The need to hold the world in our hands and possess what we can never own, including great works of art, has helped drive technological development in the graphic arts. The paintings and sculptures of the great masters are often confined to the austere halls and storage facilities of the world’s artistic institutions, or the walls and closets of the wealthy elite. Most of us will never own a painting of Monet or a sculpture of Rodin. As we discussed in previous posts, it was not until the advent of chromolithography, then later photography, and process color printing, that these works could be copied and reproduced to satisfy the public’s need to posses them. Printing technology brought art to the world, making both the ownership and study of art available to the masses.

Paintings are well suited for two-dimensional reproduction; but the same cannot be said for all forms of art. Artists in 20^th century began exploring the meaning of art and the use of common industrial materials in their work, expanding beyond traditional forms and materials. Among the most innovative artists was Dan Flavin, who created art from white and colored  fluorescent tubes. His works were not only defined by the materials he used, but by how they blended into their environment and connected to viewers through their luminosity.

However, Dan Flavin’s works, by his use of fluorescent lamps, present a problem for art conservators. How does one copy, preserve, and study works that exist in a dimension beyond 2D and 3D space, that change over time, and from installation to installation? This was the question posed to me as I began my doctoral research at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). I had just finished my Masters in Color Science at the Munsell Color Science Laboratory and decided to continue on to the doctoral program. The conservation of Dan Flavin’s work was a topic of conversation in the art conservation community and would have benefited from the focused attention of a graduate student. After a year of research, the fates took me down a different path and I left RIT to work full time. By that time, I had spent a year studying Dan Flavin’s work and methods used by photographers to reproduce it. This would have been the foundation for my dissertation proposal had I completed it. Instead, the draft proposal sat on a hard drive in my closet for eight years. This past month, I dug that proposal out of its digital grave and rediscovered my love of Flavin’s work. I never imagined that I would take up writing history as a hobby, but I felt this website would be the perfect platform to bring my early research to the public.

This article explores the work of Dan Flavin, its impact on color perception, and how publishers and galleries sought to reproduce works of art that were impossible to reproduce. Many of us embark on journeys we are never able to complete, but the work we complete along the way is no less valuable. I hope that by making this unfinished work public, it might inspire others to see the value in their own unfinished works.

Flavin’s Philosophy

Linear fluorescent lamps were first commercialized and widely sold in the 1930’s.^​1​ Dan Flavin was one of the first to reveal that fluorescent lamps could stand for more than the steady drone of an eight-hour workday. He found beauty in what was a cold and accepted part of life. Until Flavin began using them in his art, the public’s experience with linear fluorescent lamps was limited to industrial and office settings. Even now, fluorescent lamps are accepted as a precondition to life in an office environment. However, as Jean-Louis Bourgeois stated in the April 1970 issue of Art Forum, “If ecology can refer to our everyday urban experience as much as to distant wilderness, then electric light is as crucial a man-made resource as water and sunlight are natural ones. We spend a large part of our waking lives in light conditions which Flavin’s mastery of the genre now reveals to be sterile and ugly”.^​2​

Flavin was an educated and thoughtful man. Between the late fifties to the early sixties, he evolved into an artist known for his use of commercially available linear fluorescent fixtures and lamps. Flavin’s breakthrough came in 1963 when he mounted a single eight-foot yellow linear fluorescent tube on the wall of his studio called, the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi).

Flavin said of the diagonal, “The radiant tube and the shadow cast by its supporting pan seemed ironic enough to hold alone. There was literally no need to compose this system definitely; it seemed to sustain itself directly, dynamically, dramatically, in my workroom wall….”.^​3​

The quote above echoes what was a common theme among those artists critically grouped into the minimalist school: the celebration of form in commercially available industrial materials instead of traditional artists materials. Flavin further departed from traditional artistic practice in that he was not the primary maker of his art. His art was conceptualized as diagrams carefully drawn on paper, an example of which was shown in a 2012 New York Times article. (A collection of Dan Flavin drawings is presented in the 2012 book, Dan Flavin: Drawing).

These diagrams aided his assistants and gallery electricians in the constriction of his works. Flavin oversaw the construction of these works, but was mostly hands-off. He was not rigid with respect to change and welcomed the opportunity to revise a work’s design once it was constructed and he got a better sense of the relationship between the work and the space. He referred to his works as “proposals”.^​4,5​ There was nothing final about anything he created. The same proposal could show up in two different galleries or museums looking completely different (Bell, 2004, p114).^​6​ A white tube may be been switched for a blue tube, for example. However, as Wilson wrote, “Each work represents his clear decision…and his work as an artist is the work of deciding what to put and where. As a maker, what he makes are clear decisions”.^​4​ Flavin admitted to the difficulty of fixing his designs to the walls, especially those not flush with the surface. Whether the lamps were on or not, fixture design was important to Flavin, as he said, “I aim constantly for clarity and distinction first in the pattern of the tubes and then with that of the supporting pans.” ^​7​

Though the light has so often been the object of metaphors throughout history—for religion, for spirituality, for knowledge—Flavin sought to completely remove the metaphorical attribution of his work. Like other ‘minimalists,’ his philosophy would most concisely be described by the phrase, “The fewer parts the better, because with fewer parts you can more surely grasp the whole. It is what it is, and it ain’t nothin’ else.”^​8​ The aggressiveness of this statement is in line with Flavin’s sharply written responses to critics attempting to impose significant meaning on his proposals. To one New York Times critic who dismissed his art as non-art, he wrote, “You must contain uniquely stupendous information to enable you to recognize who is an artist and not, and therefore, what his art may be.”^​7​ Flavin’s rejection of critical attempts to analyze his art and his creation of art from the most reductive materials made him a unique enterprise in the world of art history.  There was no easily identifiable influence and no hand-craftmanship to critique.^​4​ It was simple to arrest any attempt at formal analysis. As the critic Jack Burnham stated in 1969, “if a certain critic becomes fascinated with the illusional qualities of his arrangements, Flavin is there to remind him that, after all, these are merely stock fixtures purchasable in any hardware store.”^​9​

