Dan Flavin

On a recent trip to Chicago, among all too brief visits with friends, I caught the minimalist light artist/sculptor's retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art. He'd had his first solos how there, so the return was fitting. To walk around an entire (huge) gallery completely adorned with these fluorescent sculptures, bathing the place in soft, often colored, light was dreamlike and euphoric. There were mementos from his peers, like environmental sculptor Robert Smithson, another favorite, who worked with/inspired Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth.

Flavin was on his own though. A blazing loner, trying to wring emotion from glass tubes, tinting them with chemicals from the inside.