Dan Flavin

From 1963 onward, Flavin worked exclusively with fluorescent light. His light sculptures frequently refer to the history of modern art, as do the works on view, whose subtitles refer to Piet Mondrian, whom Flavin greatly admired. He considered Mondrian his predecessor not only in terms of abstract art, but also in his decision to work solely with pure color. The installation, characterized by the colors red, yellow, and blue – the primary hues of the De Stijl movement – pays homage to Mondrian, while the second work is an extension of the first. To Mondrian, the color green was repugnant, but it was muchused by Flavin, whose broad palette was comprised, among others, of the primary colors of light– red, green, and blue (RGB), rather than those of pigment. Flavin’s use of fluorescent light thus entails a reexamination of the starting points of Mondrian’s modernism.