The art community, so used to placing artists in categories, defaulted to the category of “minimalism” for placement of Flavin and his contemporaries, though they shared more in philosophy than style and artistic medium.^​10​ Flavin was adamant in his dismissal of this categorization. “I try never to acknowledge “isms” on art because of their usual unanimous inaccuracy,” he said.^​7​ Museums were similarly at a loss. To one museum that held a minimalist exhibition, Flavin wrote “Somehow, I look forward to that time when museum people listening to artists, not critics, will realize that if their institutions are to survive, they must keep operations as flexible as possible or in order to accommodate art as artists present it instead of imposing premature group conclusions through fad fatuous ‘theme’ show business.”^​7​

One reason why critics were so quick to analyze Flavin’s work was his use of light and the relationship they had with the work. The relationship between the viewer and traditional art forms, such as painting and sculpture, is one-sided. The space of the painting is confined by the frame and the relationship between the viewer and the painting is one of subject and observer. Flavin’s work promotes a two-way relationship between object, space, and viewer. ^​11​The fluorescent lamps were not important as objects, but as the producers of light. “Flavin…replaces colored pigment with colored light. In this way color does not define the object; the tube itself is color, and its light goes beyond the object itself.”^​11​ The viewer, standing before a Flavin proposal, is at once part of the work.  As said by Plagens, “The insistent rays of an irradiant work of art deprive the spectator of even his sure ground as the seer by rendering him, too, as a possible object.”^​12​ The light illuminates the viewer, as it does the space. However, outside of this physical interaction, there are a variety of opinions as to the proper action of the viewer.

Flavin always intended short-lived moments of observation, “get in and get out situations.”^​7​ Such a short viewing period leaves little time for contemplation. Flavin even admitted that he expected long visual exposure to his proposals would be uncomfortable to viewers due to the high light intensity and lamp flicker. His proposals were a “direct and difficult visual artifice.”^​7​ Any emotional relationship the viewer has with the art is merely a by-product of the art’s presence, a result of being human.^​11​ Flavin understood what it was to be human, that viewers would move throughout his spaces, and that viewers would have an emotional response to his work. He sought not to control emotion or elicit an illusional response. When asked by Phyllis Tuchman in a 1972 interview about change in color appearance when viewers changed their standing position, Flavin responded, “That’s not something I care about in a deliberate way. It sounds mostly incidental to me in terms of thinking about it. I knew there would be color interchanging before I did anything there.”^​13​ His control ended at the retina.

While the interaction between observer and art was expected to be short-lived, the relationship between art and environment is symbiotic. There was an ever-present dialogue between his proposals and the space in which they were installed (Govan, 2004, p.65).^​5​ His respect of the architecture went so far as to allow window-light to incorporate into the space as it naturally occurred, adding complexity to his designs (Govan, 2004, p.96-97).^​5​ Flavin was against the use of the term ‘environment’ to describe the space of his installations, which he felt implied a prolonged and comfortable experience of the viewer. The architectural spaces were instead referred to as ‘situations’, which has a more factual and short-lived implication.^​14​ While Flavin’s proposals refer to the conceptual rendering of all of his designs, his situations refer to an installation. Unlike those proposals mounted on a single wall, which serve to accent the architecture, Flavin’s situations become part of the architecture (Govan, 2004, p.80).^​5​ Flavin carefully arranged his large exhibitions, ‘expositions,’ as he called them, considering the movement of viewer through his spaces. Brydon Smith described the design of Flavin’s 1969 National Gallery of Canada exhibition:

Flavin planned eight special installations, or “situations” as he preferred to call them, for various spaces…on the fourth and fifth floors of the National Gallery. I will turn first to his sequencing of three of these installations at the back of the fourth floor. Untitled (to Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein on not seeing anyone in the room)…had been shown earlier in 1968 at the Dawn Gallery in New York…The specially constructed space was the first in the sequence of three. As you walked past the room, brightly lit with eighteen cool white fluorescent lights, you could only see into it between the backs of the 8-foot-high fixtures that barred you from entering. You then proceeded through a draped entrance into an existing gallery space that contained alternating pink and yellow (to Joseph Halmy). This work consisted of 2-foot fixtures placed around the perimeter of the room at floor level. You then passed through another curtained doorway into another existing gallery space with an artificial barrier of green fluorescent light (to Trudie and Enno Deverling). Flavin had intentionally designed this sequence to be a perceptual experience of coming and going back from the brightly illuminated room of white light you passed into the pink and yellow instillation, which appeared to cast a very pale orange light that filled the entire room. From there you entered into the installation with the strong green light, which temporarily affected your color vision, so when you returned back through the alternating pink and yellow, the pale orange was replaced by bright red rose, while the cool white light at the far end of the barred room appeared a very pale rose.^​14​

The highly affected perceptual experience of observers was a common theme of Flavin’s designs. Flavin never rejected this experience but acknowledged it merely as fact.^​15​ Smith referred to the work, Untitled (to Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein on not seeing anyone in the room).

