Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post– World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

artist famous for creating

sculptural Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

objects and installations from commercially available

fluorescent light A fluorescent lamp, or fluorescent tube, is a low-pressure mercury-vapor gas-discharge lamp that uses fluorescence to produce visible light. An electric current in the gas excites mercury vapor, which produces short-wave ultraviolet ligh ...

fixtures.

Early life and career

Daniel Nicholas Flavin Jr. was born in

Jamaica, New York Jamaica is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is mainly composed of a large commercial and retail area, though part of the neighborhood is also residential. Jamaica is bordered by Hollis to the east; St. Albans, Springf ...

, of

Irish Catholic Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the Briti ...

descent, and was sent to Catholic schools.Paul Levy (February 3, 2006)
A radiant Dan Flavin retrospective
''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''. He studied for the priesthood at the Immaculate Conception Preparatory Seminary in Brooklyn between 1947 and 1952 before leaving to join his twin brother, David John Flavin, and enlist in the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

. During military service in 1954–55, Flavin was trained as an air weather meteorological technicianDan Flavin: A Retrospective, October 3, 2004–January 9, 2005
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and studied art through the adult extension program of the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

in Korea. Upon his return to New York in 1956, Flavin briefly attended the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts and studied art under

Albert Urban Albert may refer to: Companies * Albert (supermarket), a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic * Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands * Albert Market, a street market in The Gambia * Albert Productions, a record label * Albert ...

. He later studied art history for a short time at the New School for Social Research, then moved on to

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where he studied painting and drawing. From 1959, Flavin was briefly employed as a mailroom clerk at the

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: Locations Americas * The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...

and later as guard and elevator operator at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, where he met

Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...

Lucy Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. S ...

, and

Robert Ryman Robert Ryman (May 30, 1930February 8, 2019) was an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He was best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lived and worked in New York C ...

Personal life

In 1961, he married his first wife Sonja Severdija, an art history student at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

and assistant office manager at the Museum of Modern Art. The first marriage ended in divorce by 1979. Flavin's twin brother, David, died in 1962. Flavin married his second wife, the artist Tracy Harris, in a ceremony at the

, in 1992. Flavin died in

Riverhead, New York Riverhead is a town within Suffolk County, New York, United States, on the north shore of Long Island. Since 1727, Riverhead has been the county seat of Suffolk County, though most county offices are in Hauppauge. As of the 2020 census, the ...

, of complications from diabetes. A memorial for him was held at the Dia Center for the Arts, on January 23, 1997. Speakers included Brydon Smith, curator of 20th-century art at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Fariha Friedrich, a Dia trustee; and Michael Venezia, an artist.

Work

Early work

Flavin's first works were drawings and paintings that reflected the influence of Abstract Expressionism. In 1959, he began to make assemblages and mixed media collages that included found objects from the streets, especially crushed cans. In the summer of 1961, while working as a guard at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Flavin started to make sketches for sculptures that incorporated electric lights. The first works to incorporate electric light were his "Icons" series: eight colored shallow, boxlike square constructions made from various materials such as wood, Formica, or Masonite. Constructed by the artist and his then-wife Sonja, the ''Icons'' had fluorescent tubes with incandescent and fluorescent bulbs attached to their sides, and sometimes beveled edges. One of these icons was dedicated to Flavin's twin brother David, who died of

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...

in 1962.

Mature work

The ''Diagonal of Personal Ecstasy (the Diagonal of May 25, 1963)'', a yellow fluorescent placed on a wall at a 45-degree angle from the floor and completed in 1963, was Flavin's first mature work; it is dedicated to Constantin Brâncuși and marks the beginning of Flavin's exclusive use of commercially available fluorescent light as a medium. A little later, ''The Nominal Three (to William of Ockham)'' (1963) consists of six vertical fluorescent tubes on a wall, one to the left, two in the center, three on the right, all emitting white light. He confined himself to a limited palette (red, blue, green, pink, yellow, ultraviolet, and four different whites) and form (straight two-, four-, six-, and eight-foot tubes, and, beginning in 1972, circles). In the decades that followed, he continued to use fluorescent structures to explore color, light and sculptural space, in works that filled gallery interiors. He started to reject studio production in favor of site-specific "situations" or "proposals" (as the artist preferred to classify his work). These structures cast both light and an eerily colored shade, while taking a variety of forms, including "corner pieces", "barriers," and "corridors". Most of Flavin's works were untitled, followed by a dedication in parenthesis to friends, artists, critics and others: the most famous of these include his ''Monuments to V. Tatlin'', a homage to the Russian constructivist sculptor

