Dan Flavin’s Luminous Grids Arrive in Hong Kong in Landmark Exhibition at David Zwirner

This summer, Hong Kong welcomes a major presentation dedicated to one of the defining figures of postwar Minimalism. From May 28 through August 8, 2026, David Zwirner Hong Kong presents Dan Flavin: Grids, the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work in Greater China and the first focused examination of Flavin’s celebrated “grid” constructions.

Dan Flavin, untitled (in honor of Leo at the 30th anniversary of his gallery), 1987© 2026 Stephen Flavin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Courtesy David Zwirner

Installed across the gallery’s H Queen’s space in Central Hong Kong, the exhibition revisits an essential body of work Flavin began in 1976, bringing together historically significant installations, important institutional loans, and works from the Estate of Dan Flavin. Originally presented earlier this year at David Zwirner New York, the Hong Kong edition introduces these luminous environments to audiences in the region for the first time.

Few artists transformed the language of space and perception as radically as Dan Flavin. From the early 1960s until his death in 1996, the American artist developed a singular practice using commercially available fluorescent lamps to construct immersive situations of light, color, and architecture. Rather than treating light as a medium of illusion, Flavin used it as a material capable of physically redefining space itself.

The exhibition’s central focus — the “grids” — represents one of the most concentrated and chromatically sophisticated moments within Flavin’s oeuvre. Built from horizontal and vertical fluorescent fixtures arranged in carefully balanced structures, these works activate both the surrounding architecture and the viewer’s bodily perception. Installed in room corners, they simultaneously radiate outward into the gallery while projecting color inward into architectural space, dissolving conventional boundaries between object, environment, and atmosphere.

As curator Michael Govan once observed, the grids stand among “the most intense and concentrated” of Flavin’s light works. Their complex orchestration of reflected color, shadow, geometry, and optical interaction reveals the artist’s ongoing dialogue between rational structure and sensory experience.

Among the highlights are Flavin’s earliest grids, untitled (for Mary Ann and Hal with fondest regards) 1 and 2 (1976), originally presented in Los Angeles in an installation that is recreated here. The exhibition also revisits a number of works dedicated to legendary dealer Leo Castelli, whose relationship with Flavin played an important role in the artist’s career. Particularly significant is the re-creation of untitled (in honor of Leo at the 30th anniversary of his gallery) (1987), a monumental twenty-four-foot installation spanning an architectural corner — presented together for the first time since its original installation at Castelli Gallery in New York.

Left:Dan Flavin, untitled (in honor of Leo at the 30th anniversary of his gallery), 1987 © 2026 Stephen Flavin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Courtesy David Zwirner

RIght:Dan Flavin, untitled (for you, Leo, in long respect and affection) 2, 1977 © 2026 Stephen Flavin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Courtesy David Zwirner

Born in Queens, New York in 1933, Flavin emerged as one of the leading figures of Minimalism during the 1960s, participating in seminal exhibitions such as Primary Structures at The Jewish Museum in New York and Minimal Art at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. Over subsequent decades, his work became the subject of major museum retrospectives and permanent installations across the world, from Dia and the Guggenheim Museum to Chiesa Rossa in Milan and institutions throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States.

More than a historical survey, Dan Flavin: Grids offers Hong Kong audiences an encounter with light as architecture, perception, and emotional presence. In an era increasingly saturated by digital imagery, Flavin’s fluorescent environments remain remarkably immediate — transforming ordinary industrial materials into meditations on space, stillness, and human perception itself.

Dan Flavin: Grids

May 28 – August 8, 2026

David Zwirner Hong Kong5–6/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Central, Hong Kong