This piece is an early work illustrating what would become a common theme in Flavin’s work, that of barring a viewer’s entrance through a corridor. As a viewer peered into this empty room illuminated only by a bank of eight-foot fluorescent tubes mounted in the doorway and facing away from the viewer, “the apparent specific simple act of ‘cool white’ light particularizing the available room is not accounted for. Also, paradoxically, the ‘appeal’ of the so palpably illuminated interior is physically denied by the barrier structure of the light-providing lamps themselves.”^​16​ Flavin’s work was filled with irony of this sort. One of his most famous series of pieces, “monuments” for V. Tatlin, was dedicated to the Russian constructivist Vladimir Tatlin, who, in the early twentieth century, designed The Monument to the Third International, a.k.a. Tatlin’s Tower (Govan, 2004).^​5​

Though the tower never originated, it was envisioned as a mass of steel, iron, glass, and other materials, and represented the revolutionary times in Russia. Flavin’s monuments, however, were not permanent. The art, in its original form, lasted only as long as the tubes survived and the fixtures could be maintained.  Flavin stated, “I always use ‘monuments’ in quotes to emphasize the ironic humor of temporary monuments. These ‘monuments’ only survive as long as the light system is useful (2100 hours)” (Govan, 2004, p.45).^​5​ Flavin’s art is ephemeral. He was conscious of the fact that his proposals had a limited lifespan and that, without the light, the tubes lacked meaning (Bell, 2004, p.112).^​6​ He compared his work to that of traveling minstrels who would present a song then leave without a record of that song having ever been sung.

Most sculpture of the time, whether carved in stone or molded in bronze or clay, shared more in common with Tatlin’s Tower than Flavin’s proposals, which were often referred to as sculptures for lack of a better category. As Barbara Reise stated in 1969,

Flavin is concerned more with the character of a particular place than with the immutability of object: his installations are only sometimes transferable, his lamps have a more limited life-span than a marble block, and his art only truly operates when it is switched on. Then one realizes that one’s eyes are being riveted by the lamps objects as radiant ‘lines’ whose emanated light physically pervades one’s space, activating and almost tangibly bathing the whole situation (people, architecture, and space itself) with a coloured artificiality which is beautifully extraordinary.^​17​

Flavin was a master of transforming space and the use of color. As gained experience working with fluorescent lamps through his career, he could often imagine how a proposal would work in a space without being in the space. He learned the dominance of the green lamps over the red, that other colors would downplay the red, and that pink and blue tend to complement each other and sometimes fuse.^​13​

Being in a Flavin environment requires the viewer to attend to the architecture of the space, not just the lamps themselves.^​8​ There is a constant contradiction between the viewer’s physical and emotional response to the work and the fact that the work is simply linear fluorescent tubes emitting light into a space.

Flavin’s Work

Flavin made several works before the revelation that was the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi). This work marked the beginning of Flavin’s focus on the use of commercially available fluorescent lamps as the sole component of his art. By the end of 1964, he had abandoned all other forms of art making (Govan, 2004, p.33).^​5​

Flavin’s palate of lamps included pink, green, yellow, blue, red, and blacklight colored lamps, and warm white, cool white, and daylight white-light lamps. Lamp color is determined by the relationship between the mercury vapor emission, phosphor emission and absorption, and pigment absorption (if using colored lamps). In most of his work, Flavin used 20W T12 lamps, in either two-foot, four-foot, six-foot, or eight-foot lengths. However, only five-foot fixtures were available in Europe (Bell, 2004, p.117).^​6​ Though modern fluorescent lamps have dimming capabilities, the color of the lamps is inconsistent when doing so. The intensity of light emanating from Flavin’s work was controlled only by changing the length of tube and the number of tubes. Thus, when designing works, Flavin was not only controlling color and spatial arrangement, but also controlling intensity. Making these decisions even more complicated was the fact that the lamps emitted different amounts of light with respect to color. Of the colored lamps in his palate, the green, pink and blue were made using phosphors alone, resulting in very bright and intense lamps. However, there is no phosphor that can produce a saturated yellow or red. Therefore, pigments coated the inside of those tubes, acting absorbing unwanted light from the fluorescent emission of the mercury. Thus, high saturation was achieved at the expense of light intensity (Govan, 2004, p.59).^​5​ In addition to his lamps, Flavin was happy to allow natural illumination from windows or skylights to enter his spaces and complicate the mixture of light from the fluorescent lamps (Govan, 2004, p.96-97).^​5​ While Flavin’s works “are what they are,” in the minimalist sense, they do provoke some interesting perceptual questions that result from their physical attributes. Tuchman cited an interesting example in 1977:

Why does green peek out of a room installation where red, gold, pink, and daylight white hues are emitted? When the space is actually entered, why is the same green then washed out by the gold and pink of the 1964 Untitled (to Mr. and Mrs. Giuseppe Agrati)? Furthermore it has been taken for granted too long that Flavin’s electrical components are frequently the same size. In past art, an expanse of yellow could be equalized by a dab of red. Flavin has managed to balance an 8-foot silver of gold light with an 8-foot sliver of red light.^​18​

As discussed above, Flavin often made changes to pieces either as he installed them in a location and got a better sense of how they looked, or as he moved them from one gallery space to another. The elasticity of Flavin’s work was one aspect that made it so unique. In his 1964 exhibition at the Green Gallery, in New York City—the first exhibition entirely of fluorescent light works—he made some noted modifications to some lamp colors once he saw them assembled in the space (Govan, 2004, p.60).^​5​ In another instance, he made a large room installation in Cologne in which blue lamps were a major component. That same work was later installed in Houston and the blue lamps were changed to blacklight. While the name of the work did not change, the two different arrangements made for an entirely different experience (Bell, 2004, p126).^​6​ This modification was made to help blend the other colors into white light.

