This modern thought will get the best of you

Dan Flavin (1933-1996)
monument 4 for those who have been killed in ambush
(to P.K. who reminded me about death)
1966

"I was born (screaming) a fraternal twin twenty-four minutes before my brother David, in Mary Immaculate Hospital, Jamaica, New York, at about seven in the morning on a wet Saturday, April Fool's Day, 1933, of an ascetic, remotely male, Irish Catholic truant officer whose junior I am, and a stupid, fleshy tyrant of a woman who had descended from German royalty without a trace of nobility." -- Dan Flavin

Following a brief, forced stint in the seminary, Flavin worked with fluorescent tubing nearly exclusively over the course of his artistic career. Much of his work is not nearly as dark as the piece above, and tends to be interpreted solely through a Catholic lens. Fair enough -- if you hastily abandon your Priest career and then your only material is light, you're pretty much bringing this interpretation on yourself (How Catholic!).

After refusing to having anything to do with the Catholicism after the age of eighteen, Flavin, dying in his mid-60s, sketched out the plans for an installation to "modernize" a Chuch in a run-down section of Milan. He was moved to do this following a personal letter from the Priest,
one of the most powerful things I've ever read. (Dan showed it to me personally. Not really. I just couldn't find it on the internet. Do your own academic research if you want to read it.)


Oh, and the woman behind the project thinks Flavin and his installation helped to inspire her eldest son to join the Priesthood. Somehow I don't think that was Dan's intent...
If you want to read more about this minimalist master, this article isn't a bad place to start.

This seems like a good place to plug future Mourning Werewolf exclusive, Absent Fathers, Absent Sons, an essay by Dr. Tom Avis.

(Also, I got an internship at the Corkin Gallery for the summer.)