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Dan Flavin Art

American, 1933-1996
Dan Flavin (1933-1996) was a prominent American artist best known for his illuminated light installations and sculptural fixtures. A pioneer of minimalism, Flavin repurposed commonplace industrial objects, such as harsh fluorescent lights, into transformative geometric installations. In the spirit of Marcel Duchamp's readymades, Flavin refrained from altering the objects and went as far as employing factory default colors for his strict palette of red, blue, green, pink, yellow, ultraviolet, and four different shades of white. Flavin's geometric compositions were an explicit study of color, light, and space. With almost no technical production required, Flavin was able to prioritize the installation and arrangement of the materials, focusing on how they cooperated with the space and the way the display might be experienced by the viewer.
(Biography provided by Caviar20)
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Artist: Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin, For Circular Fluorescent Light Of One Wall - Signed Print
By Dan Flavin
Located in Hamburg, DE
Dan Flavin (American, 1933-1996) For Circular Fluorescent Light Of One Wall, 1974 Medium: Lithograph on wove paper Dimensions: 18.5 x 31.5 cm Edition of 45: Hand-signed, titled and d...
Category

20th Century Minimalist Dan Flavin Art

Materials

Lithograph

Historic invitation poster for 1970 ACE Gallery exhibition Minimalist light art
By Dan Flavin
Located in New York, NY
Dan Flavin Rare invitation poster for 1970 ACE Gallery exhibition, 1970 Letterpress and stencil on colored paper Not signed Frame included Floated in the original ACE gallery vintage wood frame. Measurements: Framed: 17.75" x 17.75" x 1.6 inches Poster: 16 inches x 16 inches Extremely uncommon letterpress and stencil poster designed by Dan Flavin on the occasion of his 1970 exhibition “Two Cornered Installations in Colored Fluorescent Light from Dan Flavin” at the legendary Ace Gallery in Los Angeles. The poster, like most exhibition invitations of that era (including those from the Leo Castelli gallery in New York) was undated, as these works were so much of the moment. This work was acquired directly from the collection of the ACE Gallery. Other than the present work, we've never seen another example of this collectors item anywhere in the world, on or off the market (If anyone is aware of others, we'd love to see!) More about the legendary ACE gallery, and the sale of some of its art collection from the bankruptcy estate, from where the present work was acquired: ACE Gallery founder Douglas Chrismas opened his own frame shop and gallery in Vancouver at the age of 17. His gallery became known as a venue where Vancouver artists could show alongside major New Yorkers, and get the feeling of belonging to a bigger scene. In the 60s and early 70s he brought artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman, and Donald Judd to Vancouver, Canada. The gallery expanded to Los Angeles in 1967 at the former Virginia Dwan Gallery space in Westwood, and then further expanded to New York in 1994. The galleries were noted for doing museum-level exhibitions by up and coming and internationally renowned artists. While in New York the gallery’s presence was amplified by doing exhibitions in conjunction with cultural institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum and the Cartier Foundation (Paris). Under Chrismas' directorship, ACE Gallery has had either offices or galleries in art centers outside of the United States, such as Mexico City, Paris, Berlin. and Beijing. In 1972, Chrismas mounted Robert Irwin’s installation Room Angle Light Volume at the first ACE/Venice, which opened at 72 Market Street in 1971. In 1977, ACE mounted exhibitions of work by Frank Stella and Robert Motherwell, along with Michael Heizer’s Displaced/Replaced Mass. Installed at ACE/Venice, the Heizer piece required that huge chunks be gouged out of the gallery floor to create recessed areas able to accommodate boulders. In April 2016, ACE Gallery emerged from a three-year bankruptcy proceeding under the leadership of Sam S. Leslie. In May 2016, founder Douglas Chrismas was terminated from all roles at the gallery. In July 2021, Douglas Chrismas was arrested by the FBI and charged with embezzlement. In May 2022, Douglas Chrismas was ordered to repay 14.2 million in ACE art sale profits, which were diverted to personal accounts. Chrismas is awaiting criminal trial in January, 2023. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Controversies In a 1983 lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court, Rauschenberg sought $500,000 from Chrismas' Flow ACE Gallery; the artist won a $140,000 judgment in the suit in 1984. Eventually the two reconciled their differences and in 1997 Robert Rauschenberg insisted that ACE Gallery New York (in conjunction with the Guggenheim Museum) host his Retrospective. In 1986, Chrismas pleaded no contest after Canadian real estate developer C. Frederick Stimpson alleged that he had improperly sold work belonging to the collector, among them pieces by Andy Warhol and Rauschenberg. Under the terms of the settlement, Chrismas agreed to pay Stimpson $650,000 over a period of five years. He continues to work with the Stimpson family in handling their art interests. In 1989, ACE Gallery wanted to borrow a work by Judd along with Carl Andre's 1968 Fall, both owned by Count Giuseppe Panza, for an exhibition devoted to minimal art called