Dan Flavin: Icons
By Corrina Thierolf and Johannes Vogt
Thames & Hudson, £39.95
FT Bookshop price: £31.96

Artist Dan Flavin abandoned painting and sculpture in the early 1960s and began creating experimental light installations 50 years before the term “DesignArt” was coined. This 78-page hardback examines his initial explorations – eight wall-mounted designs called “Icons” – which laid the foundation for his future work. It is an esoteric subject and a seemingly slender one for an entire book. Yet the topic’s arcane nature proves compelling. Corinna Thierolf and Johannes Vogt, both curators at Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne, tell us – in 21 pages of text – how Flavin meticulously planned his painted wooden boxes and mounted them with commercially available coloured lamp bulbs or fluorescent lights and show how they developed from initial sketches to the finished designs depicted in 50 full-colour plates.

The authors contextualise Flavin’s Icons, analysing them in relation to traditional religious icons, work by the 1920s Russian avant garde and Andy Warhol’s pop art portraits. Exploring the interface between the light’s mysticism, the structures’ symbolism and Flavin’s own relationship with religion gives the text its depth. Faith in a fluorescent tube might seem a far-fetched concept but Flavin’s work successfully challenged prevailing ideas about art and domestic objects. A surprisingly absorbing read.