EXPERIENCE OF AN INEFFABLE LIGHT SCULPTURE THROUGH AND

“DEATH OF THE AUTHOR” MARSHALL BERG | 3.29.11

To the Reader: The piece Untitled (To Donna) II by Dan Flavin0 is a fine example of “the Death of the

Author” in Art. To further iterate my following point, I haven’t done any research on Flavin or the piece

besides visit the piece at the Portland Art Museum and read the accompanying info card1. While his name

is familiar I honestly cannot recall any other works, or any historical data on him in my mind. I will be

critiquing the piece through the lens of “The Death of the Author” By Roland Barthes2 and my physical

experience of Untitled (To Donna) II in the Museum earlier today.

In “The Death of the Author” Roland Barthes sets up a paradox between post

enlightenment authors and their writing. He explains that society places too much

importance on the author. “It is language which speaks, not author: to write is, through a

prerequisite impersonality… to reach that point where only language acts, “performs”,

and not “me”.3 Authors scrawl and play with historically, culturally loaded building

blocks. The author manipulates these blocks (words): adding or subtracting, changing,

and researching their origins. The author consumes others manipulations (literature) in

order to inform their own manipulations. When the author reaches a state of content with

the piece he releases it and it becomes a piece of a much larger structure: the history of

literature. In this sense the author behaves as many post-modern artists do. They

manipulate ready-mades to convey their perception and contribution to culture. “The

contemporary artist acts, then, not as creator but as consumer, as an appropriator of things

produced by modern technology which circulate anonymously in our mass culture.”4

Untitled (For Donna) II by Dan Flavin is a light sculpture. It exists as four

florescent lights 6-8 ft tall. The sculpture sits in a corner of the Modern and

Contemporary wing of the Portland Art Museum. Two of the lights vertically scale the

walls about four feet from the corner where the walls meet, they stand symmetrical each

other on respective walls. One of the units has a light blue fluorescent light, the other a

dark pink. The light bulb in each fixture faces the corner. Two more lights lie vertically

and project their yellow light away from the corner towards the viewer. One rests on the

floor, the other is attached four inches above it onto the vertical lights.

The throwing, then fading gradation of light from the fixtures transforms the dull

white corner into a relationship of forces and color. Light emits from the vertical fixtures

and shoots to the opposite wall creating a symbolic yin/yang of gender specific colors

that create somewhat of an optical illusion in how it playfully interacts with the corner,

opposing wall and color. There exists a very slender, almost invisible white line that runs

along the corner, it is the beautiful product of the collision of color.

There exists no sign of individual human construction or craftsmanship. Flavin

uses industrial materials and relational aesthetics to convey his cultural contribution. He

presents to us, complex interactions of colored light. Through thinking, living, gathering,

and responding Flavin re-organizes everyday objects to make us see something we

normally wouldn’t.

Flavin works with phenomenon, ideas, and pre-existing cultural paraphernalia,

instead of crafting objects. By doing so he is participating in the death of the artist. He

sacrifices praise of craft for praise of metaphor, and becomes an author of image and

object. The power of Untitled (For Donna) II lies purely in the viewer’s experience of the

piece, and each of their personal perspectives. If it is moved, it would just be four lights
made by General Electric. The viewer could even replicate it quite easily after

understanding how it functioned. It inspires experimentation, and reorganization. The

asks us to look closer, see things for more than they appear. The importance of the piece

can only be experienced not explained. It doesn’t matter who arranged these objects

simply that someone did, we get to stumble across it, and take pleasure in it. I’m happy to

live in a culture that appreciates such work. Flavins work sacrifices commodity for

experience, and the spectator reacts instinctually. I feel it is deeply important to the

human psyche to get lost the simplest of interactions.

These interactions are stumbled upon and not found simply. The most exciting

events are those we have yet to experience, yet to know! The hunt for this experience

leaves the reader, viewer, listener, and explorer always eager, never satisfied. I feel it is

this hunt that makes artists, authors. We should recognize all great art and literature

comes from souls searching for this. “Artistic geniuses” are nothing more than frantic

investigators, leaving behind evidence of where they have been.

“We now know that a text is not a line of words releasing a single “theological”

meaning but a multidimensional space in which a verity of writings, none of them

original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable

centers of culture.”5 This is also true when discussing art. There is no original, pure, or

perfect piece of art, or theory, or style. Progress, not person is important in these fields of

cultural production as with science or technology. Fame and fortune should never be

goals of a creative person; such sins have a horrible reputation for corruption of the mind.

Those with a curiosity for life act as reactors and producers of culture that serve in the

impossible task of translating the ineffable.

0.

1.

2. . Barthes, Roland “The Death of the Author” Image, Text, Music (Hill and Wang, New

York, 1968)

3. Barthes, Roland “The Death of the Author” Image, Text, Music (Hill and Wang, New

York, 1968) pg 143

4. Groys, Boris “The Case of Thomas Schutte” Robert Lehman Lectures on

Contemporary Art No.3 (Dia Art Foundadtion, New York, 2004)

5. Barthes, Roland “The Death of the Author” Image, Text, Music (Hill and Wang, New

York, 1968) pg 146