Minimalism
Art 109A: Art since 19405Westchester Community College
Fall 2012 Dr. Melissa Hall
Minimalism 1960s – contemporaneous with Pop Art and Hard Edge AbstracHon
Major arHsts include Frank Stella, Donald Judd, Tony Smith, Carl Andre, Robert Morris, Dan Flavin, Sol LewiR
InstallaHon view of the exhibiHon "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum in NYC, 1966: works by Donald Judd (leZ side) and Robert Morris Image source: hRp://www.radford.edu/rbarris/art428/minimalism%20and%20theatricality.html
Minimalism ShiZ from painHng to sculpture
InstallaHon view of the exhibiHon "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum in NYC, 1966: works by Donald Judd (leZ side) and Robert Morris Image source: hRp://www.radford.edu/rbarris/art428/minimalism%20and%20theatricality.html
“Primarily sculpture, Minimal art tends to consist of single or repeated geometric forms. Industrially produced or built by skilled workers following the arHst’s instrucHons, it removes any trace of emoHon or intuiHve decision-‐making, in stark contrast to the Abstract Expressionist painHng and sculpture that preceded it during the 1940’s and 1950’s. Minimal work does not allude to anything beyond its literal presence, or its existence in the physical world. Materials appears as materials; colour (if used at all) is non-‐referenHal. OZen placed in walls, in corners, or directly on the floor, it is an installaHon art that reveals the gallery as an actual place, rendering the viewer conscious of moving through this space.” James Meyer, Minimalism, p. 15
Minimalism CharacterisHcs:
1. Use of industrial materials and methods of fabricaHon
2. Radically simplified geometric forms
3. Singular or serial arrangements based on preexisHng systems rather than “composiHonal” concerns
4. Removal of all trace of the arHst’s hand (impersonality)
InstallaHon view of the exhibiHon "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum in NYC, 1966: works by Donald Judd (leZ side) and Robert Morris Image source: hRp://www.radford.edu/rbarris/art428/minimalism%20and%20theatricality.html
Minimalism ReacHon against Abstract Expressionism and its rhetoric of personal expression and spiritual transcendence
Hans Namuth, Jackson Pollock, 1950
BarneR Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimus, 1950-‐51
“At thirty I had my alienaHon, my Skilsaw, my plywood. I was out to rip the metaphors, especially those that had to do with ‘up,’ as well as every other whiff of transcendence. When I sliced into the plywood with my Skilsaw, I could hear, beneath the ear-‐damaging whine, a stark and refreshing ‘no’ reverberate off the four walls: no to transcendence and spiritual values, heroic scale, anguished decisions, historicizing narraHve, valuable arHfact, intelligent structure, interesHng visual experience.” Robert Morris, “Three Folds in the Fabric and Four Autobiographical Asides as Allegories [or InterrupHons], Art in America, November 1989
Image source: hRp://professional-‐power-‐tool-‐guide.com/2008/08/skil-‐worm-‐drive-‐saw-‐power-‐tool-‐review/
Minimalism Minimalism was in many ways a conHnuaHon of the Modernist pursuit of purity, autonomy, and self-‐referenHality
"Increasingly the demand has been for an honest, direct, unadulterated experience in art (any art), minus symbolism, minus messages, and minus personal exhibiHonism." E.C. Goosen, 1966
Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Pain5ng, 1957 Museum of Modern Art
Minimalism But Minimalism also embraced the literalism of Jasper Johns, creaHng a kind of synthesis between the monochrome and the readymade
Jasper Johns Flag, 1954-‐55, Museum of Modern Art
Frank Stella It is generally agreed that Minimalism began with the monochrome painHngs of Frank Stella
Frank Stella double-‐page spread from the exhibiHon catalogue “Sixteen Americans,” Museum of Modern Art 1959
Frank Stella Stella wanted to eliminate every last trace of “personality,” “feeling,” or “expressionism” from his work
Frank Stella, 1965 Image source: hRp://www.askyfilledwithshooHngstars.com/wordpress/?p=638
“I always get into arguments with people who want to retain the old values in painHng – the humanisHc values that they always find on the canvas. If you pin them down, they always end up asserHng that there is something there besides paint on the canvas.” Frank Stella
Kenneth Noland, Turnsole, 1961 MOMA
“Consider the following opinions . . . . Ben Heller writes that Noland ‘has created not only an opHcal but an expressive art’ and Michael Fried calls Noland’s painHngs ‘powerful emoHonal statements’ . . . . Alan Solomon has wriRen of Noland’s circles . . . ‘some are buoyant and cheerful . . . Others are sombre, brooding, tense, introspecHve,’ but this ‘someHmes-‐I’m-‐happy, someHmes-‐I’m-‐blue’ interpretaHon is less than one hopes for. It amounts to a reading of color and concentric density as symbols of emoHonal states, which takes us back to the early twenHeth-‐century belief in emoHonal transmission by color-‐coding.” Lawrence Alloway, Systemic Pain5ng
