Dan Flavin
untitled (for Robert, with fond regards) 2
1977
Not on view
Date
1977
Classification
Sculpture
Medium
Pink, yellow, and red fluorescent lights
Dimensions
Overall: 96 3/16 × 96 × 9in. (244.3 × 243.8 × 22.9 cm)
Accession number
78.57
Edition
Ed. 3
Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Louis and Bessie Adler Foundation, Inc., Seymour M. Klein, President, the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation, Inc., by exchange, and gift of Peter M. Brant, by exchange
Rights and reproductions
© Estate of Dan Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York
By the mid-1970s, Dan Flavin was working on a larger scale, which heightened the luminosity of his sculptures. Untitled (for Robert, with fond regards) is one of Flavin’s most elaborate corner grid configurations from this period. This 8-by-8-foot example was fabricated in an edition of three (a group of 4-by-4-foot versions have also been made). Flavin described the notable characteristics of the work, citing its “rich contrast, front over rear, and an optical interplay, pink on yellow backgrounded by the red, all modified by reflected color mixes and shadows of the grid structure itself.” “As an ensemble,” he remarked, “this intense fluorescent light use/abuse seems to be rare in my production.” As is common in Flavin’s practice, the work is dedicated to a friend: Robert Skolnick, the artist’s former long-time assistant, who had previously been an art handler at the Whitney.
