In 1963, Dan Flavin began creating sculptural objects from fluorescent lights available in New York City stores. In the decades that followed, he devoted himself to systematically trying different combinations of fluorescent light tubes in increasingly large environments, exploring ways to activate architectural space through light and color. Flavin often dedicated his works to friends and artists he admired. In the case of this piece, the title in parentheses refers to the Russian constructivist artist, Vladimir Tatlin, who in 1920 dreamed of combining art and technology in the Monument to the Third International. This ambitious project for a spiral tower of colossal proportions was never built, but Flavin’s series of monuments pays tribute to Tatlin’s utopian and futuristic ideals.