The Innovators Entering into the Sculpture. Rather than shipping the two large scale works from Italy, Panza authorized ACE Gallery to refabricate the pieces in Los Angeles. In Panza's collection archives, there is a series of signed certificates signed by Judd that granted Panza broad authority over the works by Judd in his collection. These certificates "authorized Panza and followers to reconstruct work for a variety of reasons," as long as instructions and documentation provided by Judd were followed and either he or his estate was notified. This even included the right to make "temporary exhibition copies, as long as the temporary copy was destroyed after the exhibition; and the right to recreate the work to save expense and difficulty in transportation as long as the original was then destroyed." Miwon Kwon, in her account of site specificity: "One Place After Another," presents the account of ACE Gallery recreating artworks by Donald Judd and Carl Andre without the artist's permission. Andre and Judd both publicly denounced these recreations as "a gross falsification" and a "forgery," in letters to Art in America, however, the fabrication of the pieces were permitted by Panza Collection in Italy, the owner of the works. Despite the confusion surrounding the Panza refabrications, both Carl Andre and Donald Judd maintained a professional relationship with Douglas Chrismas and ACE Gallery. Andre showcased works at ACE Gallery in 1997, 2002, 2007, 2011 and present day. In 2007, Carl Andre's show entitled "Zinc" was exhibited at ACE Gallery in Beverly Hills. Donald Judd paid a visit to The Innovators Entering into the Sculpture exhibition at ACE Gallery and agreed to keep his sculpture in the exhibition. After the exhibition was over, Chrismas planned to sell the metal used for the re-fabrication of Judd's work for scrap metal but Judd wanted to own the re-fabrication for himself. ACE Gallery then sold the re-fabrication of Donald Judd's work to Donald Judd. After having consigned more than $4 million worth of art to ACE Gallery to sell in 1997 and 1998, the sculptor Jannis Kounellis filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court in 2006, accusing Chrismas of keeping most of the profits of artworks and refusing to return the pieces that did not sell. According to the lawsuit, the primary agreement between Kounellis and Chrismas was oral. Chrismas returned all of Kouenllis' artwork, and did a full accounting of the proceeds from Kounellis' work—minus the expense of exhibiting it. The matter was resolved between the two of them and ACE Gallery still sells and exhibits Kounellis' work today. By 2006, Chrismas had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at least six times since 1982, barring most of his creditors from collecting the money immediately owed to them. Chrismas filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to protect the gallery's extensive real estate holdings from the problematic landlord. The landlord of the Wilshire Boulevard space, Wilshire Dunsmuir Company, claimed that ACE owed back rent and penalties however, the claim was disputed by Douglas Chrismas. In court papers, Chrismas Fine Art claimed that it would cure "the pre-petition" debt by Feb. 1, 2000, and was asking the court to protect its right to remain in the property. A declaration filed by Douglas Chrismas characterized this leasehold as the business' primary asset. -Courtesy Wikipedia About Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (1933–1996) was a pioneer of Minimal Art. He rose to fame in the 1960s with his work with industrially manufactured fluorescent tubes, inventing a new art form and securing his place in art history. The exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel focuses on his works that are dedicated to other artists or make reference to certain events. Back in 1963 Dan Flavin mounted a single, industrial fluorescent light tube at a 45-degree angle to the wall of his studio declaring it art; the act was radical, and it still is. Indeed, it was owing to this action that standard commercial products would be introduced into art: The nascent Minimal Art of the era emphasised seriality, reduction and matter-of-factness. Somewhat ironically, while the autodidact Flavin never himself sought membership to this movement in art, he would, and quite literally, go on to become one of its most illustrious exponents. Flavin began work with fluorescent light tubes from the early 1960s on; arranged in so-called ‘situations’, he would then further develop them into series and large-scale installations. The colours and dimensions of the materials he used were prescribed by industrial production. Flooded in light, viewers themselves become part of the works: The space, along with the objects within it, are set in relation to each other and thus become immersive experiences of art triggering sensual, almost spiritual experiences. Flavin liberated color from the two-dimensionality of painting. The prevalent perception of his light works has, to date, largely centred on their minimalist, industrial aspect, and thus on the inherent simplicity of their beauty. The exhibition at Kunstmuseum Basel, by contrast, places emphasis on looking at Flavin’s oeuvre in a less familiar setting: His pieces, although initially without clearly recognisable signature, frequently make reference in their titles to concrete events, such as wartime atrocities or police violence, or are dedicated to other artists—as in the work untitled (in memory of Urs Graf...
Category

