An Online-Gaming Billionaire Hopes His $3 Million Gift to James Turrell Will Make the Long-Delayed ‘Roden Crater’ a Reality

Four decades have passed since Light and Space artist James
Turrell first began working on his pièce de
résistance: Roden Crater, a Land Art mammoth
that requires transforming the site of an extinct volcano in
Arizona’s Painted Desert into a celestial observatory. Should it
ever get finished, it could be a masterpiece.

Now, it’s one step closer to getting done.

On Thursday night, coinciding with the VIP preview of the Frieze
Los Angeles art fair, Pace Gallery and Kayne Griffin Corcoran
cohosted a party for the artist, and announced a new $3 million
gift toward the project given by billionaire Mark Pincus, founder
of the Zynga mobile and online game empire.

“There’s so many things about it that really moved
me,” Pincus told the Los Angeles
Times, noting how many years the artist had devoted to the
work.

“The project itself feels, to me, like modern-day pyramids,” he
aded. “The ambition and scale and scope of it is something that has
the potential to be something that people, many generations from
now, will be able to experience and get something amazing
from—maybe something beyond what we can imagine today.”

The buzzy LA event where the announcement was made featured a
performance by Grimes and plenty of art-world A-listers, along with
celebrities such as Leonardo DiCaprio and his
girlfriend Camila Morrone; tennis star Maria Sharapova; artist
Mary Corse; billionaire collector Steve Cohen; Museum of
Contemporary Art director Klaus Biesenbach; and Los Angeles County
Museum of Art director Michael Govan. (Govan is also the president
of the Skystone Foundation, which oversees the Roden Crater.)

At Frieze, Kayne Griffin Corcoran is showing a single, immersive
work by Turrell, while Pace is showing smaller, geometric
light works.

The opening of Roden Crater is expected to be announced within
the next five years and is still contingent upon funding. Last
year, Kanye West donated $10 million to the project and shot his
short film, Jesus Is King, inside Roden Crater.
Turrell has given tours of the site, at a cost of $6,500 per
person, to raise funds, and Arizona State University has signed on
to help him raise $200 million, according to the Los Angeles
Times.

Friends of Roden Crater lists roughly 100
supporters, including individuals, foundations, corporations, and
the “celestial circle” which includes just two people: Kanye West
and philanthropist David Booth.

The post An Online-Gaming Billionaire Hopes His $3 Million
Gift to James Turrell Will Make the Long-Delayed ‘Roden Crater’ a
Reality appeared first on artnet News.