Seein’ Dis: Dan Flavin Drawings at the Morgan Library

"Blue Trees in Wind," 1957

SINCE you want to marry Dan Flavin 10 times a day forever, just like everyone else, you may be excited to learn that there is a boss exhibition of his drawings up at the Morgan Library right now!

Mostly the show consists of hundreds of pages of his sketchbook drawings from life, and scores of more “technical” sketches of the light pieces.   There are also a couple of nice fluorescent light pieces thrown in for good measure, notably this one:

…which I managed to snap a couple pictures of before the guards politely informed me of the no photographs policy (charmingly, I might add, via pantomime through the glass elevator wall).  Though I do kind of wish I had saved my innocence-snaps for the actual drawing show, where much of the work showed a surprisingly sensitive hand and an eye for tiny, interesting moments  (like a super quick portrait from the 70′s, sweetly captioned “Reporter who completely enjoyed herself at the press conference”).

I tried to sneak some other pics, but my near-pathological sense of obedience made it hard to break the rules in any productive way.  For example:

Watch out, officially-sanctioned postcard market

What you see there are some really charming collegey-type drawings from his early twenties, which basically were handwritten poems surrounded by AbEx brush-mark doodles.  I dare you to show me a sketchbook from sophomore year that doesn’t contain some version of this!

Here are some others that are floating around online:

"Monuments for V Tatlin," 1968

The sketch for "In Honor of Harold Joachim," the light piece above

Sketch of Paul Cézanne, 1959

"Sails," 1986

Dan Flavin: Drawing
February 17–July 1, 2012

The Morgan Library
225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street
New York, NY 10016

P.S. Can we please talk about how he called Alexander Calder “Sandy”??  This is a true fact.

P.P.S. Also there was a sketch of an un-executed but really cool seeming early fluorescent piece, from the early sixties I think, which basically was a wooden pyramid with lights on the side.  Here let me draw it for you:

HOW MUCH do you wish this existed!

Kim Westfall

Kim Westfall‘s works on paper are making us die of eyepleasure

“A ream of paper scatters in a gust of wind, soaring high into the black winter night…”

Check out this stunning EL paper installation by Paul Cocksedge in Lyon for the Fête des Lumières.

(via NotCot)