Dan Flavin
European Couples, 1966-1971
© Estate of Dan Flavin
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011
With the first exhibition of all "European couples" by Dan Flavin, DASMAXIMUM shows one of the first major works of the world's most important light artist. In an unconventional way, with industrially produced products and minimalist, abstract forms, he succeeded in detaching the fluorescent light from the use in the advertising world and turning it into art.
Instead of titles, Flavin works usually carry dedications which, with all abstraction, imply a reference to the cause and inspiration of the work or a homage and underline the serial character of the works. The individual squares of the "European couples" are dedicated to couples, who are in large part still present in the art world today. They thus illustrate in an impressive way a time-intensive connection between the American and German art world, which has shaped the arts so decisively since the 1960s.