Vladimir Tatlin Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin ( – 31 May 1953) was a Russian and USSR, Soviet painter, architect and stage-designer. Tatlin achieved fame as the architect who designed The Monument to the Third International, more commonly known as Tatlin's Towe ...

, a series of a total of fifty pyramidal wall pieces which he continued to work on between 1964 and 1990. Flavin realized his first full installation piece, greens crossing greens (''to Piet Mondrian who lacked green''), for an exhibition at the

Van Abbemuseum The Van Abbemuseum () is a museum of modern and contemporary art in central Eindhoven, Netherlands, on the east bank of the Dommel River. Established in 1936, the museum is named after its founder, Henri van Abbe, who loved modern art and wante ...

, Eindhoven, Netherlands, in 1966.Dan Flavin, ''untitled (to Jan and Ron Greenberg)'' (1972-73)
Guggenheim Collection. In 1968 the

Heiner Friedrich Heiner Friedrich (born April 14, 1938 in Stettin) is an art dealer and collector of minimal art and conceptual art.Karl Ströher purchased the installation in the same year.

Peter Iden Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

, founding director of the

Museum für Moderne Kunst The Museum für Moderne Kunst (''Museum of Modern Art''), or short MMK, in Frankfurt, was founded in 1981 and opened to the public 6 June 1991. The museum was designed by the Viennese architect Hans Hollein. Because of its triangular shape, it ...

Frankfurt acquired the installation together with 86 other works from the former Ströher Collection for the Frankfurt Museum. After a first presentation in 1989, it was shown in various exhibitions at the museum between 1999 and 2002. Flavin himself examined the installation in Frankfurt in February 1993 and then adapted his installation concept for the museum. Flavin's "corridors", for example, control and impede the movement of the viewer through gallery space. They take various forms: some are bisected by two back-to-back rows of abutted fixtures, a divider that may be approached from either side but not penetrated (the color of the lamps differs from one side to the other). The first such corridor, ''untitled (to Jan and Ron Greenberg)'', was constructed for a 1973 solo exhibition at the

St. Louis Art Museum The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is one of the principal U.S. art museums, with paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, M ...

, and is dedicated to a local gallerist and his wife. It is green and yellow; a gap (the width of a single "missing" fixture) reveals the cast glow of the color from beyond the divide. In subsequent barred corridors, Flavin would introduce regular spacing between the individual fixtures, thereby increasing the visibility of the light and allowing the colors to mix. By 1968, Flavin had developed his sculptures into room-size environments of light. That year, he outlined an entire gallery in ultraviolet light at Documenta 4 in Kassel, Germany. In 1992, Flavin's original conception for a 1971 piece was fully realized in a site-specific installation that filled the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

's entire rotunda on the occasion of the museum's reopening. Flavin generally conceived his sculptures in editions of three or five, but would wait to create individual works until they had been sold to avoid unnecessary production and storage costs. Until the point of sale, his sculptures existed as drawings or exhibition copies. As a result, the artist left behind more than 1,000 unrealized sculptures when he died in 1996.

Permanent installations

From 1975, Flavin installed permanent works in Europe and the United States, including "Untitled. In memory of Urs Graf" at the Kunstmuseum Basel (conceived 1972, realized 1975); the

Kröller-Müller Museum The Kröller-Müller Museum () is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of ...

, Otterlo, Netherlands (1977);

Hudson River Museum The Hudson River Museum, located in Trevor Park in Yonkers, New York, is the largest museum in Westchester County. The Yonkers Museum, founded in 1919 at City Hall, became the Hudson River Museum in 1948. While often considered an art museum by th ...

