Introduction of the artist:

Dan FLAVIN (USA)

Born in 1933, New York City. Died in 1996 in Riverhead, NY. Selected solo exhibitions: 2012 Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna / 2012 the Morgan Library and Museum, New York / 2004.2007 Dan Flavin: A Retrospective, an international touring exhibition that included seven venues / 1989 the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden / 1969 the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa / 1967 the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago / Selected group exhibitions: 1968 Minimal Art, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, The Netherlands / 1966 Primary Structures, The Jewish Museum, New York / 1964 Black, White, and Gray, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut.

Introduction of works:

untitled (to Barnett Newman) one
1971
yellow, red, and blue fluorescent light
8 ft. (244 cm) high, 4 ft. (122 cm) wide across a corner
Edition of 5
Certi'cate of Authenticity
CL no. 266

 2012 Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York;
courtesy of David Zwirner, New York.

untitled (to Barnett Newman) two
1971
yellow, red, and blue fluorescent light
8 ft. (244 cm) high, 4 ft. (122 cm) wide across a corner
Edition of 5
Certi'cate of Authenticity
CL no. 267
 2012 Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York;
courtesy of David Zwirner, New York.

untitled (to Barnett Newman) three
1971
yellow, blue, and red fluorescent light
8 ft. (244 cm) high, 4 ft. (122 cm) wide across a corner
Edition of 5
Certi'cate of Authenticity
CL no. 268
 2012 Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York;
 courtesy of David Zwirner, New York.

untitled (to Barnett Newman) four
1971
yellow, blue, and red fluorescent light
8 ft. (244 cm) high, 4 ft. (122 cm) wide across a corner
Edition of 5
Certi'cate of Authenticity
CL no. 269
 2012 Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York;
courtesy of David Zwirner, New York

From 1963 until his death in 1996, American artist Dan Flavin produced a singularly consistent and prodigious body of work that involved commercially available fluorescent lamps to create installations of light and colour. Through these light constructions, he was able to literally establish and redefine space. Ranging in scale from individual wall-mounted and corner constructions to large-scale works, in which he employed whole rooms or corridors, they testify to his recurrent preoccupation with architecture.

In untitled (to Barnett Newman) one (1971), Flavin uses the corner of a square room to create a rectangular arrangement of yellow, red, and blue fluorescent lights. The yellow lights are projected outward (towards the viewer) while the blue and red lights project into the corner, highlighting the architectural conditions of the space in which it is installed. This particular construction is part of a series of four individual, related works first shown in 1971. When exhibited together they follow a systematic progression – typically, as the notion of seriality and repetition was a consistent theme in Flavin’s practice, and this group of works is a case in point.

The title of this work is a dedication is to the artist Barnett Newman, a friend of Flavin's, who died in 1970. The colours were chosen as a reference to a number of paintings by Newman called Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue, one of which Flavin saw and greatly admired.