminary, a Quaker school in Manhattan, Turrell, the internationally acclaimed artist who uses light to shape space, has created one of his perception-altering meeting rooms whose roof opens to the sky.
Bathed in a spectrum of shifting radiant color, that slice of sky appears to float inside the installation, titled “Leading,” the only one of more than 85 Skyspaces by Turrell around the world attached to an active K-12 school.
Sam Lane, a sophomore, was already a Turrell fan from family visits to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, which has nine of the artist’s installations.
“Some people were excited, some people were a little weirded out by it — like what does it means to have an art installation at our school this significant?”
Persons:
James Turrell Skyspace, Sam Lane, ” Lane, Denman Tuzo, “, ”, Lane
Organizations:
Friends Seminary, Quaker, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
Locations:
New York City, Manhattan, Turrell