With an exhibition schedule that shifts only annually, a new show at Dia’s Dan Flavin Art Institute in Bridgehampton is an event. The Dia Art Foundation diligently works to find artists whose mediums and styles complement Flavin’s own output of fluorescent light sculptures, drawings, and other art he produced throughout his life.
This year’s artist is Jacqueline Humphries, who divides her time between New York City and Southold. Her recent black light on fluorescent cast works are an expansion of the black light paintings she has been making since a 2005 fire in her studio caused her to rethink her practice.
“These works re-engage a medium more associated with psychedelic art and 1960s counterculture than the avant-garde,” Dia said in a release. Although the black light is employed primarily to activate the pigments on the objects’ surface, its secondary effect is to “illuminate environmental elements such as lint and the whites of viewers’ eyes or teeth. The emanating glow creates a heightened awareness of the act of seeing and the experience of being seen.”
Speaking about her black light paintings in 2015 for ARTnews, Ms. Humphries said the more paint she used “the more light there is in the room because the paintings actually create light. There’s a kind of thrilling feeling of creating light in the room.”
Jessica Morgan, Dia’s director, said the juxtaposition of the two artists will allow viewers to “trace the conceptual conversation about color and light from the 1960s to the present day.” The exhibition also allows Dia to represent “Humphries’s move into new territory,” while showing another artist with a strong relationship with the region.
The works will remain on view through May 17, 2020.