There are two general arrangements of lamps in Flavin’s work: facing outward into the room and facing the wall, either directly or into a corner.^​9​ Thus, Flavin’s work is viewed by the light emanating directly from the lamps, the light reflecting directly from the walls, and light from the many inter-reflections throughout the room, resulting in an “environmental glow which in subtlety and effect depends upon the strengths of the colors used.” The placement of the sculpture in the space plays an important role in how the light interacts with the room. According to von Bismarck, “The sculptural construction assumes only one part for the interior designs; the effect of the light itself complements it. The light focuses the viewer’s attention. It can elucidate by making visible and accentuating as well as casting it in the dark and thus obscuring it.”^​11​

Often, the lamp colors are more easily perceived in the light reflected off surrounding surfaces rather than by looking at the lamps directly. It is important, in Flavin’s designs, to ensure that color is differentiable in both emitted and reflected light. One such example where only subtle color differences are highlighted is daylight and cool white (to Sol LeWitt). This work, from 1964, highlights his early exploration of subtle color differences in light, the properties of which require a different approach to color mixing that pigment-based painting and sculpture (Govan, 2004, p.40).^​5​

The relationship between Flavin’s lamps and the architecture is as important as the work itself. In fact, the relationship is the work. Kenneth Baker aptly described the feeling of seeing  a Flavin work turned off, “Dan Flavin’s work did not seem important to me until I happened to see one of his pieces unplugged…To say that the light was absent from it is not really to say anything. My temptation is to say that I felt absent from the piece. The next time I saw a Flavin lighted I understood something of what that feeling meant.”^​19​ Flavin used light to accent and modify the viewers’ feelings in a space. He described how, by placing an eight-foot lamp, vertically, in the corner of a room, he could eliminate the feeling of the corner produced by shadow and glare.^​3​ Placing art in the corner of a room was uncommon, but not unprecedented. It is well documented that Flavin was inspired by the work of Vladimir Tatlin. One of Tatlin’s works, Complex Corner Relief, was an early example of installation art and the use of a corner (Govan, 2004, p. 44).^​5​

Flavin first explored the corner with his pink out of a corner (to Jasper Johns), from 1963. He placed a single pink eight-foot lamp vertically in the corner of a room, thereby breaking open the notion of corners being dark, unoccupied spaces in galleries (Govan, 2004, p.42).^​5​

Ironically, by placing a single lamp in a corner, taking up a minimum of physical space, the lamp fills the space more than any other previous form of sculpture.^​2​ Flavin explored the concept of the corner to a great extent throughout his career, using the corner as a tool. He often designed pieces with some lamps facing outward into the room and others inward into the corner, emphasizing the contrast between shadow and highlight and between colors (Govan, 2004, p.77).^​5​ One of Flavin’s favorite designs that exhibited the latter contrasts was that of a square set into a corner. Works of this style often had some arrangement of out-facing lamps and a symmetric arrangement of in-facing lamps. One such example was untitled (to the “innovator” of Wheeling Peachblow), here described:

The top and bottom edges were established with white light, while each side was composed of two abutting units—the interior ones pink, the exterior yellow. The even suffusion of pink light into the corner of the room almost obliterated it, by canceling the distinction in value between the two wall planes…The intrusion of the floor area into the visual field of the image appeared like a pictorial device—almost a collage element—to disrupt the illusion by reasserting the actual shape of this room.^​5​

Another example of Flavin’s square arrangement is his European couples. Each work featured two out-facing horizontal lamps at the top and bottom of the square and two vertical in-facing lamps in the sides. Skylight was incorporated into an installation of European couples at the Dia Center for the Arts in 1995, mixing with the blended colors from the works. Pepe Karmel reflected in his New York Times review, “The colors seem to have been extracted from the sunlight, intensified rather than artificially generated by the fluorescent bulbs.”^​20​ This feeling is characteristic of Flavin’s careful design of color in anticipation of the interaction between his works.

In addition to producing startling effects of color and contrast, Flavin was able to use his lamps to expand the spatial aspects of architecture. He installed a series of lamps vertically in the corner of a room containing a staircase at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY. Critic James Wood recalled the experience of being in this space,

As we mounted the stairs, the rather obsessive frontal view of the fixtures, glowing like so many jet intakes, sucks us forward and upward as each additional column comes into view. The rake of light on the wall to the right of each column of tubes heightens the centrifugal impression of the ascent, and dramatizes the ‘floating’ structure of the stairs …Similarly, though, the extreme height of these corner installations, the columns of light disappear from view upward when seen from the foot of the stairs, and disappear downward when seen from the top, like icons of the passage they announce and illuminate.^​2​

The unusual influx of high-intensity light into the staircase and the fact that the beginning and end of the lamp column could not be seen from most positions on the stairs created a distorted sense of space.

The unusual effect of his lamps is also on display in his whole-room installations, such as greens crossing greens (to Piet Mondrian who lacked green) and his barred corridors. The architecture of the room and the large quantity of colored light saturating the spaces defines these works (Govan, 2004, p.56-58,p.76, p.80).^​5​

greens crossing greens (to Piet Mondrian who lacked green)

The space and the light-producing work are co-dependent, as if they are in constant conversation,^​11​ redefining the gallery space in the process. Paintings are well suited to be stared at for long periods of time, contemplated and studied. This was never Flavin’s intention with his work. The philosophy of the minimalists was that there was nothing to study. Flavin also acknowledged that staring long at his work would be painful to the eyes, an experience also noted by critics.^​8​ Viewers were expected to stay in a space for only a short time and then move on. Burnham recalled an instance at a Chicago installation of Alternating Pink and Yellow (to Josef Halmy) (1967/69), where a group of children sat down on the floor in the space.^​9​ They were asked to get up by a security guard because sitting was not allowed. While sitting would be normal behavior in a gallery of paintings or sculpture, it was not so for a Flavin installation. Sitting, Flavin felt, also signified the feeling of comfort in the space. The children, by sitting down, were ignoring the art and relaxing in the environment, becoming part of the work in some sense. According to Ross Skoggard, “By making the space and the viewer visible, the light in a sense ‘creates’ them.”^​21​

Arguably one of Flavin’s greatest works was completed post-mortem in Marfa, Texas, at the Chinati Foundation. The design for this work was completed two days prior to Flavin’s death, but was not built until funds could be raised for its construction. The work at Chinati is a series of installation in U-shaped buildings. A panel of eight-foot fluorescent lamps are placed as a slanted barrier either at the center or ends of the corridor.

