![]() A drawing dated 1968 shows the square with a middle division. The next near-square corner installations were signed under the name of Wheeling Peachblow, a reference to pastel-colored American glass from the 19th century. ![]() The piece lacks both the clarity and the natural simplicity which he will achieve a little later in more fully developed works from this group. ![]() One can clearly understand Flavin’s intention to create an area of light as “full” as possible by directing the tubes in different directions however, in this piece he has not made optimum use of the walls that form the corner. The two sides are fastened at their backs flat to the wall. Flavin’s positioning of the tubes is intriguing: the top light shines upward, while at bottom the light projects into the room. It was placed rather traditionally, with equal spacing from floor to ceiling. Using the corner as a reflection plane was further developed in a series I will refer to as “near-square corner installations.” In December of 1966 at the Nicholas Wilder Gallery in Los Angeles, Flavin showed a frame-like piece consisting of four cool white tubes, each eight feet long. The colors are warm white for the horizontals and a vertical red. This new configuration increases the illuminated area substantially, as the left tube shines to the right, the right shines left, the horizontal span pours into the room and the vertical shines into the corner. The shorter vertical tube remains attached in the middle, as in the previous drawing. The horizontal tube is now lifted from floor to eye level, supported by two additional tubes which run against the wall and meet in the corner. Reppin, which was exhibited in the recent retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in SoHo. From the same year dates a more fully developed version, Monument on the Survival of Mrs. A piece based on this drawing was shown at the Kornblee Gallery in February of 1966. A second, shorter tube is fixed vertically in the middle of the first, facing the corner. One tube is placed with the light outward, across a corner and close to the floor. A combination of these two ideas–the positioning of light in opposing directions and the incorporation of space by cornering the work–is evident in the European Couples series.Ī drawing dated in 1966 shows what is probably the first instance of mounting fixtures with their tubes back to back, so that their light shines in opposite directions. First, reaching out into a space, primarily by constructing barriers and second, the idea of broadening the illuminated area by projecting light in more than one direction. There were two major developments after the Green Gallery show, in 19. With this initial exhibition, Dan Flavin began to explore the aesthetic potential of illuminated lines of color as a medium for his art. This exhibition consisted of several basic configurations, with diagonal, horizontal and vertical arrangements of one or more tubes, in one or more colors, placed on the floor or on a wall. The first public introduction of this new material was at the Green Gallery in November/December of 1964. He had executed a number of single pieces, placed on both the wall and the floor, and had made a significant step toward creating his art in direct reference to its surrounding architecture. Astonishingly enough, within that time he had already developed innovative and fundamental ways of using this new material. When Flavin began the European Couples in 1966, he had been working with fluorescent light for three years. From 1963 until today some 500 works have been realized. A great variety has been achieved with these components, ranging from small single pieces to large installations for entire rooms. In retrospect, it seems almost unbelievable that an oeuvre of such visual richness and diversity is based on so few parts, yet Dan Flavin’s entire work consists of a total of forty components. But the formal restrictions of the work are even greater, as these colors are only available in lengths of two, four, six and eight feet. This is the palette of an enormous body of work, and Flavin’s use of these ten colors has remained unaltered since 1963. Except for soft white, all of these colors were represented at Dia. With the exception of ultraviolet, which Flavin has rarely used in his work, all the commercially available colors of fluorescent light have been included in the European Couples: daylight, cool white, warm white, yellow, pink, blue, green, red and soft white. Eight of these nine works from the Dia Center for the Arts’ permanent collection were exhibited in New York from winter of 1995 to summer 1996. Between 19, Dan Flavin created a series of nine works in fluorescent light, each dedicated to a European couple.
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