The Roden Crater, artist James Turrell’s unfinished land art in the Arizona desert, will be open to a select group of people for a fundraising event–meant only for “serious patrons of the arts,” from May 14 to 17, reports Art News.
The artist acquired the land the crater rests on in 1977, and has since been working to transform the interior into a “naked eye observatory.” Although very few people have seen the inside of Turrell’s land art piece, but one of them is the artist’s friend Chuck Close, as recounted in a New York Times Magazine profile of Turrell, who made the crater handicap-accessible for the wheelchair-bound his friend.
But what will be the exact costing of this private art trip for the select art world few lucky enough to make the cut? First, there is a $5,000 donation to the Skystone Foundation, Turrell’s nonprofit organisation that supports the project. Secondly there is an additional $1,500 will cover a hotel room, a tour, dinner onsite, and breakfast the following morning.But according to an application that must be filed to attend the trip,, not covered by these costs, but by the privileged art world mover-and-shaker, are: “Airfare, personal or baggage insurance, meals other than mentioned above, laundry, valet, liquor (other than wine with dinner), room service or minibar charges, telephone calls, faxes or internet charges, pharmaceuticals, supplemental costs for (additional) single rooms and/or (additional) suites, and any other individual charges of a personal nature.” Twenty people will be let in per day, which means the artist stands to raise about half a million dollars form the great art outing to his land art obdervatory.
For the land art project, the artist acquired the 400,000-year-old, 3-mile-wide crater’s land. Turrell has since been transforming the inner cone of the crater into a massive naked-eye observatory, designed specifically for the viewing and experiencing sky-light, solar, and celestial phenomena. The fleeting Winter and Summer solstice events will be highlighted.
Roden Crater is an extinct volcanic cinder cone, situated at an elevation of approximately 5,400 feet in the San Francisco Volcanic Field near Arizona’s Painted Desert and the Grand Canyon. The 600 foot tall red and black cinder cone is being turned into a monumental work of art by the artist, Turrell has been transforming the inner cone of the crater into a massive naked-eye observatory, designed specifically for the viewing and experiencing sky-light, solar, and celestial phenomena, the fleeting Winter and Summer solstice events will also be highlighted. Turrell is working with visual phenomena that has interested man since the dawn of civilization.
Michael Govan, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where Turrell had a retrospective in 2013, has described Roden Crater as “even unfinished, as important as any artwork ever made.”