Susan Sontag’s seminal essay “Against InterpretaHon” is relevant here:
Susan Sontag, Against Interpreta5on and Other Essays, 1966
“In most modern instances, interpretaHon amounts to the philisHne refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreHng that, one tames the work of art. InterpretaHon makes art manageable, comformable.” Susan Sontag, “Against InterpretaHon” 1966
CriHcs made much of the “expressive” meaning of Abstract Expressionism
Norman Rockwell, The Connoisseur, The Saturday Evening Post, January 13, 1962
They saw the arHst’s personality embedded in the marks he made on the canvas
“It is always the case that interpretaHon of this type indicates a dissaHsfacHon (conscious or unconscious) with the work, a wish to replace it by something else. InterpretaHon, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an arHcle for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories.” Susan Sontag, “Against InterpretaHon”
Frank Stella Frank Stella’s black painHngs consisted of geometrical arrangements of black stripes
Frank Stella, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, 1959 Museum of Modern Art
Frank Stella Inspired by Jasper Johns’ flags; the striped painHng were flag painHngs, minus the flag
Frank Stella, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, 1959 Museum of Modern Art
Jasper Johns, Flag, 1958
Frank Stella The industrial enamel paint was applied impersonally
Frank Stella, 1965 Image source: hRp://www.askyfilledwithshooHngstars.com/wordpress/?p=638
“To clear away the boring display of personality as such, techniques for applying color have been reduced to those that call as liRle aRenHon to themselves as possible. The anonymity of the industrial paint-‐job is the desire.” E.C. Goosen, Two Exhibi5ons
Frank Stella Even the composiHon was “anonymous”
The width of the stripes was determined by the width of the stretcher frame, and then repeated in a logical paRern
Frank Stella, Die Fahne Hoch, 1959 Whitney Museum
Frank Stella
Frank Stella, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, 1959 Museum of Modern Art
“Art excludes the unnecessary. Frank Stella has found it necessary to paint stripes. There is nothing else in his painHng. Frank Stella is not interested in expression or sensiHvity. He is interested in the necessiHes of painHng. Symbols are counters passed among people. Frank Stella’s painHng is not symbolic. His stripes are the paths of brush on canvas. These paths lead only to painHng.” Carl Andre, “Preface to Stripe PainHng (Frank Stella),” Sixteen American, Museum of Modern Art, 1959
Frank Stella Stella’s painHngs took the Modernist pursuit of “purity” to its logical conclusion
Clement Greenberg looking at a painHng by Ken Noland Image source: hRps://www.artnet.sk/Magazine/features/kostabi/kostabi9-‐11-‐18.asp
“The new flatness of Stella’s black, copper, and aluminum painHngs made even the shallow space of abstract expressionism seem old fashioned. Michael Fried claimed that in doing this Stella has posed and solved the central formal problem in modern art since impressionism – namely, asserHng the painHng’s presence as an object (it’s ‘objecthood’).” Jonathan Fineberg, Art Since 1940, p. 299
Frank Stella But the pictures had become so blank and impersonal they could no longer be “read” as pictures
Frank Stella, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, 1959 MOMA
“Like irrevocably shut metal doors, these hermeHc facades thwarted the spectator’s impulse to look into the picture, whose tradiHonal ficHons now seemed forever sealed from view.” Robert Rosenblum
Frank Stella
Frank Stella, Die Fahne Hoch, 1959 Whitney Museum
“My painHng is based on the fact that only what can be seen is there. It really is an object . . . . If the painHng were lean enough, accurate enough, or right enough, you would just be able to look at it. All I want anyone to get out of my painHngs, and all I ever get out of them, is the fact that you can see the whole idea without any confusion . . . . What you see is what you see.” Frank Stella
“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my painHngs and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.” Andy Warhol
Frank Stella Stella’s Htles seem to contradict his emoHonal detachment
Frank Stella, Die Fahne Hoch, 1959 Whitney Museum
Frank Stella Die Fahne Hoch means “raise the flag high,” and is taken from a Nazi marching song
Frank Stella, Die Fahne Hoch, 1959 Whitney Museum
Frank Stella Another work, Arbeit Macht Frei — “Work makes [you] free” — takes its Htle from the moRo inscribed over the gates of Auschwitz.
“Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes you Free”) gate at Auschwitz
Frank Stella
Frank Stella, Die Fahne Hoch, 1959 Whitney Museum
“In their insistence on the fraudulence or bankruptcy of exisHng systems of producing meaning, and in their very absoluteness, Stella’s painHngs make an unrelievedly negaHvisHc statement. Here we find art on the brink of not being art, blacked-‐out painHngs idenHfied with Nazi slogans. From this perspecHve, Stella’s use of the notorious phrase from Auschwitz might evoke Adorno’s saying that, ‘To write lyric poetry aZer Auschwitz is barbaric.; for the ‘poems’ consHtuted by these graphic painHngs are non-‐poems or the negaHves of poems, with thick white lines where the black lines should be on a sheet of wriHng paper, and line aZer line ineradicably deleted in black were the white spaces and the poem’s text should be.” Anna Chave, “Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power,” Arts vol. 64 no. 5 (January 1990), p. 50
Frank Stella To emphasize the “painHng-‐as-‐object” (as opposed to the idea of the “painHng-‐as-‐picture”), Stella also introduced the idea of the shaped canvas
Frank Stella, Nunca Pasa Nada, 1964
“The shaped canvas, although frequently described as a hybrid of painHng and sculpture, grew out of the issues of abstract painHng and was evidence of the desire of painters to move into real space by rejecHng behind-‐the-‐frame illusionism.” Frances ColpiR, “The Shape of PainHng in the 1960’s”
Frank Stella, Shaped canvases at L & M Arts Image source: hRp://artobserved.com/2012/04/new-‐york-‐frank-‐stella-‐black-‐aluminum-‐copper-‐at-‐lm-‐arts-‐through-‐june-‐2-‐2012/07-‐frank-‐stella-‐l-‐m-‐teullride-‐creede-‐i-‐creede-‐ii-‐2012/
Frank Stella, Empress of India, 1965 Museum of Modern Art
Frank Stella, Empress of India, 1965 Image source: hRp://www.flickr.com/photos/noodle/2244592760/sizes/o/in/photostream/
"Being pulled out of the standard rectangular shape . . . the convenHonal idea of the painHng as a transparent screen opening onto an imaginary space gives way to the idea of painHng as an opaque surface occupying actual space." David Batchelor, Minimalism, p. 17
Ellsworth Kelly, Three Panels: Orange, Dark Gray, Green, 1986 Museum of Modern Art
“When you make a line or mark on a panel, you are involved in depicHon, and what I wanted expressed was the form of the painHng itself . . . the wall became the ground and the panels became the marks on the wall." Ellsworth Kelly MOMA
Later Work Stella later introduced color into his work
Frank Stella, Gran Cairo, 1962. Whitney Museum
Frank Stella, Geometric Varia5ons, at Paul Kasmin Gallery, 2011 hRp://www.paulkasmingallery.com/exhibiHons/2011-‐09-‐22_frank-‐stella/artworks
Later Work
Frank Stella, Chocorua IV, 1966. Hood Museum of Art
“A major shiZ from this work began to develop in 1966 with his Irregular Polygons, canvases in the shapes of irregular geometric forms and characterized by large unbroken areas of color. As this new vocabulary developed into a more open and color-‐oriented pictorial language, the works underwent a metamorphosis in size, expressing an affinity with architecture in their monumentality.” Guggenheim Museum
Frank Stella, Irregular Polygons, Toledo Museum hRp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgaPuHDV8v0&feature=related
Later Work
Frank Stella, Harran II, 1967 Guggenheim Museum
“Stella also introduced curves into his works, marking the beginning of the Protractor series. Harran II evinces the great vaulHng composiHons and lyrically decoraHve paRerns that are the leitmoHf of the series, which is based on the semicircular draZing instrument used for measuring and construcHng angles.” Guggenheim Museum
