CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/2/2015

Dan Flavin: Series and Progressions

In Dan Flavin: Series and Progressions, art historian Richard Shiff begins his essay with Donald Judd's 1969 statement, "I want a particular, definite object. I think Flavin wants, at least first or primarily, a particular phenomenon." He follows with Flavin's 1982 assertion, "Whatever I did should be recognizable as let's say, something no matter where." Shiff then goes on to describe his own reaction to "Untitled (to Donna) 6," featured here, when he originally saw it at Leo Castelli Gallery in 1971. "Somehow (this, at least, is my memory) the pink and yellow fluorescent light was sticking to the walls as if it were a substance applied as an infinitely thin layer—a sensation associated with the practice of painting. Yet the appearance of this surface, this substance dissolving into color, eliminated the difference between color as inherent—every material substance has its color—and color as applied. The color was bonding substance to substance, matter to matter. Flavin's construction had rendered visual light tactile by contact, one substance (light) adhering to another (wall). 'Untitled (to Donna) 6' integrated two sensory realms of experience, obviating any desire on my part to set the fluorescent hardware, the cast light and the architectural shell into a hierarchy of causes and effects, actions and targets, the transitive and the intransitive."