Page 38 - Studio International - December 1972

which movement is the norm, the gallery chosen space, exemplified by the intervening gallery integrity as an isolated aesthetic experience.
for the second installation was an almost square hung with work from the collection. The Increasingly, when given the opportunity, he
cul de sac, entered through a single door accepted museum situation is that of a space has explored the means of structuring public
considerably off the central axis. The three To containing objects, and a criterion of good spaces and our movement within them. Neither
Donna installations were set in the three corners museum design is that these objects be the museum, nor the commercial gallery
farthest from the door. Flavin's treatment of adequately lit. Furthermore, as paintings or context can do justice to these aspirations. The
these two spaces (stairway and gallery) both reliefs require a flat surface, corners are temporary exhibition and the 'Art' context can
explored and exploited the nature of each. considered dead space. The result is a provide valuable exposure to these ideas, but
Beyond the shared limitation to solely corner concentration of light on the uninterrupted wall they cannot replace the need for permanent
installations, the two spaces created a finely surfaces, with the viewer standing in relative public commissions.
balanced and complementary antithesis, much shadow, a situation which both illuminates the It is ironic that in a nation as work oriented as
as that of the two halves of the Gallery they had art work and underlines its aesthetic distance the United States we insist on our art being
been commissioned to commemorate. from the viewer, much as the frame/window non-utilitarian, a prejudice, illustrated by our
Where the staircase was restricted to the functions for much representational painting. tax laws, which views the artist as basically an
subtle ('classical') alternation of daylight and cool By appropriating the corner, and working with unproductive member of society. Art is seen
white, the To Donna variations produce the his own source of light, Flavin reverses the primarily as a commodity to be collected,
three possible combinations of cross-projected accepted viewer-object relationship. His work eventually to enter the public domain in a
pink, yellow, and blue. The former produced a is directed outward, providing illumination for museum. In contrast to this, European
mixture approaching natural light, the latter the the viewer to see by, as well as to see it by. This traditions, such as Constructivism and
'somewhat vulgar' tones of the consumer helps explain the aggressive presence of these Neo-Plasticism, both of which have been
landscape. While Flavin's 'sculptures', especially works, for we are mildly aware of our important in Flavin's development, sought to
his corner installations, physically occupy a momentary dependence on them to see. make art an integral part of life by utilizing it to
minimum of space, they effectively fill the area The subtlety of Flavin's work can make solve the problems of the modern world. An
in which they are contained more fully than any points concerning both sculpture's and our own example, particularly relevant to Flavin, would
previous form of sculpture. (A possible relation to the technological preferences of our be van Doesburg's 1927 treatment of the dance
exception could be Chartres Cathedral on a culture, which many more blatant attempts to hall of the Aubette in Strasbourg, where he
cloudless afternoon.) This environmental control fuse art and technology have missed. A designed the lighting, in grids of incandescent
of the intensity, hue and distribution of light particularly disturbing (at least to this viewer) bulbs, to both define and illuminate the space.
within a given space is as crucial to the impact accomplishment of these two installations was Presently commissions for Flavin to deal with
of the work as the actual configurations of the the complete elimination of shadows. urban lighting problems are under consideration
lamps. Thus the impression in the staircase was Particularly in the staircase, the saturation of in Hanover, Germany, for their nearly
of white, soaring, vertical columns of light — light was absolutely even. Such controlled completed subway, and in Rotterdam for a
terms reminiscent of Brancusi's Bird in Flight or illumination, the ideal of an indoor culture, bicycle and pedestrian underpass. Hopefully
Endless Column. Conversely, the To Donna deprives one of a traditional aspect of the these projects will move ahead and set examples
variations stressed the horizontal in static consciousness of both space and time. to be followed both abroad and in the
gravitational rectangles. The stairway In the early sixties when Flavin's fluorescent United States. 0
installation induced bodily and psychic ascent; pieces were first coming to the attention of
the second gallery produced contemplation and critics, the attitude of many who defended his I don't want to impose separate sculptural ego
provided rest — a natural reaction was to sit on work was that 'nothing but the truth about dumps as public works. I don't want to rival
the floor. reality interests us'. A decade later, the original architecture and public spaces insistently
In addition to the contrast between the two fight to have these radically different and grandiosely. I have in the past and do intend to
installations, there was a perceptually apparently restrictive means accepted as art continue so now to adapt my art carefully and
instructive contrast to the normal museum seems distant, and it is their potential to expand complementarily publicly. But that's easy for me. I
the application of recent developments in admire the area of interest. (Incidentally, I lost
sculpture to a new range of concerns which what I sensed was 'the right time' for my own
appears to be of growing importance. potential education in architecture to a four-year
Thirty years ago Moholy-Nagy decried the tour of duty, mainly with the Air Weather Service
lack of instruction in the use of light. 'There within United Nations military forces during the
ought to be an Academy of Light, which would past Korean War.) What I have found to be
be devoted to teaching and would educate its difficult, even risky, in public service, and what
students to an artistic and economic may continue to be, is maintaining an ironic
consciousness of the new creative factor', he differentiation between what I must and might have
wrote in his essay, 'Light Painting'. Recently for myself, and possibly for others, as art apart and
Jean-Louis Bourgeois, writing in the April 1970 the ordinary mechanical design solutions of the job
issue of Artforum, observed that: 'If ecology can to be done — say, useless, intensely thought artifice
refer to our everyday urban experience as much of art, particularly patterned and lighted once
as to distant wilderness, then electric light is as more, and discreetly balanced with an arrangement
crucial a man-made resource as water and of sufficient numbers of lamps for useful
sunlight are natural ones. We all spend a large illumination. But apparently art and design must
part of our waking lives in light conditions be processed within each other at once. And finally,
which Flavin's mastery of the genre now reveals from the constant fusion, I have to be able to
to be sterile and ugly'. recognize art because I prefer it.
The two installations being discussed here are Otherwise, broad concern and support for
only the most recent — and in the case of the artists to perform in public is still principally
stairway, perhaps the most thorough to date — wanting in this country, but therein is another essay
expressions of Flavin's concern for the context which I cannot perpetrate here and now. D
and function of his work, in addition to its DAN FLAVIN
232