Dan Flavin. Zeichnen:

Dan Flavin: Zeichnen explores the artist’s foundational engagement with drawing and light as parallel modes of spatial articulation.

Best known for his groundbreaking work with fluorescent tubes, Flavin consistently approached these installations as extensions of his drawing practice—using light as a linear medium to define, enhance, or dissolve architectural space.

The volume documents his transition from hand-drawn plans to “diagonals,” “icons,” and “monuments”: elegant constructions of commercially available fluorescent fixtures installed in specific configurations. Works like the diagonal of May 25, 1963 mark a pivotal moment when light itself became the subject and medium of his sculptural language. Flavin’s drawings—diagrams in color pencil and pencil—were precise visualizations of these installations and guided their realization on-site.

The book accompanies the first retrospective exhibition in New York in decades, curated with rare access to Flavin’s archives. It includes reproductions of original drawings, preparatory sketches, and detailed plans alongside photographs of completed installations. This juxtaposition reveals how Flavin’s conceptual rigor and minimalist sensibility were inseparable from his drawing process—each line a proposition for light in space.

Through essays and visual documentation, the publication presents Flavin’s enduring impact: his redefinition of drawing as spatial programming, his disciplined use of industrial materials, and his insistence on presence, repetition, and site specificity. Zeichnen offers both an introduction to his lesser-known graphic work and a deeper understanding of how every fluorescent tube, angle, and color became part of a sculptural statement—his hallmark contribution to the evolution of Minimalism and light-based art.