The Light Fantastic

There’s a fine review of the current exhibition of Dan Flavin’s work at the Hayward Gallery in London here on the Observer website, most inspiring – the show is surely a must-see if one has the opportunity to do so.

I recall seeing a smaller selection of Flavin’s fluorescent tube sculptures at the Serpentine Gallery in the summer of 2001, & one of the exhibits in particular, 'untitled (to you, Heiner, with admiration and affection)', a room-wide installation, was ravishing, with the green light of the tubes flooding the space & producing an amazing, stunning optical illusion in rendering the view outside through the room’s windows, of the grass & trees of Hyde Park outside, in shades of pink & violet, the natural world transformed into something apparently synthetic(ally coloured) – the fact of being able to explain such a phenomenon scientifically does nothing to diminish the magic of the aesthetic experience, of being there in the moment, amidst such a presence. Here’s an image of the work, alas without a complementary view outside & thus lacking that effect.