intermediary space
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of tubes arranged by a variety of methods. Some pieces were site specific and to be taken as stand-alone units while some are either meant or able to be viewed as a part of a series. Some of his constructs were mounted on walls like paintings and others straddled corners and doorways to collect the edge of the space of the room into the total work. Something that is consistent within his body of work – which could be said is reflective of his own life – is its reliance on dialectical processes. Consider architectural design within the parameters of argument. A dialectic is a particular form of argument in which either idea cannot stand without the opposition provided by the other. That is to say, for example, that “good” cannot be realistically defined without a reciprocal definition of “that which is not good.” This is the lens through which both Flavin and his work should be observed. The Hegelian Dialectic is comprised of three entities rather than two. The two poles result in the creation of the third place, known as the “synthesis.” A “synthesis” in itself establishes a new dichotomy, and this process continues into infinity – an assertion that in Hegel’s mind constituted as a perfection. An author is a “synthesis” in this regard. An author is the catalyst, result, and continuation manifest of each work he or she has produced. Flavin was raised Catholic by his father, though he ultimately separated from the church by the time that he was an adult.2 Biographers of the artist speculate that he maintained a particular resentment and subsequent thematic concentration towards religious establishment for some time after. They argue that Flavin’s work is of an inherently religious articulation; his lighting constructs are physically simple and straightforward objects but are interpreted to hold significant allegory and spiritual symbolism. This reading was seemingly much to Flavin’s irritation. In a journal concerning a particular exhibition of his, he wrote that “it is what it is, and it ain’t nothing else.”3 While this declaration is given with a weight that one might deem “enough”, the establishment of controversy by his critics is fairly reasonable. Flavin’s work often seems to lead a double life. Simple objects though they certainly are, his work makes formal allusions to either other artists or other sources