Dan Flavin: colored fluorescent light

David Zwirner is pleased to announce an exhibition of works by American artist Dan Flavin (1933–1996) at the gallery’s London location. From 1963 until his death in 1996, Flavin produced a singularly consistent and prodigious body of work that utilized commercially available fluorescent lamps to create installations (or "situations," as he preferred to call them) of light and color. Presented across two floors, the works on view re-create the artist’s momentous colored fluorescent light exhibitions, which took place at Leo Castelli Gallery and Galerie Heiner Friedrich in New York and Cologne in 1976, and figure as important early instances of his innovative use of color and serial progressions in response to architectural space. 

Each of the nine colors that comprised the artist’s visual vocabulary during these years—red, pink, blue, green, yellow, cool white, daylight, warm white, and soft white—will be represented within the show. In bringing these works back together, the exhibition will provide a rare opportunity to directly experience the artist’s singular vision and ability to redefine space through everyday materials. 

David Zwirner has represented the Estate of Dan Flavin since 2009, and this will be the gallery’s first presentation of the artist’s work in London. A concurrent exhibition, Dan Flavin: Kornblee Gallery 1967, will be on view at the gallery’s 34 East 69th Street location in New York.

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Image: Installation view, Dan Flavin: colored fluorescent light, David Zwirner, London, 2023