Icons, 1961-1963
dal 21/5/2003 al 21/9/2003
Segnalato da
21/5/2003
Icons, 1961-1963
Dan Flavin Art Institute, Bridgehampton NY
The Dan Flavin Art Institute, in Bridgehampton, New York, opens its summer 2003 with this exhibition, which continues from last year, and the Institute's permanent installation of nine fluorescent light works. Together, these exhibitions offer an overview of Flavin's work from his early experiments with electric light through his adoption of standard fluorescent fixtures and tubes as the primary medium for his artwork.
Special exhibition and permanent installation
provide overview of two decades of Flavin's work;
summer 2003 season begins Thursday, May 22
The Dan Flavin Art Institute, in Bridgehampton, New York, opens
its summer 2003 season on May 22 with the exhibition "icons,
1961-1963," which continues from last year, and the Institute's
permanent installation of nine fluorescent light works.
Together, these exhibitions offer an overview of Flavin's work
from his early experiments with electric light through his
adoption of standard fluorescent fixtures and tubes as the
primary medium for his artwork. This single-artist museum, built
by and for Flavin, has since 1983 been supported and maintained
by Dia Art Foundation for public exhibition each summer.
On view in the first-floor gallery, "icons, 1961-1963" includes
works that represent early manifestations of the artist's
enduring preoccupation with simple forms and electric light. In
his series "icons," Flavin combined painted boxes with
fluorescent and incandescent lights in a manner whose hallmark
is simplicity and explicitness. These works mark the burgeoning
of Flavin's use of fluorescent light as a medium and are among
the works by him now considered a cornerstone of the art of the
1960s.
Planned by Flavin for the second-floor gallery of the
Bridgehampton space, the permanent installation of nine of his
works traces the artist's practice from 1963-when he decided to
work solely with standard fluorescent fixtures and tubes-to
1981, when the presentation was realized. In creating this
exhibition, Flavin conceived of the sculptures and the
architecture as a single, continuous installation. By
manipulating the formal, phenomenal, and referential
characteristics
of light, the installation asks viewers to consider a series of
contrasts-between colors, intensities of light, structure and
formlessness, the obvious and the mysterious, and the serious
and the humorous.
Dan Flavin
Born in 1933 in New York City, where he later studied art
history at the New School for Social Research, Dan Flavin
exhibited nationally from 1963 onward. He lived and worked for
most of the last twenty years of his life in Bridgehampton and
Wainscott, Long Island. Flavin died on November 29, 1996.
The Dan Flavin Art Institute
The Dan Flavin Art Institute is located in the former First
Baptist Church of Bridgehampton. Originally built as a firehouse
in 1908, the building operated as a church from 1924 to the
mid-1970s. In 1979, Dia purchased the building to use as a
gallery for Dan Flavin. The building was renovated under the
direction of the artist with the assistance of Dia's James
Schaeufele and architect Richard Gluckman. The renovation evokes
the building's former uses: a newel post in the entrance hall is
painted red in memory of the building's years as a firehouse,
and the original church doors have been moved to the entrance of
a small exhibition space on the second floor that contains
memorabilia, including a neon cross, collected from and about
the church.
The Dan Flavin Art Institute is located on Corwith Avenue, off
Main Street. Hours are Thursday through Sunday, 12 noon to 6 pm,
May 22 through September 21, 2003. Admission is free.
________
Dia
Dia Art Foundation was founded in 1974. A nonprofit institution,
Dia plays a vital role among visual arts organizations
nationally and internationally by initiating, supporting,
presenting, and preserving art projects, and by serving as a
primary locus for interdisciplinary art and criticism. Dia
presents exhibitions and public programming at Dia Center for
the Arts in New York City, and maintains long-term,
site-specific projects in the western United States, in New York
City, and on Long Island. On May 18, 2003, Dia is opening
Dia:Beacon, a new museum in Beacon, New York, sixty miles north
of New York City, to house its renowned permanent collection.
In addition to maintaining the Dan Flavin Art Institute, Dia's
support for Flavin and his work includes the commission of
site-specific installations in Marfa, Texas; Grand Central
Station, New York City; and, most recently, in 1996, for the
staircases of Dia's exhibition facility at 548 West 22nd Street,
New York City. Dia's permanent collection includes more than
forty additional works by the artist, including works from the
"monuments" to V. Tatlin series, which will be featured in a
long-term installation at Dia:Beacon.
Beginning April 12, 2003, Vassar College's Frances Lehman Loeb
Art Center, in Poughkeepsie, New York, will exhibit rarely seen
drawings from Dia's Hudson River School collection. The
exhibition features some forty works, collected by Dan Flavin
for Dia in the late 1970s and early 1980s, comprising pencil and
crayon sketches and oil studies. The exhibition will be on view
through June 15, 2003. For more information, please 845 437-5632.
For additional information on the Dan Flavin Art Institute and
Dia Art Foundation, please contact Sarah Thompson, tel. 212 293
5518; fax 212 989 4055.
THE DAN FLAVIN ART INSTITUTE
Corwith Avenue
Bridgehampton NY