Frank Stella, Harran II, 1967 Guggenheim Museum
Op Art Contemporaneous with Minimalism
Explored purely opHcal experience
ExhibiHon Catalog, The Responsive Eye, 1965 MOMA
Op Art “Pop” version of “what you see is what you see”
Victor Vasarely, Vega-‐Nor, 1969 Albright Knox Museum
Bridget Riley, Movement in Squares, 1961
Op Art Although short lived as an avant garde movement, Op Art had a significant influence on 1960’s fashion and design
1960s fashion icon Ossie Clark hRp://www.thebudgezashionista.com/archive/clark-‐ossie/
Donald Judd Began his career as a painter
Studied philosophy at Columbia, and was an art criHc from 1959-‐1965
Laura Wilson, Portrait of Donald Judd with Red PainHng Artnet
Donald Judd Following Greenberg’s theory of modernism, Judd declared that painHng was obsolete
Kenneth Noland, Turnsole, 1961 Museum of Modern Art
"Almost all paintings are spatial in one way or another . . . Anything on a surface has space behind it . . . . anything spaced in a rectangle and on a plane suggests something in and on something else, something in its surround, which suggests an object or figure in its space . . .” Donald Judd
Donald Judd But Stella’s shaped canvases pointed in a new direcHon by moving from painHng to object
"Frank Stella's new painHng are one of the recent facts. They show the extent of what can be done now . . . It is not only new but beRer . . . the absence of illusionisHc space in Stella, for example, makes abstract expressionism seem now an inadequate style, makes it appear a compromise with representaHonal art and its meaning." Donald Judd
Frank Stella, Empress of India, 1965 Museum of Modern Art
Donald Judd Also influenced by Russian ConstrucHvist idea of “real materials in real space”
Vladimir Tatlin, Corner Relief, 1915
Donald Judd Judd’s earliest works were box-‐like construcHons made of industrial materials such as plywood, plexiglass, and steel
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1968. Enamel on aluminum Guggenheim Museum
Donald Judd The pieces were set directly on the floor rather than on a pedestal, making them more like “objects” than sculptures
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1968. Brass Museum of Modern Art
Donald Judd He called his pieces “specific objects” to disHnguish them from “painHng” or “sculpture”
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1972. Enamel and aluminum Tate Gallery
Donald Judd The works were not even made by the arHst -‐-‐ they were fabricated by technicians according to his specificaHons
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1968 Walker Art Center
Donald Judd They seem more like works of carpentry or engineering, than “sculpture”
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1976, Dia:Beacon Image source: hRp://jacindarussellart.blogspot.com/2011/10/dia-‐beacon-‐with-‐colleen.html
Donald Judd They have about as much personality as a piece of furniture (which the arHst started making in the 80’s)
Donald Judd, Daybed
”Minimal works are readable as art, as almost anything is today – including a door, a table, or a blank sheet of paper.” Clement Greenberg, “The Recentness of Sculpture,” 1967
Donald Judd
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1968. Brass Museum of Modern Art
Wait a second, how can
something so boring be considered
art?
Donald Judd
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1968. Brass Museum of Modern Art
How can it be art if it doesn’t
mean anything?