Each barrier contained colored lamps facing out-ward and in-ward. Deyan Sudjic describes the experience of seeing the Chinati installation,

It is a work on a scale unimaginable in any conceivable conventional museum, shed after shed after shed, the pattern is the same, you walk in, find yourself at the end of a white tube, overwhelmed by the intensity and beautify of the light, retreat out, back into the landscape, and on to the next element. There is nothing like it, and they stay with you as you make your journey back from Marfa, exactly as Judd had intended it to.^​22​

This is a fitting response, in line with Flavin’s favored theme of irony. While he only expected short, intuitive experiences of his work, they never cease to inspire emotion and provide viewers with lasting impressions.

The Perception of Flavin’s Work

Analyzing Flavin’s work simply for what it is, as Flavin and his contemporaries preferred, would be to ignore one of the work’s most important aspects: the visual experience. There are many examples of how Flavin’s work provokes the human visual system to respond. Most obviously, the lamps themselves are a source of complex color relationships and contrast effects. The range of luminance and saturation covered by Flavin’s lamps was discussed above. The color of Flavin’s pink, green, and blue lamps were produced using only phosphor coatings. The yellow and red lamps coated with absorption pigments to further modify the light emitted from the phosphors. Those lamps without pigments were brighter than the pigmented lamps and were less colorful. The phosphors in the lamps absorb mostly ultraviolet energy and emit visible energy. The color they produce is a result of mixing emitted energy with the mercury-vapor emission. This is akin to mixing colored light with white light, which results in a desaturation of the possible color. On the other hand, the pigment in the red and gold lamps absorbs some of the “white” mercury-vapor emission spectra, effectively reducing the luminance and increasing the colorfulness of the lamp. The emitted energy from the phosphors is additively mixing with a chromatic light rather than more neutral light. Govan (2004, p.59) noted that the red lamp, due to its dense pigment, appeared solid, rather than neutral, when viewed.

In addition, spaces containing works with pigment-less lamps had a higher range of luminances than spaces containing only pigmented lamps. The human visual system seeks to perceive the bright and dark components of a scene. As the luminance difference between the highlights and shadows increases, both the highlights and shadows appear less colorful. The compression of this high-dynamic-range scene into the visual range of the human visual system also results in interesting contrast effects. As Govan (2004, p.62) pointed out, red next to a bright green makes the red appear darker while the green appears the same. That is, the human visual system adapts to the luminance of the bright green lamp, causing the darker red lamp to appear even darker than if viewed alone.  Skoggard described a more complex relationship with respect to Flavin’s work dedicated to Joseph Albers,

The piece throws a pink/within blue/within green glow on the wall about the bulbs on the left side, and a green/within blue/within pink glow on the right. Thus, the two halves manage to imply three sides of three concentric rectangles each, with the different lengths and orientation of the pink and green elements influencing the nature of the blue element—making it seem redder on one side and greener on the other the way the relative placement of the same three colors in an Albers painting can alter our perception of the individual colors involved.^​21​

One of Flavin’s most interesting studies in contrast was in his use of blacklight lamps. Flavin noted that the contrast between green and ultraviolet and red and ultraviolet was a result of similar mechanisms to that between the red and the green.^​23​ He said that when the green was paired with the ultraviolet—which emits relatively little visible energy—the blacklight lamp disappeared. However, when paired with red, the blacklight lamp appeared deep-purple. This is another example of how Flavin played with luminance adaptation to influence contrast in the design of his works.

Spatial awareness is also key in Flavin’s work, often altering the viewer’s perception of space in his installations. In one work untitled (to Heiner Friedrich), his use of ultraviolet lamps diagonally partitioning off the corner of a room distorted the viewer’s sense of a rectangular space. As Brydon Smith described,

The resulting triangular space had a single draped entrance. All three walls of the interior were further subdivided by a system of triangles formed by butt-ending 2-foot fixtures and diagonally running them across the three walls from lower right to upper left. Although the total triangular configuration of the entire room was immediately comprehensible, it could not be completely perceived from any single vantage point. In addition, the somewhat dark and low color intensity of the ultraviolet light further enhanced the rather disorienting experience provided by the triangularity of the installation.^​14​

Burnham also described his experiences with this work,

One enters a nearly pitch black room expecting to ‘redefine’ its boundaries and rectilinear corners. This proves impossible and gradually one acclimates to the triangular space—but not before the effort is made to ‘flatten it out.’ This sounds very optical, but it is not so in any overt sense, mainly because there is no contrivance or effort to fool the eye. I was misled by my own casual acceptance of all rectilinear room spaces. These simple means are Flavin at his best.^​9​

It is well that Burnham mentioned Flavin’s complete, yet ironic, lack of intention to fool observers with this work. The installation of blacklight lamps on each wall served to remove sharp shadows from the room, except for those around the lamps. Furthermore, the low luminance of these lamps means that the visual system was at the lower limits of photopic vision. The most obvious spatial cues in this space were triangular arrangement of fluorescent lamps, resulting in a constant debate between that the visual system sees as a triangular space and what experience suggests is a rectangular space.

The distortion of space caused by Flavin’s work is also exemplified in his use of vertical lamps in the corners of rooms. His first installation in a corner, pink out of a corner (to Jasper Johns) 1963  removed the dark shadows that normally recede into corners, one of the key visual cues that the space was, in fact, a corner (Govan, 2004, p.42).^​5​ The only cue remaining is the convergence of lines from the floor into the corner and from the ceiling into the corner, should the viewer decide to look upward. Another example of a corner installation disturbing spatial awareness is the staircase installation at the Albright-Knox Gallery, described above by Wood. He noted how the illumination of the staircase was so even that it completely eliminated shadows from the space. This loss of shadow disturbing “deprives one of a traditional aspect of the consciousness of both space and time.”^​2​

While luminance adaptation and spatial awareness affect the immediate experience of Flavin’s work, chromatic adaptation affects the temporal experience of his work. The human visual system is designed to experience a world of complex color and visual cues. Adaptation is to the general illumination of the scene. Flavin’s installations greens crossing greens (to Piet Mondrian who lacked green) and his green barrier untitled (to you, Heiner, with admiration and affection) illuminated a simple white space with a saturated green light. Standing in this room, the human visual system adapts (albeit partially) to the green illumination.

