Dan Flavin
26 Jul - 07 Sep 2014
DAN FLAVIN
Untitled (for Ksenija)
26 July – 7 September 2014
Dan Flavin (1933 – 1996) developed his expansive light installation UNTITLED (FOR KSENIJA) in 1994 on occasion of the inauguration of the Kunstbau, an underground space the architect Uwe Kiessler had transformed into an exhibition gallery. Heiner and Philippa Friedrich, New York, donated the work to the Lenbachhaus in memory of their parents, Erika and Harald Friedrich and Dominique and John de Menil.
Flavin was a leading representative of minimal art. The central idea of this art movement is the radical reduction of the visual means to the objective qualities of simple formal structures. The works are manufactured to industrial standards, effacing all design features that would suggest individual authorship. Flavin’s four luminous lines respond to the specific architectural situation inside the Kunstbau and emphasize the characteristic curvature of the elongated gallery, which measures around 360 feet in length. The colorful light engenders intense chromatic reflections and suffuses the space with a distinctive atmosphere.
As an hommage to Dan Flavin’s UNTITLED (FOR KSENIJA) a series of performances such as works of American postmodern dance and new contemporary pieces were staged at the Kunstbau. The Lenbachhaus and JOINT ADVENTURES organized a variety of formats of presentation and reflection to survey the new modes of artistic work and perception evolving beyond the bounds of the defined disciplines in art, with a particular view to the role of the choreographic register. The point of departure for this collaborative project was a key moment in the histories of dance as well as art: the Judson Dance Theatre (1962 – 1964), where visual artists and choreographers set up a multiyear laboratory in which they explored the boundaries between the disciplines.
Untitled (for Ksenija)
26 July – 7 September 2014
Dan Flavin (1933 – 1996) developed his expansive light installation UNTITLED (FOR KSENIJA) in 1994 on occasion of the inauguration of the Kunstbau, an underground space the architect Uwe Kiessler had transformed into an exhibition gallery. Heiner and Philippa Friedrich, New York, donated the work to the Lenbachhaus in memory of their parents, Erika and Harald Friedrich and Dominique and John de Menil.
Flavin was a leading representative of minimal art. The central idea of this art movement is the radical reduction of the visual means to the objective qualities of simple formal structures. The works are manufactured to industrial standards, effacing all design features that would suggest individual authorship. Flavin’s four luminous lines respond to the specific architectural situation inside the Kunstbau and emphasize the characteristic curvature of the elongated gallery, which measures around 360 feet in length. The colorful light engenders intense chromatic reflections and suffuses the space with a distinctive atmosphere.
As an hommage to Dan Flavin’s UNTITLED (FOR KSENIJA) a series of performances such as works of American postmodern dance and new contemporary pieces were staged at the Kunstbau. The Lenbachhaus and JOINT ADVENTURES organized a variety of formats of presentation and reflection to survey the new modes of artistic work and perception evolving beyond the bounds of the defined disciplines in art, with a particular view to the role of the choreographic register. The point of departure for this collaborative project was a key moment in the histories of dance as well as art: the Judson Dance Theatre (1962 – 1964), where visual artists and choreographers set up a multiyear laboratory in which they explored the boundaries between the disciplines.