Dan Flavin

Dan Flavin’s large-scale work in colored fluorescent light for six buildings at the Chinati Foundation was initiated in the early 1980s, although the final plans were not completed until 1996. The work was inaugurated at the museum’s annual Open House in October 2000.

Two parallel tilted corridors are constructed at the connecting arms of each U-shaped building. These corridors contain light barriers that are placed either in the center or at the end of each corridor. The barriers consist of eight-foot-long fluorescent light fixtures, occupying the entire height and width of the corridor. The tubes are installed with space between them, allowing a view through the barrier. Each fixture holds two differently colored bulbs shining in opposite directions. The barriers in the six buildings utilize four colors: pink, green, yellow, and blue. The first two buildings use pink and green, the next two yellow and blue, and the last two buildings bring all four colors together. Two windows at the end of each long arm of the U allow daylight to enter the building and permit a view into the vast landscape.

Dan Flavin was born in 1933 in New York City and died in 1996 in Riverhead, New York. Dan Flavin: A Retrospective was exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., October 2004–January 2005. The exhibition subsequently traveled to the Modern Art Museum at Fort Worth (February–June 2005); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (July–October 2005); the Hayward Art Gallery, London (January–April 2006); the Museé d’art moderne de la ville de Paris (June–October 2006); the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (November 2006–April 2007); and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (May–August 2007).