, Yonkers, New York (1979); United States Courthouse, Anchorage, Alaska (1979–89); the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany (1989); the lobby of the MetroTech Center (with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), Brooklyn, New York (1992); seven lampposts outside the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich (1994);

Hypovereinsbank UniCredit Bank AG, better known under its brand name HypoVereinsbank (HVB), is the fifth-largest of the German financial institutions, ranked according to its total assets, and the fourth-largest bank in Germany according to the number of its e ...

, Munich (1995); Institut Arbeit und Technik/Wissenschaftspark, Gelsenkirchen, Germany (1996); and the Union Bank of Switzerland, Bern (1996). Additional sites for Flavin's architectural "interventions" were the

Grand Central Station Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

in New York (1976),

Hamburger Bahnhof Hamburger Bahnhof is the former terminus of the Berlin–Hamburg Railway in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstrasse in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as a contemporary art museum, the , part of the Berlin Nati ...

in Berlin (1996), and the

Chinati Foundation The Chinati Foundation/La Fundación Chinati is a contemporary art museum located in Marfa, Texas, and based upon the ideas of its founder, artist Donald Judd. Mission The specific intention of Chinati is to preserve and present to the public perm ...

in Marfa, Texas (2000). His large-scale work in colored fluorescent light for six buildings at the

was initiated in the early 1980s, although the final plans were not completed until 1996. His last artwork was a site-specific work at Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa, Milan. The 1930s church was designed by

Giovanni Muzio Giovanni Muzio (12 February 1893 – 21 May 1982) was an Italian architect. Muzio was born and died in Milan. He was closely associated with the Novecento Italiano artists group. Biography The son of Virginio Muzio, an accomplished archi ...

. The design for the piece was completed two days before Flavin's death on November 29, 1996. Its installation was completed one year later with the assistance of the Dia Center for the Arts and

Fondazione Prada Fondazione Prada, co-chaired by Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli since 1995, is an institution dedicated to contemporary art and culture. From 1993 to 2010, the Fondazione has organised 24 solo shows at its exhibition spaces in Milan, conceiv ...

. The

Menil Collection The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of approximately 17,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawing ...

in Houston, Texas states that in 1990 Dominique de Menil approached Flavin to create a permanent, site-specific installation at Richmond Hall. Two days before his death in November 1996 Flavin completed the design for the space. The artist's studio completed the work. Dia Bridgehampton, a museum in Bridgehampton, New York opened in 1983 as the Dan Flavin Art Institute. It is run by the

Dia Art Foundation Dia Art Foundation is a nonprofit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil and an heiress to the Schlumb ...

and houses nine fluorescent light works by Flavin on permanent display in a gallery designed for them.Dia Bridgehampton

. Retrieved July 19, 2020.

Drawing

Living in Wainscott and Garrison, Flavin often drew the surrounding landscape, whether it was the

Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley (also known as the Hudson River Valley) comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to ...

or the waters off Long Island. He also created small portraits and kept about 20 volumes of journals. Flavin collected drawings too, including works by

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...

artists like

John Frederick Kensett John Frederick Kensett (March 22, 1816 – December 14, 1872) was an American landscape painter and engraver born in Cheshire, Connecticut. He was a member of the second generation of the Hudson River School of artists. Kensett's signature works ...

Jasper Francis Cropsey Jasper Francis Cropsey (February 18, 1823 – June 22, 1900) was an important American landscape artist of the Hudson River School. Early years Cropsey was born on his father Jacob Rezeau Cropsey's farm in Rossville on Staten Island, New Yor ...

, and

Sanford Robinson Gifford Sanford Robinson Gifford (July 10, 1823 – August 29, 1880) was an American landscape painter and a leading member of the second generation of Hudson River School artists. A highly-regarded practitioner of Luminism, his work was noted for its ...

, along with examples of works on paper by early-19th-century Japanese artists like Hokusai and 20th-century European masters like Piet Mondrian and George Grosz. Flavin also exchanged works with Minimalist colleagues like

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...

and

Exhibitions

Flavin's first one-person exhibition using only fluorescent light opened at the

Green Gallery The Green Gallery was an art gallery that operated between 1960 and 1965 at 15 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City. The gallery's director was Richard Bellamy, and its financial backer was the art collector Robert Scull. Green Gallery ...

in 1964. Two years later, his first European show opened at

Rudolf Zwirner Rudolf Zwirner (born 1933) is a German art dealer and gallerist. Early life He was born in 1933, the son of the phonetician . His brother, , (1929-2010) was a doctor. Career Together with his wife Ursula Reppin, he opened his first gallery in ...