Donald Judd Remember -‐ other arHsts were trying to make art that was “anonymous,” and “about nothing”
Ellsworth Kelly, Colors for a Large Wall, 1951 Museum of Modern Art
Donald Judd They wanted us to see the work, not its “meaning”
Ellsworth Kelly, Colors for a Large Wall, 1951 Museum of Modern Art
Donald Judd If we just LOOK at Judd’s work, without preconcepHon, we discover that what appears to be so simple is really quite complex
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1968. Brass Museum of Modern Art
Donald Judd As we look at the work, move around it, step up close and then back away, we become aware of how this simple object changes according to our vantage point
"So what you see is what you see, as Frank Stella famously said, but things are never as simple as they seem: the posiHvism of Minimalism notwithstanding, percepHon is made reflexive in these works and so rendered complex” Hal Foster, The Crux of Minimalism
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1968. Image source: hRp://crmoon.com/cresmoart.html#Minimal%20Art%20and%20ArHsts%20in%20the%201960s%20and%20AZer
Molly Einhorn, Donal Judd’s “UnHtled” + Me hRp://mollyeinhorn.wordpress.com/
Donald Judd
"The minimalist suppression of anthropomorphic images and gestures is more than a reacHon against the abstract-‐expressionist model of art; it is a "death of the author" (as Roland Barthes would call it in 1968) that is at the same Hme a birth of the viewer: 'The object is but one of the terms of the newer estheHc . . . . One is more aware than before that he himself is establishing relaHonships as he apprehends the object from the various posiHons and under varying condiHons of light and spaHal context.' Hal Foster, the Crux of Minimalism
Death of the Author This is why Michael Fried dismissed Minimalism as being “theatrical”
Death of the Author A Minimalist exhibiHon is like a stage-‐set for a “Happening”
Donald Judd work in CincinnaH Art Museum Image source: hRp://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonnathan/3484451338/
Donald Judd In addiHon to “unitary forms,” Judd also worked with modular units in serial arrangements
Donald Judd, UnHtled (Six boxes) 1974. Brass NaHonal Gallery of Australia
Donald Judd Seriality = “anonymous” composiHon
Different from “relaHonal sculpture”
Anthony Caro, Early One Morning, 1962 Tate Gallery
Donald Judd Seriality internalizes industrial modes of producHon
Donald Judd, UnHtled (Six boxes) 1974. Brass NaHonal Gallery of Australia
Donald Judd In the “stack” series, box-‐like forms are canHlevered to the wall and spaced at regular intervals
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1969 Brass and colored fluorescent plexiglass on steel bracketsten pieces, each 6 1/8 x 24 x 27 in. Hirshhorn Museum
Donald Judd, Un5tled (Stack), 1967 Lacquer on galvanized iron, Twelve units, each 9 x 40 x 31" Museum of Modern Art
Donald Judd, Un5tled, December 23, 1969. Copper, ten units with 9-‐inch intervals, 9 x 40 x 31 inches (22.9 x 101.6 x 78.7 cm) each; 180 x 40 x 31 inches Guggenheim Museum
Donald Judd The serial arrangement is “impersonal,” and avoids anthropomorphic associaHons
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1969 Brass and colored fluorescent plexiglass on steel bracketsten pieces, each 6 1/8 x 24 x 27 in. Hirshhorn Museum
David Smith, Cubi XVII, 1963
Donald Judd Though composed of separate “parts,” the work reads as a unified “whole”
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1969 Brass and colored fluorescent plexiglass on steel bracketsten pieces, each 6 1/8 x 24 x 27 in. Hirshhorn Museum
“Gestalt is a psychology term which means "unified whole". It refers to theories of visual percepHon developed by German psychologists in the 1920s. These theories aRempt to describe how people tend to organize visual elements into groups or unified wholes. . .” hRp://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm
Donald Judd But the “form” of the work will change as we move around the piece
Donald Judd, Un5tled, 1980 Steel, aluminum, and perspex Tate Gallery
Donald Judd In 1968 Judd purchased a building at 101 Spring Street in SoHo, which became his first “permanent installaHon”
“Judd’s concept of “permanent installaHon” centered on the belief that the placement of a work of art was as criHcal to its understanding as the work itself. Judd’s first applicaHons of this idea were realized in his installaHon of works throughout 101 Spring Street.” Judd FoundaHon