When the viewer leaves the space, the surrounding world appears warmer in color. Flavin acknowledged this effect in an interview with Tiffany Bell (2004, p. 195), citing “an optical shift and a retinal reaction made all the available daylight pink as you accepted the green.”^​6​ Burnham also reflected upon the catalogue entry for the greens crossing greens installation at the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, “The catalogue explanation of this room is basically optical: the room is saturated with a pale green light, so that the fluorescent tubes appear uncolored or white. This pervasive green acts symbiotically with the previous pink and yellow room so that on returning to that room, the atmosphere has changed from orange-yellow to a ‘rich rose red.’ ”^​9​ In laying out his exhibitions, Flavin was conscious of the viewer’s movement from room to room. He anticipated the effect of going from the green room to an orange-yellow room. Baker described a similar example of Flavin’s exhibition arrangement, referring to an installation of corner pieces at the John Weber Gallery, “As one passes from one space to another, one’s perception of the color of each piece is modified by the presence of the other pieces. The result is a real sense of immersion in an element accessible to vision alone, but which reveals itself as an element (as water is a fish’s element) as one moves through it.”^​19​ In addition to their value to the artistic community, the works unintentionally served as educational examples of perceptual effects. Plagens noted his memory of young middle-school girls discussing the causes of color after-effects as he passed by them during a viewing of a Flavin exhibition.^​12​

On an even smaller scale, the viewer’s movement could change the appearance of a single piece. Flavin’s work, untitled (to Jean Boggs), contained four-vertical eight-foot fluorescent lamps, one of green, blue, yellow, and red.^​9​ The lamps were installed as a cluster into a corner. The viewer could easily see the blue, yellow, and red tubes. However, the green tube was at the center of the cluster. Therefore, as the viewer moves around the piece, they are presented with different chromatic contrasts.

The physical properties of T12 fluorescent lamps can prove somewhat uncomfortable. T12 lamps use magnetic ballasts and operate at around 60 Hz. While flicker may not be consciously visible when staring at the lamp directly, it can become fatiguing over time. R. J. Smith cited a passage from the Canadian Center for Occupations Safety and Health web site, “ ‘Ever since fluorescent lighting was introduced in workplaces, there have been complaints about headaches, eye strain and general eye discomfort. These complaints have been associated with the light flicker from fluorescent lights.’ ”^​8​ Smith stated metaphorically, that when spending too much time contemplating Flavin’s work, “your mind itself may flicker. Too much fluorescent light puts one in a funk.”^​8​ This may be Flavin’s ultimate guard against over-contemplation and analysis.

Nevertheless, the most important perceptual effect of Flavin’s work is the light itself. As it is emitted from the lamp, it gradually diminished with distance from the lamp. The colors blend with the walls and there are not definite boundaries. The only sharp shadows are seen around the tubes themselves, as the ballast and mount block the light from reaching the wall point nearest to the lamps. There is no notion of beginning and ending.^​11​

Photographing Flavin’s Work

Photographing Flavin’s work is not a simple undertaking. Flavin stated in 1967 “Nothing like an adequate photograph has ever been fabricated about an installation of mine.” It is unlikely that an adequate photograph every will be taken of Flaivn’s work, according to his standards. In one example, he spoke in disgust of an image made of his greens crossing greens (to Piet Mondrian who lacked green), from 1966, from its installation in the Stadelijk Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The image shows a man standing on the right side of the installation, completely at odds with how Flavin intended the space to be represented. Unfortunately, this image is the only record of that installation.

The word “ephemeral” come up a lot when describing Flavin’s work. No installation of the same work is ever the same. European lamps are different from American lamps. The lamps die and are replaced.^​24​ The lamp equipment changes. While there is a replacement supply now, one day, there may be no more replacements. The original appearance of a faded photograph may be predicted and reproduced somewhat faithfully but reproducing the experience of being in a Flavin space is a more difficult undertaking. As Bell (2004, p. 109) stated “Dan Flavin’s art confounds conventional cataloging concepts, which depends on criteria of permanence, authenticity, and chronology.”^​6​ She went on to say, “While there were a few adventurous collectors…most of the installations did not survive their initial exhibition. It was the smaller-scale, more easily transportable and reinstallable works that could readily be sold and maintained” (2004, p.110-112).^​6​ The need for accurate documentation is evident. Photographing his work is one way in which it can be communicated. It will forever be debated whether images of his work accomplish all that is desired by critics or other users of the reproductions. R.J. Smith, from the Los Angeles Magazine, was skeptical, “No artist of recent decades has been as ill served by reproductions. They reduce Flavin’s work to the realm of the hygenic, making it look so sold on its own purity that it can’t provide much sensual follow-through. You look at photos of his work and wonder why he repeated himself. The pieces look cerebral, inert, dead.”^​8​

Yet, the struggle to capture Flavin’s work is important. When it is gone, everyone will wonder what it looked like. There should at least be something for future scholars to consider and hopefully it will give them some sense of the experience. Several photographers have undertaken the task of imaging Flavin’s work. In 2012, I interviewed three of those photographers. They will remain anonymous, referred to as Photographer A, Photographer B, and Photographer C. Photographer A had extensive experience photographing the work of Dan Flavin and James Turrell in addition to his experience as an architectural photographer. Photographer B had 25 years of experience photographing the work of Dan Flavin and other artists for galleries around New York City in addition to his work as a fine art photographer. Photographer C photographed a large collection of Flavin works using digital photography and worked as a photographer and photographer’s assistant for nearly 30 years in New York City. In addition, I interviewed a publisher, Publisher A, who worked as Director of Publishing at a large non-profit organization that supported Flavin’s work and hired photographers to photograph Flavin’s work for exhibition catalogs, books, and public relations.