's gallery in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

, Germany. Favin's first major museum exhibition was held in 1967 at the

Museum Of Contemporary Art, Chicago The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporar ...

, where

Jan van der Marck Jan van der Marck (19 August 192926 April 2010) was a Dutch-born American museum administrator, art historian, and curator, focused on modern and contemporary art. Van der Marck authored and published many essays, articles and books about artis ...

served as director. The first major retrospective of Flavin's work was organized by the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the ...

, Ottawa in 1969. In 1973, the

Saint Louis Art Museum The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is one of the principal U.S. art museums, with paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, ...

presented concurrent exhibitions of his works on paper and fluorescent sculptures. Among Flavin's many significant one-person exhibitions in Europe were shows at the

Kunstmuseum Basel The Kunstmuseum Basel houses the oldest public art collection in the world and is generally considered to be the most important museum of art in Switzerland. It is listed as a heritage site of national significance. Its lineage extends back to ...

and

Kunsthalle Basel Kunsthalle Basel is a contemporary art gallery in Basel, Switzerland. As Switzerland's oldest and still most active institution for contemporary art, Kunsthalle Basel forms a vital part of Basel's cultural centre and is located next to the city's ...

(1975), the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden (1989), and the Städel, Frankfurt (1993). His first solo exhibition in Latin America was held at

Fundación Proa The Fundación Proa is a private art center in La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers ...

, Buenos Aires, in 1998, organized with the

(''Dan Flavin. 1933-96''). In 2006,

, along with the National Gallery of Art, organised a comprehensive exhibition named ''Dan Flavin: A Retrospective.'' It brought together more than 50 of Flavin's artworks.

''Dan Flavin: A Retrospective'' (2004 – 2007)

In the late 1970s, he began a partnership with the

that resulted in the making of several permanent site-specific installations and led most recently to the organization of the traveling exhibition, ''Dan Flavin: A Retrospective'' (2004–2007). Flavin's retrospective exhibition traveled to the

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporar ...

; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth, Texas;

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the R ...

, London; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris;

Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen The Bavarian State Painting Collections (german: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen), based in Munich, Germany, oversees artwork held by the Free State of Bavaria. It was established in 1799 as ''Centralgemäldegaleriedirektion''. Artwork includes ...

, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; and the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...

, Los Angeles. This exhibition was the first comprehensive retrospective devoted to his

work. The exhibition included nearly 45 light works, including his "icons" series. The MCA's presentation included the re-creation of the ''alternating pink and "gold"'' room from the original MCA exhibition in 1967, Flavin's first solo museum exhibition.

Recognition

In 1964, Flavin received an award from the William and Norma Copley Foundation, Chicago, with a recommendation from

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

. In 1973, he was named Albert Dorne Visiting Professor at the

University of Bridgeport The University of Bridgeport (UB) is a private university in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The university is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. In 2021, the university was purchased by Goodwin University; it retain its own ...

, Connecticut, and in 1976, he was given the Skowhegan Medal of Sculpture from

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 ...

, Maine. In 1983, the Dia Center for the Arts opened the Dan Flavin Art Institute in

Bridgehampton, New York Bridgehampton is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) on the South Fork of Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 1,756 at the 2010 census. Bridgehampton is in the town of Southampton, on Long Island. Shortly after ...