1970s Minimalist Dan Flavin Art

Materials

Etching, Stencil

Rare Albright Knox museum poster (hand signed and inscribed to renowned curator)
By Dan Flavin
Located in New York, NY
Dan Flavin Dan Flavin at Albright Knox Gallery (hand signed and inscribed to renowned curator) Offset Lithograph. Hand signed and inscribed by Dan Flavin 18 × 22 inches Provenance: Estate of artist and collector Rick Collar Unframed Uniquely inscribed and hand signed 1972 Dan Flavin exhibition poster from his Albright Knox exhibition. Dan Flavin hand signs and inscribes it to Paulus Hendrik Hefting, the curator of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. The inscription reads: "Best regards and best wishes to you especially in "diagrams and drawings". What Flavin is referring to is the important exhibition also in 1972, "Diagrams & Drawings" curated by Hefting, at the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller (Netherlands), which featured Carl Andre, Christo, Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, Michael Heizer, Don Judd, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson. An extremely rare signed poster with a unique inscription to a major European curator referencing an historic Minimalist exhibition in the early 1970s. We may not see the likes of something like this anytime soon! Dan Flavin Biography From 1963, when he conceived the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi), a single gold fluorescent lamp installed diagonally on the wall, until his death in 1996, Dan Flavin (1933-1996) produced a singularly consistent and prodigious body of work that utilized commercially available fluorescent lamps to create installations (or “situations,” as he preferred to call them) of light and color. Through these light constructions, Flavin was able to establish and redefine space. Flavin’s first solo exhibitions were held at the Judson Gallery in 1961 and the Green Gallery in 1964, both in New York. His first European exhibition was in 1966 at Galerie Rudolf Zwirner in Cologne, Germany; and in 1969, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, organized his first major museum retrospective. His work was included in a number of key early exhibitions of Minimal art in the 1960s, among them Black, White, and Gray (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, 1964); Primary Structures (The Jewish Museum, New York, 1966); and Minimal Art (Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, 1968). Flavin’s work would continue to be presented internationally over the course of the pursuant decades at venues including the St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri (1973); Kunsthalle Basel (1975); Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1975); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1986); and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1992), among others. A major museum retrospective devoted to Flavin’s work was organized, in cooperation with the Estate of Dan Flavin, by the Dia Art Foundation in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, where it was first on view in 2004. The exhibition traveled from 2005 to 2007 to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Hayward Gallery, London; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris...
Category

