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DAN FLAVIN: SIMPLE FLUORESCENT TUBES

Curated by Erik Verhagen
 

Dan Flavin. Simple Fluorescent Tubes. Works 1963 – 1990
 

Dan Flavin (1933–1996) created his first work using fluorescent tubes – specifically a single tube–in 1963. Titled the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi), it foreshadows all his future work and establishes the foundations of a set of principles to which he would remain faithful throughout his career. From that date onward, the artist refused any “manual” intervention, relying exclusively on “simple”– a term frequently used by his commentators –commercially available materials.

The forms, stripped-down and geometric, are minimalist and lend themselves to countless variations, through which Flavin alternates the sizes of fixtures and tubes, their arrangement, number, progression, configuration, and orientation. Depending on the case, they may be symmetrical or not; placed directly on the floor or elevated. They may adhere to one or more walls, but also articulate around corners, which the artist liked to follow in order to show that the supports on which the works rely are not neutral entities.

To these formal concerns is naturally added a chromatic dimension, allowing Flavin to deploy a wide spectrum of tones that situate his practice–whether one likes it or not–within a long pictorial tradition. His Monuments to Tatlin, as well as his homage to Brancusi, also express his debt to a European heritage that few American minimalist artists of his generation were willing to acknowledge.
The works selected for this exhibition reflect the diversity of his approach and testify, given the immateriality of the medium he made his own, to the difficulty of defining them. A material that shapes a floating space with which we, the viewers, form a whole with indeterminate contours.
 
— Erik Verhagen, Art historian, Art critic

 
Photo: Sylvie Léonard © Dan Flavin Estate