James Turrell has a new show at PaceWildenstein in New York, of holograms, of all things. Evidently, like all of Turrell's work (and this is a strength, not a weakness), you had to be there.

But the most exciting news to come out of the press for this show is that Roden Crater—Turrell's masterwork, literally a crater in Arizona that he has been carving for 30 years—will open in 2012, concurrent with a traveling Turrell retrospective and the release of a book on the project by former Henry Art Gallery director Richard Andrews (who is president of the board of trustees that oversees the crater project).

In 2012, a major retrospective organized by Carmen Giménez, curator of Twentieth-Century Art at the Guggenheim Museum, and Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will open at the Guggenheim before traveling to a number of international institutions, including additional stops in the United States at LACMA and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A comprehensive monograph featuring texts by the curators as well as other contributors will be published on the occasion of the retrospective. Two other publications will coincide with the exhibition: Richard Andrews’ book on the Roden Crater and an interactive book entitled Turrell World Tour, which features 137 works completed since 1968 in 85 public venues in 18 states and 23 countries worldwide. Turrell World Tour will function as a passport that is signed and stamped at each of the 85 destinations. Upon completing the tour, the reader will be invited as a personal guest of the artist’s to the Roden Crater.

James Turrell has been transforming the Roden Crater, a natural cinder volcano situated on the southwestern edge of the Painted Desert in northern Arizona, into a large-scale artwork since 1972. The work relates to the surrounding sky, land, and culture through the medium of light. As an observatory, the Roden Crater will allow visitors to see celestial phenomena with the naked eye. Construction of the project is under the direction of Dia Art Foundation and Skystone Foundation with support from the Lannan Foundation. The Roden Crater will officially open to the public during the artist’s retrospective exhibition.

My big question, though: Given Andrews's connection to the project, why isn't the Turrell retrospective coming to Seattle?