Pinakothek der Moderne Shows Dan Flavin ~ Retrospective

Munich, Germany - Dan Flavin | Retrospective is the first comprehensive show of the works by the great American artist Dan Flavin in Germany and the largest exhibition at the Pinakothek der Moderne since its opening four years ago.  Dan Flavin (1933- 1996), who died ten years ago on the 29th November1996, was a key figure in 20th century art and a bold protagonist of completely new artistic terrain.  Dan Flavin’s art is stunningly simple.  It has though, a radically explosive effect on our powers of perception and consciousness.  Duration of exhibition: until 3 April, 2007.

What for painters of icons was the use of gold, for the Impressionists the variety of daylight, for Matisse the luminosity of pure color – that was for Dan Flavin the fluorescent light tube.  This banal object that illuminates every supermarket in democratic uniformity was the main material he worked with from 1963 onwards.  Through his use of fluorescent light he investigated the quality and expressive intensity of light in an equally comprehensive and striking way.  At the same time, he redefined the boundaries of painting and sculpture.  His works open up new dimensions in perceptions of space.  Such a unique transformation is to be undergone by the Pinakothek der Moderne.  It is devoting more than half of its gallery rooms on the upper floor to the presentation of this outstanding life’s work.

Installed along the 140-metre central axis of the Pinakothek der Moderne are 24 »›monuments‹ for Vladimir Tatlin«.  Never before have the variations of this series of predominantly 1960’s works been presented so impressively and on such a broad scale as they are now in Munich.  The shape and color of these works exert, just as Flavin intended, such a state of tension that the whole of the first floor in the Pinakothek appears to pulsate.

In the course of the exhibition the oeuvre of the artist unfolds.  It is a stroke of particular good fortune that the entire group of Flavin’s earliest experiments with artificial light, the eight »Icons« created between1961 and 1964, marks the beginning of the presentation.  Not since their inception have these extremely fragile and precious works from the early period of Minimal Art been shown together.  Except for one, the exhibits are held in private collections and not normally considered available for loan.  Two of them belonged to Flavin’s friend Donald Judd, today the Judd Foundation.

A further highlight is the reconstruction of a Flavin exhibition that took place in the influential Munich gallery of Heiner Friedrich in 1968.  These and other works, in which the shape and color of the fluorescent light tubes are subtly explored in conjunction with the building’s architecture, stand in striking contrast to monumental installations that form aggressive barriers to rooms or flood their interiors with color.

Staging this capital exhibition gives the Pinakothek der Moderne the opportunity to emphasize a focal point of its collection work.  In 2002 it succeeded in anchoring permanently into the collection the room of the »›monuments‹ for Vladimir Tatlin«, which was conceived by Dan Flavin in 1970.  Up till then the four component pieces of this installation had been held separately in a number of private collections.  In 2004, there then followed the generous loan from Dan Flavin’s son Stephen of the room with ultraviolet fluorescent light.  This was first realized in 1968 for the Documenta 4 in Kassel and was reconstructed on exactly the same scale as the original for Munich.  The permanent display of these important works, which serve as ideal examples of the artist’s versatility, allows for a constant dialogue with central acquisitions of recent years such as the great room installations of Donald Judd and Fred Sandback.  The Pinakothek der Moderne today is one of the most important venues for encountering American Minimal Art.

Dan Flavin | Retrospective was prepared in collaboration with the New York Dia Art Foundation and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. It marks the final stage of an exhibition tour that moved from American museums to the Hayward Gallery in London and then on to the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.  By extending the size of the exhibition by almost 40 percent this show is by far the most comprehensive of the tour.

Thanks to the generous support of Philip Morris GmbH | Kunstförderung foundation and also a patron who wishes to remain anonymous, it has been possible to realize the exhibition in Munich.  Further support has come from cooperation with the company Zumtobel Lighting GmbH.

On the American side, the exhibition and catalogue received funding from the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Lannan Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts.

Curators of the exhibition:

Corinna Thierolf (chief curator at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich), Tiffany Bell (author of the Dan Flavin catalogue raisonné), Michael Govan (since March 2006 Director of the L.A. County Museum, Los Angeles, previously Director of the Dia Art Foundation, New York.  Visit Pinakothek der Moderne at : www.pinakothek.de