Donald Judd The idea of a “permanent installaHon” was realized on a grander scale when he purchased an abandoned army installaHon near Marfa Texas to use as a studio
Donald Judd The site is now managed by the ChinaH foundaHon and includes large-‐scale works by Judd, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, John Chamberlain, Claes Oldenburg and Roni Horn
hRp://www.chinaH.org/visit/collecHon/carlandre.php
Donald Judd, 100 un5tled works in mill aluminum, 1982-‐1986
“At the center of the ChinaH FoundaHon's permanent collecHon are 100 unHtled works in mill aluminum by Donald Judd installed in two former arHllery sheds. The size and scale of the buildings determined the nature of the installaHon, and Judd adapted the buildings specifically for this purpose. He replaced derelict garage doors with long walls of conHnuous squared and quartered windows which flood the spaces with light. Judd also added a vaulted roof in galvanized iron on top of the original flat roof, thus doubling the buildings' height. The semi-‐circular ends of the roof vaults were to be made of glass.” hRp://www.chinaH.org/visit/collecHon/juddalummore.php
Donald Judd, 100 un5tled works in mill aluminum, 1982-‐1986
Donald Judd, 100 un5tled works in mill aluminum, 1982-‐1986 Image source: hRp://food-‐dileRante.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html
“The fiZeen concrete works by Donald Judd that run along the border of ChinaH's property were the first works to be installed at the museum and were cast and assembled on the site over a four-‐year period, from 1980 through 1984. The individual units that comprise each work have the same measurements of 2.5 x 2.5 x 5 meters, and are made from concrete slabs that are each 25 cenHmeters thick. Funding for the project was provided by the Dia Art FoundaHon.” hRp://www.chinaH.org/visit/collecHon/donaldjudd2.php
Donald Judd, 15 Un5tled works in concrete, 1980-‐1984
Donald Judd, 15 Un5tled works in concrete 1980-‐1984 hRp://studioporcupine.blogspot.com/2012/03/chinaH-‐foundaHon-‐part-‐1-‐marfa-‐tx.html
Donald Judd, 15 Un5tled works in concrete 1980-‐1984 hRp://studioporcupine.blogspot.com/2012/03/chinaH-‐foundaHon-‐part-‐1-‐marfa-‐tx.html
Tony Smith Member of the Abstract Expressionist generaHon
BarneR Newman, Jackson Pollock, Tony Smith at the BeRy Parsons Gallery, 1951 Photos by Hans Namuth NaHonal Portrait Gallery
Tony Smith IniHated the use of industrial materials and methods
Work was made by an industrial fabricator according to specificaHons given on the phone
Tony Smith, Die, 1962 (fabricated 1968) Steel, 6’ X 6’ X 6’ NaHonal Gallery of Art
Smith's instrucHons for fabricaHon were: ''a six-‐foot cube of quarter-‐inch hot-‐rolled steel with diagonal internal bracing.''
Tony Smith Based on scale of the human body
Tony Smith, Die, 1962 (fabricated 1968) Steel, 6’ X 6’ X 6’ NaHonal Gallery of Art
Tony Smith If he made it larger, the piece would have been like architecture
If he made it smaller, it would have been an object
Tony Smith, Die, 1962 (fabricated 1998) Steel, 6’ X 6’ X 6’ Museum of Modern Art
“Smith shied away from referring to his three-‐dimensional works as sculptures, instead calling them "presences." "I was just thinking about form," he explained. "They just exist," he told an interviewer. ‘They are just present.’” hRp://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/features/tuchman/tuchman7-‐14-‐98.asp
Tony Smith Works like Die and Free Ride earned Smith a reputaHon as a first ranking Minimalist
Tony Smith, Free Ride, 1962 Museum of Modern Art
Tony Smith, Free Ride, 1962 Museum of Modern Art
Tony Smith, Free Ride, 1962 Museum of Modern Art
Tony Smith But other works by Smith are not as "pure" in Minimalist terms
Tony Smith, Duck, 1962 Pepsico Sculpture Garden
Tony Smith, Amaryllis, 1965/68 Walker Art Center hRp://collecHons.walkerart.org/item/object/771
Smith composed Amaryllis using two geometric shapes that change dramaHcally as the viewer circles the sculpture. From one view the sculpture appears as a balanced form consisHng of two idenHcal shapes.
Tony Smith, Amaryllis, 1965/68 Walker Art Center hRp://collecHons.walkerart.org/item/object/771
Viewed from the side, it appears unbalanced, as though the supported form might topple.