Despite what critics may think, all three photographers indicated their satisfaction with how their work looks when created and how it looks in reproductions. Two of the photographers worked primarily with transparency film and the third worked primarily with digital technology. Transparency film has the advantage of being an archival object. It has the physical presence that a digital file does not have. Photographer A indicated, “Even after 50 years, you still have got a slide, maybe it’s scratched, maybe the colors are not that good anymore, but it’s still a slide. If you’ve got a CD in 50 years, you won’t be able to read it because you won’t have a CD player anymore.” He was also adamant that slide film was the only way to properly reproduce the glow and fade of light that Flavin’s lamps produce on the surrounding walls, especially when an 8×10 inch slide is viewed with a back-light. Prints do not have the dynamic range to render the same level of luminance as a back-lit transparency. The other two photographers were not so strong in their opinions, though both felt digital images provided a more successful rendition of this effect.

Skoggard gave an interesting explanation for why reproducing Flavin’s work may be so difficult,

Some of this difficulty may derive from our habit of studying artworks through photographic reproductions. That Flavin’s pieces, in a sense, ‘refuse’ to be photographed is emblematic. I think, of their refusal to be ‘read’ as painting or sculpture…A photographer wishing to take a picture of one can either set the F-stop to capture the light coming off the fluorescent bulbs, in which case the surrounding walls will be black, or he can take a reading of the light reflected on the walls, in which case the bulbs will ‘burn’ the film and, if they are colored bulbs, appear white. Either way, a photograph can tell only half the story.”^​21​

Publisher A had similar feelings about the state of older Flavin photographs. She noted that either the lamps were over-exposed, or the surround was black. While working on a large catalogue, her goal was to have images that overcame the difficulties of the past and properly portrayed both the surround and the lamps. Techniques used to overcome the latter difficulties are described in the next section.

One of the most important questions to consider is the goal of these images. The images can be constructed such that they accurately represent the work, strictly for documentation purposes, and to give at least a minimal sense of the experience. The images can also be made to look as pleasing as possible, somewhat representative of the experience but most simply good images. In some cases, these two goals are the same, while in others they are not. When Publisher A was working on a large catalogue of Flavin’s work, her goal was to document the work as best possible. They had many of his works together and on display and seized the opportunity to document the large collection. She admitted that they had never expected to duplicate the work but that the images made for this catalogue were an improvement over those made in the past. Photographer A also preferred to make accurate records of the work as he saw it. He mentioned his distaste for Flavin images that appeared too colorful and “kitschy.” He sought to suppress the scene contrast and preserve the smooth light gradients throughout the scene. Photographer B pointed out that there must be a combination of both accuracy and pleasingness. He further elaborated by saying that, with painting, the accuracy was most important, whereas, with sculpture, there is a lot more freedom to play with shadows, the quality of light, and accents. It is worth mentioning that he viewed Flavin’s work as sculpture and worked within the freedom provided by that definition. However, if asked to choose one over the other, he would err on the side of accuracy over pleasingness. Photographer C also adhered to the principles of faithful reproduction.

Regardless of the photographer’s aim, there are a few important properties that must be had by images of Flavin’s art. Publisher A discussed the requirements of her director, who had a close relationship with Flavin. She stated,

What was really important for [the Director] was that the photographs did not look as though they were in a dark space. He, having worked with Dan so closely, knew that Dan considered his work not to light up a space, so it wasn’t about lighting a space. He wanted to make sure that there was natural light and he wanted to make sure that the photographs didn’t look dark, which is why we came to digital photography, because that was pretty much impossible without looking extremely strange by using traditional photography in our experience.

As discussed previously, Flavin often included daylight in his installations at it was important that the effect of the daylight be included in images of his work. In addition, interior design is an important factor. At the Dia: Beacon exhibition in 2003, Flavin’s monuments were installed on a “zig-zaggy” wall, which had been an idea of Flavin’s. Recording the relationship between the works on in this space and the architecture of the space itself was important. Therefore, images were taken of the entire gallery space as well as the individual works. When viewing a Flavin exhibition, a viewer will often visually encounter multiple Flavin works at one time. Flavin presupposed that viewers would spend a limited amount of time viewing individual pieces and carefully arranged his exhibitions around the movement of the viewer and the interaction between works. It seems that one of the most difficult tasks in photographing Flavin’s work is not imaging a single piece, but an exhibition, or a view of multiple pieces in an exhibition. Photographing a single work could take up to a full day. Accurately portraying an exhibition is a considerably more involved task.^​14​ A bit more detail about the methods of each photographer is given below.

Photographer A’s Method

Photographer A’s specialty is photographing architecture. Before being hired to photograph Flavin images he had worked with the artist James Turrell, who’s exploration of light, though philosophically different from Flavin’s, has similar issues photographically. He did some background research on Flavin before his first assignment, such as speaking with the manager of Flavin’s studio, Steve Morse. While on a particular assignment, Photographer A works primarily on his own, without much direction from the curator or artist (in general). He is a strong proponent of analogue photography and prefers to work with transparency film, ideally Kodak 100G, but now having to switch to Fuji film due to Kodak’s reduction in film production. The camera format ranges from 120 roll film to 8×10 sheet film.

