Dan Flavin Will Light Up the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opens a Dan Flavin exhibition that focuses on the US artist’s pioneering use of commercially available fluorescent tubes.

The exhibition takes its cue from Flavin’s 1964 solo show at the Kaymar Gallery in New York, his first presentation composed entirely of fluorescent light works, following his decision in 1963 to mount a single gold fluorescent tube diagonally on a wall.

Presented in the museum’s Frank Gehry-designed galleries, Dan Flavin: Some Light will highlight how Flavin conceived his arrangements as architectural “situations,” deploying ready-made fixtures in controlled palettes of red, blue, green, pink, yellow, ultraviolet, and white.

The exhibition draws on the Guggenheim’s extensive holdings of Flavin’s work from the Panza Collection, supplemented by key loans from the Dia Art Foundation in New York.

Dan Flavin: Some Light opens on November 11 and runs through April 4, 2027.