When you dream, where does the light come from? James Turrell And imaginationconfused yet profoundexpatiates.

Hegel It is impossible to ignore the role that the Guggenheims architecture plays in any exhibit shown there. The building has a philosophy of progress evident as it spins ever wider, ever upward. Whether its a Kandinsky retrospective or Tino Seghals Tino Seghal, the visitors experience of the exhibit is significantly affected by the shape of the space. The James Turrell exhibit currently on show at the Guggenheim (closing September 25) proves the solitary exception. The main attraction, Aten Reign, appeals to the spiral core of Frank Lloyd Wrights classic dome, but for a work so intimately concerned with space, it renders the surrounding architecture irrelevant.

Aten Reign blocks off the entire rotunda of the museum, creating an inverse cone of oval planes within its center while the building itself expands upwards. (Picture) An introduction to the exhibit states that as one of the most dramatic transformations of the museum ever conceived, the installation recasts Frank Lloyd Wrights iconic architectureits openness to nature, its graceful curves, its magnificent sense of space and lightas a volume of shifting natural and artificial luminescence. But Aten Reign doesnt just recast Wrights architectureit ignores it. Although some filtered natural light descends from the glass dome at the pinnacle of the rotunda, no light from the shifting LEDs touches the building itself, and the hazy screens transform the once open spiral ascent into a winding tunnel.

In 2009, I saw two Kandinsky retrospectives in two very different museums. The first was in June at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the second was in the Guggenheim that fall. The Pompidou exhibit had a classic gallery structure. This meant you walked into the gallery and chose which side of the room to begin on, how to navigate through all the pieces, and eventually which door to exit through. In the Guggenheim, the chronological progression of Kandinskys works was inescapable: his aesthetic became decreasingly globular and increasingly precise geometric form, his flat use of color, his development of a preference for fine lines. There was no choice in direction or order as in the Pompidou, and Kandinskys evolution was much more evident, even though the majority of the works on display were the same. The Tino Sehgal exhibit was the first time in the Guggenheims history that all physical artworks were removed from the rotunda. The intention of his piece was to defy the traditional context of museum and gallery environments. His central work, This Progress was ineluctably informed by its environment. Visitors were greeted by a child at the base of spiral walkway, told, This is a piece by Tino Sehgal, and asked how to define progress. From there, the visitor conversed with a variety of increasingly older companions, - a teenager, a young adult, a person in middle age and finally an elderly man or woman - who informed the visitor of end of their conversation by saying, The

piece is called This Progress. With progress in the title, this development and evolution is the thematic core of Tino Sehgal, and the Guggenheims structure plays a central role in its execution. In a normal gallery space there would be no sense of physical progress. A visitor could engage in the same conversations but the movement would lack the climb in a more conventional museum environment. In this way, Sehgal was dependent upon the Guggenheims architecture to defy the traditional context of museum and gallery environments. This is exactly the purpose of Frank Lloyd Wrights structure. The only stipulation Solomon Guggenheim gave Wright in hiring him to construct a home for his collection, was that it be unlike any other museum in the world. It was the work that gave Wright the most trouble in his life, but it achieves this end. The shape of the space forces you to reckon with it no matter what exhibit is shown there. That is, until Aten Reign. The truth of this work is that it is unlikely you will consider anything specific to the physical exhibit before you. The lights shift so gradually that it is not possible to watch them without a wandering mind. Turrells ambition to create a site of meditative contemplation and communal meeting is absolutely achieved, and insodoing eliminates any consideration of the hidden architecture. There are works by Turrell on show in other parts of the museum, and other entire exhibitions on view not occupying the rotunda. I dont mean to ignore these side galleries. They still inhabit a somewhat unique, cavelike space, but the squared walls and lateral movement mirror a traditional museum aesthetic. They serve to heighten the dichotomy between summiting the Guggenheims central rotunda and reaching the last of a series of rooms. Aten Reign is a rare work because it is at once aware of Wrights iconic structure while entirely removed from it. Turrell welcomes you into your own imagination.