1970s Abstract Geometric Dan Flavin Art

Materials

Pencil, Lithograph, Offset

Dan Flavin, Untitled (Triptych): 3 Aquatint Prints, Abstract Art, Minimalism
By Dan Flavin
Located in Hamburg, DE
Dan Flavin (American, 1933-1996) Untitled (Triptych), 1996-98 Medium: Set of three aquatints on handmade rag paper Dimensions: each 50 x 40 cm (19.75 x 15.75 in) Edition of 60: Each ...
Category

Late 20th Century Abstract Dan Flavin Art

Materials

Aquatint

Dan Flavin, A Sketch of The Diagonal of May 25, 1963 in Fluorescent Light
By Dan Flavin
Located in Hamburg, DE
Dan Flavin (American, 1933-1996) A Sketch of The Diagonal of May 25, 1963 in Fluorescent Light, 1974 Medium: Lithograph on wove paper Dimensions: 18.5 x 31.5 cm Edition of 45: Hand-s...
Category

20th Century Minimalist Dan Flavin Art

Materials

Lithograph

Dan Flavin, Untitled (Sheet 10 from Projects 1963-1995), Minimalism, Abstract
By Dan Flavin
Located in Hamburg, DE
Dan Flavin (American, 1933-1996) Untitled (Sheet 10 from Projects 1963-1995), 1997 Medium: Etching and aquatint on rag paper Dimensions: 52.1 × 66 cm (20 1/2 × 26 in) Edition of 36: ...
Category

20th Century Minimalist Dan Flavin Art

Materials

Etching, Aquatint

Dan Flavin: A Retrospective Poster /// Contemporary Abstract Light Sculpture Art
By Dan Flavin
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: (after) Dan Flavin (American, 1933-1996) Title: "Dan Flavin: A Retrospective" Year: 2004 Medium: Original Offset-Lithograph, Exhibition Poster on heavy smooth wove paper Limi...
Category

Early 2000s Minimalist Dan Flavin Art

Materials

Lithograph, Offset

Dan Flavin: The 1964 Green Gallery Exhibition, 2008; new, unopened
By Dan Flavin
Located in New York, NY
Dan Flavin: The 1964 Green Gallery Exhibition, 2008 Text by Jeffrey Weiss unopened, new, in original shrink wrap Publisher: Steidl/Zwirner & Wirth Artis...
Category

Early 2000s Dan Flavin Art

Materials

Lithograph

Untitled (Triptych)
By Dan Flavin
Located in New York, NY
1996-98 Three aquatints printed from two to three plates each on Twinrocker handmade rag paper Sheet: 19 3/4 x 15 3/4 in. (50.2 x 40 cm), each Edition of 60 Each numbered and estate ...
Category

1990s Minimalist Dan Flavin Art

Materials

Aquatint

Untitled (Triptych)
By Dan Flavin
Located in New York, NY
Three aquatints printed from two to three plates each on Twinrocker handmade rag paper Sheet: 19 3/4 x 15 3/4 in. (50 x 40 cm), each Edition of 60 Each print numbered and estate sign...
Category

1990s Abstract Dan Flavin Art

Materials

Aquatint

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Previously Available Items
Jewish Museum Retrospective Poster
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Located in Toronto, Ontario
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Category

1970s Minimalist Dan Flavin Art

Materials

Lithograph

Untitled -- Print, Screen Print, Figure, Tatlin, Light, Minimalist by Dan Flavin
By Dan Flavin
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1970s Minimalist Dan Flavin Art

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Screen

For One Walled Circular Fluorescent Light
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Suite of five lithographs with original title page and portfolio box. Each 22 1/8 x 30" Edition of 35
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Dan Flavin Art

Dan Flavin art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Dan Flavin art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of blue and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Dan Flavin in aquatint, etching, lithograph and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the minimalist style. Not every interior allows for large Dan Flavin art, so small editions measuring 11 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Joel Shapiro, Richard Tuttle, and Omar Rayo. Dan Flavin art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $250 and tops out at $10,000, while the average work can sell for $4,671.

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