, a permanent exhibition of his works, designed by the artist in a converted firehouse which had served as an African-American church from 1924 through the mid-’70s.Jane L. Levere (August 13, 2015)
Dan Flavin's ‘Icon’ Constructions on Display in Bridgehampton
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. Flavin worked closely with architect

Richard Gluckman Gluckman Tang Architects, (previously Gluckman Mayner Architects), is a New York City based architecture firm providing services in architecture, planning, and interior design. Established by Richard Gluckman in 1977, the firm is known for mini ...

and Jim Schaeufele, Dia's director of operations, on the renovation and design. Here, Flavin's works are exhibited in "rooms without windows or bearing an indirect relationship to its outside surroundings". The permanent display consists of nine all-fluorescent pieces, six in color and three dedicated to Schaeufele in three shades of white, as well as a drawing for an icon, not in the temporary exhibition, dedicated to his fraternal twin brother, David John. In the 2011 film ''

Tower Heist ''Tower Heist'' is a 2011 American heist comedy film directed by Brett Ratner, written by Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson, based on a story by Bill Collage, Adam Cooper and Griffin and starring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy with Casey Affleck, A ...

'', Flavin's estate sent an expert to oversee the construction of a Flavin light installation that was recreated on the set. In 2017, Gallerist

Vito Schnabel Vito Schnabel (born July 27, 1986) is an American art dealer and owner of Vito Schnabel Gallery, with locations in New York, Santa Monica, and St. Moritz, Switzerland. Biography Schnabel (born 1986) was born and raised in New York City. He is t ...

announced a collaboration with Flavin's estate. Schnabel joined the artist's son, Stephen Flavin, to present Flavin's light sculptures alongside works by European ceramicists admired and collected by Flavin.

Books about Flavin

In 2004,

Ridinghouse Ridinghouse is a British book publisher specialising in art. Ridinghouse’s publications are distributed by Cornerhouse in the UK and Europe, and by RAM Publications + Distribution, Inc. in North America. Company history Ridinghouse was foun ...

and Thames & Hudson published ''It Is What It Is: Dan Flavin Since 1964'', which contains key essays on Flavin and reviews of his exhibitions. It contains the writing of critics and historians such as

, Dore Ashton,

Rosalind Krauss Rosalind Epstein Krauss (born November 30, 1941) is an American art critic, art theorist and a professor at Columbia University in New York City. Krauss is known for her scholarship in 20th-century painting, sculpture and photography. As a criti ...

, Lawrence Alloway, Germano Celant, Holland Cotter. In 2010, artists Cindy Hinant and Nicolas Guagnini created the book ''FLAV'', with primary archival texts and correspondence by and about Dan Flavin.

Art market

Each of the more than 750 light sculptures that Dan Flavin designed - usually in editions of three or five - were listed on index cards and filed away. When one sold, the buyer received a certificate containing a diagram of the work, its title and the artist's signature and stamp. If someone showed up with a certificate and a damaged fixture, Flavin would replace it.Greg Allen (January 2, 2005)
The Dark Side of Success
''

''. In 2004, Flavin's work ''Untitled ("monument" for V. Tatlin)'' (1964–1965) was sold for $735,500 at Christie's, New York.

References

Bibliography

* ''It Is What It Is: Dan Flavin Since 1964'', edited by

Karsten Schubert Karsten Schubert (12 August 1961 – 30 July 2019) was a German art dealer and publisher working in London. Career Before opening his own gallery, Schubert worked at the Lisson Gallery. Karsten Schubert London Schubert ran Karsten Schubert Lon ...

and Paula Feldman.

in association with Thames & Hudson. 2004. * ''Dan Flavin: The Complete Lights, 1961-1996'' by Michael Govan and Tiffany Bell. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. 2004. * ''Dan Flavin: Lights,'' edited by Rainer Fuchs. Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 2012. English .

External links

The Estate of Dan Flavin at David ZwirnerSurvey of works at David ZwirnerDan Flavin: A Retrospective, The National Gallery of ArtThe Dan Flavin Art InstituteVilla & Panza Collection: Dan Flavin - Varese CorridorMuseum of Modern Art, Dan Flavin ImagesMuseum für Moderne Kunst, SammlungS. Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa, Dan Flavin's last artworkDan Flavin at DASMAXIMUM KunstGegenwart
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flavin, Dan 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American male artists American male sculptors Contemporary sculptors Light artists Minimalist artists American installation artists American multimedia artists 1933 births 1996 deaths Sculptors from New York (state) People from Queens, New York People from Riverhead (town), New York 20th-century American architects