About this artwork
Between 1964 and 1990 Dan Flavin embarked on a series of works titled 'monuments' for V. Tatlin, dedicated to the Russian avant-garde artist Vladimir Tatlin. Flavin was one of numerous American artists in in the 1960s who became interested in turn of the century Russian art. The 'Tatlins' demonstrate Flavin's interest in series and repetition, composed from white fluorescent tubes of differing commercially available sizes. Flavin described these sculptures as 'monuments' partly as a nod towards Tatlin’s unrealized, ambitious 'Monument to the Third International', 1919-20 and partly as an ironic statement, aware of the disparity between his modest materials and the grandeur of traditional sculpture. Their rectilinear, vertical designs resemble the Art Deco skyscrapers of New York, particularly the Empire State Building, 1931.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Dan Flavin (1933 - 1996) American
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title:"monument" for V. Tatlin
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date created:1969 - 1970
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materials:Fluorescent tubes and metal
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measurements:244.00 x 70.50 x 12.50 cm
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object type:
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credit line:ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Lent by the Estate of Dan Flavin 2013
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accession number:AL00351
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gallery:
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glossary:
Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin
American artist Dan Flavin began his career as a meteorologist and had almost no formal art training. He studied art history at Columbia University, New York in the late-1950s and made his first light work in 1963, fixing a fluorescent light tube to a wall at a 45 degree angle. From that time he...