Photographer A’s main interest is capturing the “glow” on the walls around the lamps. His capture technique is as follows. First, he used 100 ISO film and determined exposures as if the film were ISO 50. Light measurements were made of the surrounding lights, Flavin’s lamps, and reflecting surfaces. The color of the lamps was important when shooting with film. The film was daylight balanced and thus, less sensitive to blue. If the lamps he photographed were blue, then he would use a blue filter to account for the film’s sensitivity. White fluorescent lamps tend to appear green on film and thus require magenta filtration. Similarly, magenta filtration is needed for green lamps because the film is more sensitive to green. The film is very sensitive to red light. Images of red lamps require under-exposure. In addition, Photographer A sometimes included his own lights to add additional light to the surroundings. Due to the wide range of light intensities and sensitivities, multiple exposures were made on a single sheet of film: one for the surround, one for the lamps, and maybe more if different filtrations were needed. Flavin’s lamps were turned off when the surround exposure was made and turned on when the lamp exposure was made, which was usually much shorter than the surround exposure.

The film was pull-process to account for initial one-stop over-exposure (ISO 50 exposure for ISO 100 film). This exposure and processing technique reduced contrast in the image, which for Flavin’s work, tended to be too high. Once developed, the film was scanned at maximum resolution. The digital file, along with the transparency, was sent to the client. No post-processing was done by Photographer A after the film was developed.

Photographer A was asked if he had ever used HDR imaging. He admitted to not having used the technique but did not think it did as good of a job as transparency film. He stated, “The HDR, it looks pretty good, but not good enough, because the kicker is always the glow on the wall. That’s always what’s not working out if you start messing around with HDR or Photoshop or whatever.”

Photographer B’s Method

Photographer B is a fine art photographer and a photographer of fine art. He began photographing art for New York City galleries in the late eighties and has since continued photographing art for various clients. His connection to Flavin came through his work in the New York gallery scene. When commissioned to shoot a Flavin work, he works mostly under the direction of the gallery or museum. In the past, he often spoke with the artists about how they wanted their art photographed. For example, he mentioned that Donald Judd wanted his works photographed with as even as light as possible, from the front, much like a schematic diagram. Robert Ryman expressed an interest in having his paintings photographed with different kinds of lighting. However, even though they were working contemporarily, Photographer B never had direct contact with Flavin, but did photograph works in his studio.

Having worked in galleries, Photographer B was familiar with Flavin’s work. When on site, he was mostly under the direction of the gallery. Most of the work he did with Flavin was in the late eighties and early nineties, so his responses were based on work he did 25 years ago. Although, he did so some work for Dia when Beacon opened in 2003, shooting their installations, but not individual pieces.

Photographer B shot mostly 4×5 transparencies, preferring Fuji 64 tungsten balanced film. Thus, the film was least sensitive to long-wavelength light. He first photographed each work using Polaroid film to test exposures and possible color densities, a popular technique at the time. While digital photography allows innumerable opportunities for exposure adjustment and previewing images without additional cost, the only way to preview exposures in the past was to use Polaroid film, available in both black and white and color. He determined a general exposure using an exposure meter as a starting point, then fine-tuned the exposure using trial-and-error. Flavin’s work contains a large range of luminances. The highest luminances are from the bulbs facing out into the room, followed by those facing away–such as into a corner, and then by the reflecting light farther from the lamps and capped by the shadows around the ballasts. Like Photographer A, Photographer B used a method of making multiple exposures on a single transparency. For example, if there was a piece with lamps facing toward and away from the camera, he would turn off the lamps facing away by twisting the bulbs, make a short exposure, then turn off the lamps facing toward the camera, turning the others on, and take a longer exposure, then turn off all the lamps and make an even longer exposure. However, when every lamp was turned off, he needed to simulate the color of the glow on the wall from the lamps. This was done by illuminating the space with additional light and a filter. If the piece was mostly red, then he would illuminate the ambient with a red filter. Likewise, if the piece was mostly green, he would illuminate this space with a green filter. This was common practice when shooting in Flavin’s studio, where there was not a lot of ambient light. In an exhibition space, where there were multiple works on display, the level of ambient illumination would be higher, and a different technique would be used.

Due to the pre-determined white balancing of the film, Photographer B was required to filter the light from different colored lamps using different colored filters. He had a Minolta Colormeter, which he still uses, that measured color temperature and provided suggestions of the proper filter to use. The filter suggestions would be modified based on Polaroid test exposures. If a piece had several different colored lamps, he would make one exposure of each colored lamp using a different filter, turning off all other lamps not being imaged in that exposure. In addition, he might also compensate for light he added to the scene. Photographer B did not retouch the image after development. Most retouching was done by print-shops at the time because digital retouching had yet to be implemented in commercial photography.

Photographer C’s Method

Photographer C was the only photographer interviewed who shot Flavin’s work digitally. He was one of the first commercial photographers in New York City shooting with digital backs on medium format camera bodies but does not consider himself an “art photographer.” He had spent 16 years assisting for a world-renown photographer but held no sentimental attachment to the analogue tools with which he had been trained. His involvement with shooting Flavin’s work came through Dia. He didn’t recall exactly how the connection was made but remembers that they were impressed with some test exposures he did for them. The Flavin images he made were all in the early 2000s, around the time Dia was opening in Beacon.

By using digital techniques, Photographer C’s workflow was more efficient than that of Photographer A and Photographer C. He used a Leaf 22MP digital back (sensor size of 36mm x 48mm) mounted on a Mamiya RZ67 body with a 75mm tilt-shift lens. He captured the works by making multiple exposures at different shutter speeds, similar to an HDR workflow. However, the images were stitched together using manual retouching in Adobe Photoshop (version unknown, pre-Creative Suite) rather than with an automated HDR process. If the ambient light in the room was not enough, then he would make an exposure using indirect illumination from Broncolor Flash units bounced within the room. Though an efficient capture process, Photographer C admitted that a whole day was required to photograph one to two works. After capture, the images were converted from Raw to TIFFs using LEAF proprietary software and all post-processing was done by people Photographer C hired to do retouching.

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Disclaimer

This article was written by Brian Gamm in his personal capacity. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author’s employer, organization, committee or other group or individual with which the author has been, is currently, or will be affiliated.

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