This small work was gifted by Turrell to Douglas Chrismas, the admittedly controversial impresario of ACE Gallery and now convicted felon who, despite his mishandling of money (to put it mildly) was an early champion and facilitator of the works of numerous Light and Space, Minimalist and Conceptual artists who were engaged beginning in the 1960’s in creating pioneering and now widely-venerated works. Turrell was among the ACE Gallery cohort of artists, including with his show “Flow” at ACE Gallery in 1984. His gift of this unique work – a model of or reference to forms he would ultimately develop in Roden Crater – attests to that relationship. Chrismas in turn gifted the work to the Aardt Foundation’s founder in appreciation of the collector/gallery relationship (albeit one that was sadly but of necessity fractured as Chrismas’s misdeeds came to light).
