Page 37 - Studio International - December 1972

LATIONS IN FLUORESCENT LIGHT BY DAN FLAVIN

(NOX ART GALLERY

the situation available (properly dedicated to enhance structural clarity best. And I sense that upward as each additional column comes into
Mr Knox, President of the Gallery, and with the total installation I have been able to view. The rake of light on the wall to the right of
Mr Smith, Gallery Director, together), my first accent Gordon Bunshaft's architectural details each column of tubes heightens the centrifugal
actual application of circular fluorescent light, all present (I'm thinking mostly of the simple, impression of the ascent, and dramatizes the
the way up in each of the four enclosing corners. somewhat severe staircase, etc.) so consistently. 'floating' structure of the stairs. During the
'Two of the four walled corners are And the orderly rows of lamps are consistently descent we repeatedly approach the columns
exceptionally tall, in excess of twenty-six feet positioned with a difference — the circular light head on and proceed counter to the raking light,
high; therefore, I decided that to install a row of sources remain contrastedly, somewhat which visually slows our progress and elicits an
so many smallindependently contained lamps, all ironically, against all that is so straight and appropriate sense of caution. Similarly, through
the way up in each of the four enclosing corners, right-angled and usual.' the extreme height of these corner installations,
"raking" from one component wall across the Approaching the staircase from the ground the columns of light disappear from view
other adjacent one, would complement mainly floor in the new building, we are confronted with upward when seen from the foot of the stairs,
the height and width so openly available. a thin, linear, side view of the first column of and disappear downward when seen from the
Alternating rows are of cool white and daylight tubes. As we mount the stairs, the rather top, like ikons of the passage they announce and
lamps for subtle, transitional change and obsessive frontal view of the fixtures, glowing illuminate.
because these "whites" of the medium seem to like so many jet intakes, sucks us forward and While the stairway was a connecting space in

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