Dan Flavin (1933-1996)
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Dan Flavin (1933-1996)

Untitled (to Janie Lee) two

Details
Dan Flavin (1933-1996)
Untitled (to Janie Lee) two
blue, green, yellow and pink fluorescent light
96in. (244cm.) wide across a corner
Executed in 1971, this work is from an edition of five of which only two were fabricated.
Provenance
Leo Castelli Gallery, New York.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.
Literature
J. Butterfield, "Dallas Exhibitions Offer Varied Artistic Approach", in Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 25 April 1971 (sec. H, p. 5).
"Texas", in Arts Magazine 45, no. 8, Summer 1971, (p. 45).
Drawing and Diagrams from Dan Flavin 1963-1972. Corners, Barriers and Corridors in Fluorescent Light from Dan Flavin, exh. cat., Missouri, St. Louis Art Museum, 1973.
M. King, "A Show for Turning On: Dan Flavin's Fluorescents, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 4 March 1973 (another from the edition illustrated in colour, p. 23 and installation view illustrated, p. 23). Dan Flavin/Donal Judd: Aspects of Color, exh. cat., Houston, Menil Collection, 1998, no. 17.
M. Govan and T. Bell, Dan Flavin: The Complete Lights 1961-1996, New York 2004, no. 276 (another from the edition illustrated, p. 299).
Exhibited
Dallas, Janie C. Lee Gallery, Dan Flavin, April 1971 (another from the edition exhibited).
Houston, Institute for the Arts, Rice University, Cornered Fluorescent Light from Dan Flavin, October-November 1972 (another from the edition exhibited).
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Lot Essay

'Regard the light' Flavin declared, 'and you are fascinated - practically inhibited from grasping its limits at each end. While the tube itself has an actual length.its shadow cast from the supporting pan has but illusively dissolving ends. This waning cannot really be measured without resisting consummate visual effects. Realising this, I knew that the actual space of a room could be disrupted and played with by careful, thorough composition of the illuminating equipment. For example if a 244cm (8ft) fluorescent lamp be pressed into a vertical corner, it can completely eliminate that definite juncture by physical structure, glare and doubled shadow. A section of wall can be visually disintegrated into a separated triangle by placing diagonal of light from edge to edge on the wall: that is, side to floor, for instance.' (Dan Flavin " in daylight or cool white" lecture given at the Brooklyn Museum School of Art, New York (18 December 1964), published in Artforum, December 1965.)

Untitled (to Janie Lee) two, is one of Dan Flavin corner sculptures the artist produced in 1971 and dedicated to the owner of the Janie C. Lee Gallery in Dallas, where they were first exhibited. Consisting of blue, green, yellow and pink fluorescent light it illuminates the dark recesses of a room, an area often neglected by artists. As one of his most intriguing works, the corner sculptures play with our perceptions of space and light. Its rich blue light gently mingles with the backlit green, yellow and pink to create a dramatic sunset of rainbow colours that penetrates into the deep corner of the room. The result is a very strong and independent work that not only reshapes or redefines space, it holds it together and masters it with a definitive presence that magically seems to draw in elements from the rest of the space into which it is set.

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