Employing only commercial fluorescent lights in his work, Dan Flavin devised a radical new art form that circumvented the limits imposed by frames, pedestals, or other conventional means of display. His embrace of the unadorned fluorescent fixture as an aesthetic object placed him at the forefront of a generation of artists whose use of industrial materials, emphasis on elementary forms, and nonhierarchical relationships among component parts became the salient characteristics of Minimalism [more].

The additive composition of the nominal three (to William of Ockham), dedicated to the 14th-century English philosopher, exemplifies Flavin’s use of the fluorescent tube as a basic building block. The artist’s installations became increasingly complex while remaining bound to the limited palette and standard lengths in which the fixtures were commercially produced. His subsequent development of a vocabulary of “corners,” “barriers,” and “corridors” engaged the environment his work occupied and revealed his interest in reconceptualizing sculpture in relation to space. The first of his barrier pieces, greens crossing greens (to Piet Mondrian who lacked green), transforms and even inverts the conventional museum experience by literally invading the viewer’s space and prohibiting access to the gallery. The reference to Mondrian is in keeping with Flavin’s practice of dedicating individual works to family, friends, or historical figures of significance to him.

The artist Mel Bochner credited Flavin’s practice as embodying “an acute awareness of the phenomenology of rooms.” This awareness stemmed from Flavin’s rejection of studio production in favor of site-specific “situations” or “proposals” (as the artist preferred to classify his work) and is nowhere more evident than in his 1971 installation for the Guggenheim, untitled (to Ward Jackson, an old friend and colleague who, during the Fall of 1957 when I finally returned to New York from Washington and joined him to work together in this museum, kindly communicated). Initially occupying one full turn of the museum’s ramps, and according to the artist, “critically fitted to the inconsistent dimensions of the variable architecture,” the work was conceived so that it could be extended to fill the entire rotunda, as was done in 1992. At that time, Flavin created untitled (to Tracy, to celebrate the love of a lifetime), a new work dedicated to his fiancée that rose from the rotunda floor in a celebratory manner, suffusing the space with a warm pink glow. Together these installations amplified the Frank Lloyd Wright interior, exemplifying Flavin’s career-long concern with light, space, and color.

J. Fiona Ragheb

Purchased from Heiner Friedrich, Cologne, by Panza in 1973; purchased by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1991.

The fabrication shown in Arte minimal de la Colección Panza at Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, in 1988 was destroyed at Flavin’s request. The work was refabricated for the Guggenheim Museum SoHo’s Dan Flavin exhibition of 1995–96.

Solo
Galerie Rudolf Zwirner, Cologne, Dan Flavin, September 16–October 31, 1966.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Dan Flavin, Pink and Gold, December 9, 1967–January 14, 1968. Catalogue with introduction by Flavin and texts by Flavin, Donald Judd, and Dan Graham; unpag., text reference in statement by Flavin.

Guggenheim Museum SoHo, New York, Dan Flavin, September 13, 1995–January 28, 1996.

Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, Dan Flavin: Die Architektur des Lichts, November 6, 1999–February 13, 2000. Catalogue by J. Fiona Ragheb, Dan Flavin: The Architecture of Light (New York: The Guggenheim Museum, 1999), with texts by Joseph Kosuth, Frances Colpitt, Michael Govan, Brydon E. Smith, Jonathan Crary, Tiffany Bell, Michael Newman, and Flavin: pp. 12, 26, 27, 28–29 (illus.), 31. German edition (New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1999): pp. 12, 26, 27, 28–29 (illus.), 31.

Group
Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Kunst Licht Kunst, September 24–December 5, 1966. The original piece, designed for the El Lissitsky drawing cabinet, was exhibited and later destroyed.

[Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. Arte minimal de la Colección Panza, March 24–December 31, 1988. Catalogue (Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Archivos, Centro Nacional de Exposiciones, 1988) with essays by Germano Celant and Fernando Huici; pp. 27 (illus.), 35 (illus.), 60.]

Celant, Germano. Das Bild einer Geschichte 1956/1976, p. 104 (illus.).

———. “Dan Flavin.” Domus (Milan), no. 519 (February 1973), pp. 44 (illus.), 47.

Dan Flavin, fluorescent light, etc. from Dan Flavin/Dan Flavin, lumière fluorescente, etc. (exh. cat.). Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1969. Essays by Flavin, Brydon Smith, Donald Judd, and Mel Bochner; p. 251 (illus. shows the work at Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, 1966).

Kalina, Richard. “In Another Light: Fluorescent Light Art.” Art in America (New York) 84, no. 6 (June 1996), pp. 68–69 (illus.).

Karmel, Pepe. “Art Review: Outrageous in the 1960s but Seeming Serene in the 90’s.” New York Times, September 22, 1995, sec. C, p. 30.

Knight, Christopher. Art of the Sixties and Seventies, pp. 174 (illus. shows the work at Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, 1966), 262. Revised and expanded English edition: pp. 106 (plate 67 shows the work at Guggenheim Museum SoHo, 1995–96), 214 (illus. shows the work at Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, 1966), 302. French edition: pp. 174 (illus. shows the work at Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, 1966), 262. Italian edition: pp. 174 (illus. shows the work at Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, 1966), 262. Revised and expanded Italian edition: pp. 106 (plate 67 shows the work at Guggenheim Museum SoHo, 1995–96), 214 (illus. shows the work at Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, 1966), 302.

Spaces (exh. cat.). New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1969. Essay by Jennifer Licht; unpag. text reference.

Spector, Nancy, ed. Guggenheim Museum Collection: A to Z. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1992, 2d ed. 2001, pp. 106, 107 (illus.).