“One might not think of light as a matter of fact, but I do. And it is, as I said, as plain and open and direct an art as you will ever find.”

DAN FLAVIN, 1987

Dan Flavin’s oeuvre of radical sculptures of light holistically embodies the profound reduction of the processes of his art, peeled away until little but the objective elements of formal framework remain. Perpetually operating and communicating within the spaces in which they are installed, Flavin’s works test the perceptual strength of their audience. Rejecting an object’s relationship to natural light in the manner of Impressionism, Flavin creates art using light itself, functioning both as actor and reactor. When perceived in terms of this methodology the artist’s venture is comparable to that of the work of Abstract Expressionism, particularly Mark Rothko’s color fields, but Flavin’s creations are nothing short of authentic three-dimensional enunciations of color and of light, transcendent and concrete all at once.

In the present lot Untitled (For Ksenija), the industrial standard lamps are metamorphic in their delicate glow, radiating a cool, pure yet striking light that is largely detached from subtle realities of natural light. As viewers’ eyes follow the colored fluorescent tubes, from an electric blue to a lime green, on to chartreuse yellow then to a cerise pink, punctuated by a larger emerald green form, the individual colors emanating from the illumination progressively become organic, as space and light seem inextricably intertwined. Dedicated to his friend, the model Ksenija Protic, the present lot is an otherworldly celebration of primary hues without pretense, a triumph of nothing more than color for the sake of color. As eloquently described by Tiffany Bell, “Flavin’s response to changing contexts and his resistance to chronology and formal development enable his lights to transcend time. Just as you cannot really delineate the material boundaries of a Flavin installation, you cannot pinpoint the precise moment of its making. The lights shine in a continuous present.” (T. Bell, “Fluorescent Light as Art”, from Dan Flavin: The Complete Lights, 1961-1996, New York, 2004, p. 127)