Author Description

Described by fellow artist Mel Bochner as “one of the first artists to make use of a basically progressional procedure,” influential Minimalist artist Dan Flavin was known for his systematic arrangement of color and light. This major monograph was published on the occasion of Dan Flavin: Series and Progressions—the first exhibition of the artist’s work held in 2009 at David Zwirner in New York since the gallery announced its representation of Dan Flavin. Featuring over fifty full-color plates of exemplary works made between 1963 and 1990, in addition to a comprehensive selection of installation views, archival photographs, and documents, this publication carefully examines Flavin’s use of progressions and serial structures, ideas that were central to his practice throughout his career. It also describes how his manipulations of color and light were aspects of his work that not only led to it being characterized as Minimal art but came to define and influence Conceptual artistic practices. Dan Flavin: Series and Progressions includes new scholarship by noted Flavin scholar and curator Tiffany Bell (author of the artist’s catalogue raisonné), Anne Rorimer, Richard Shiff, and Alexandra Whitney; an interview with Dan Graham; and a facsimile of the original catalogue from Flavin’s 1967–1968 exhibition alternating pink and ‘gold,’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Additional context is provided by a detailed illustrated chronology, which documents historical exhibitions of Flavin’s work.