This summer the Dia Art Foundation presents an exhibition of new works by Jacqueline Humphries at the Dan Flavin Art Institute in Bridgehampton, New York. In view of the long term since June 22, 2019 through May 17, 2020, the exhibition introduces a new body of work from Humphries' black light paintings. For these, the artist illuminates fluorescent cast objects under black light, an innovative process that extends her work beyond the canvas and into the sculptural realm. The works on display were created specifically for the space, in direct response to Dan Flavin's permanent installation at the institute of the same name. Humphries lives and works between New York City and the North Fork of Long Island.
“These extraordinary new works by Jacqueline Humphries build on her longstanding interests in fluorescence and the exploration of painting beyond two dimensions,” said Jessica Morgan, director of Dia Nathalie de Gunzburg. “Dia has a long-standing tradition of supporting artists working in new and experimental directions, so it is fitting that this exhibition draws on our rich institutional history through its connections to the permanent Flavin installation, while at the same time representing Humphries' move in a new territory. Reflecting on Flavin and Dia's relationship to the legacy of cultural excellence in Bridgehampton and surrounding areas, it is also a pleasure to once again invite an artist with a strong relationship to Long Island to present at the Dan Flavin Art Institute.”
Humphries began working with black light as a way to expand his interest in abstract painting amid painting's widely claimed reputation as a "dead" medium in the 80s. Beginning in 2005, the artist began exploring the effects of ultraviolet light on pigments, creating his own black light paintings, a body of work specifically designed to be viewed under those conditions. These works reinstate a medium more associated with psychedelic art and 60s counterculture than the avant-garde. The black lights installed not only cause pigments on the surface of the paintings to fluoresce, but also 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.
Al Dan Flavin Art Institute, Humphries presents a significant new group of works, bringing together a series of black light fluorescent cast objects. These objects came from a wide range of natural and man-made sources, including paintings, found plywood and driftwood, and 3D printed driftwood and shells. Once cast in resin, the objects are then curved using painterly mediums with surfaces ranging from phantom transparency to bright and dull monochromatic. Varying in scale, this series of illuminated jets signals a deviation from the limits of two-dimensional space. The casts of Humphries are arranged in an installation format, some free standing while others sit on the wall.
Dia's permanent installation of nine works in fluorescent light created by Dan Flavin between 1963 and 1981 will be exhibited on the second floor of the Dan Flavin Art Institute.
jacqueline humphries was born in 1960 in New Orleans. In 1985 she received her MFA from Parsons School of Design in New York City and she attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program the following year. Recent solo exhibitions of hers include the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh (2015), the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans (2015) and Prospect New Orleans (2008). Humphries' work was also included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial. His work is in the permanent collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tate Modern in London and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Humphries lives and works between New York City and the North Fork of Long Island.