Tony Smith, Amaryllis, 1965/68 Walker Art Center hRp://collecHons.walkerart.org/item/object/771
From another vantage point, it is difficult to tell it is the same work
Carl Andre Carl Andre's early carved sculptures were inspired by the work of ConstanHn Brancusi
Carl Andre, Last Ladder, 1959 Tate Gallery
ConstanHn Brancusi
Carl Andre He was especially aRracted to Brancusi’s rough hewn pedestals and his seminal work, Endless Column
ConstanHn Brancusi in his studio
ConstanHn Brancusi Endless Coumn 1918 MOMA
Carl Andre 1960 abandons “carving”
Element series: stacked arrangements of Hmber in various configuraHons
Carl Andre Pyramid (Square Plan) 1959 (destroyed); 1970 (remade) Dallas Museum of Art
Carl Andre Stacking: an impersonal, “anonymous” method of construcHon
Logical system dictates form of the work
Carl Andre, Trabum (Element Series), Conceived in 1960; made in 1977. Douglas fir, Nine units: Overall: 36 x 36 x 36 inches; Each: 12” x 12” x 36” Guggenheim Museum
Carl Andre The work is about the properHes of material rather than the arHst’s ideas or skill
"The one thing I learned in my work is that to make the work I wanted to you couldn't impose properHes on materials, you have to reveal the properHes of the material." Carl Andre
Carl Andre, Trabum (Element Series), Conceived in 1960; made in 1977. Douglas fir, Nine units: Overall: 36 x 36 x 36 inches; Each: 12” x 12” x 36” Guggenheim Museum
Carl Andre Inspired by Frank Stella (with whom he shared a studio) Andre began experimenHng with industrial materials such as steel, lead, fire bricks, and copper, in serial arrangements that became increasingly reducHve and spare
Carl Andre, Lever, 1966
Carl Andre Lever was a site-‐specific work consisHng of 137 fire bricks laid side by side on the floor
Carl Andre, Lever, 1966
Carl Andre He believed that verHcality had inherently anthropomorphic connotaHons
Carl Andre, Lever, 1966 David Smith, Cubi XVII, 1963
Carl Andre
Carl Andre, Lever, 1966
“All I’m doing,” says Andre, “is pu�ng Brancusi’s Endless Column on the ground instead of in the sky. Most sculpture is priapic with the male organ in the air. In my work, Priapus is down on the floor. The engaged posiHon is to run along the earth.” David Bourdon, “The Razed Sites of Carl Andre,” Ar^orum, Oct 1966; in Gregory BaRcock, Minimal Art: An Anthology, p. 103-‐
Carl Andre Just as Stella pushed the limits of painHng by eliminaHng everything "pictorial" in pursuit of a literal "objecthood," Andre similarly pushed the limits of sculpture to a point of near disappearance
Carl Andre, Lever, 1966
Carl Andre In his Equivalents series Andre arranged firebricks in a variety of different configuraHons
Each piece consisted of the same number of firebricks, but their resulHng shapes were quite different
Carl Andre, Equivalent _-‐VIII, 1966 InstallaHon at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, 1966
Carl Andre The viewer is invited to contemplate the relaHonship between the known fact of “sameness” (the works are all, essenHally the same), and the visible “differences” between them
Carl Andre, Equivalent _-‐VIII, 1966 InstallaHon at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, 1966
Carl Andre Equivalent VIII, part of the series, was purchased by the Tate Gallery in 1972
Carl Andre, Equivalent VIII, 1966 Tate Gallery
Carl Andre The work consisted of 120 fire bricks arranged in a rectangular arrangement on the floor
Carl Andre, Equivalent VIII, 1966 Tate Gallery
Carl Andre It set off a major controversy in the BriHsh press
Carl Andre The public response to Andre’s work is ironic, since his goal was to “democraHze” art by taking it off its pedestal
Carl Andre, Equivalent VIII, 1966 Tate Gallery
“My work is atheisHc, materialisHc, and communisHc. It’s atheisHc because it’s without transcendent form, without spiritual or intellectual quality. MaterialisHc because it’s made out of its own material without pretension to other materials. And communisHc because the form is equally accessible to all men.” David Bourdon, “The Razed Sites of Carl Andre,” Ar^orum, Oct 1966; in Gregory BaRcock, Minimal Art: An Anthology, p. 103-‐
Carl Andre The arHst signaled his solidarity with the working man by always wearing bib overalls
Carl Andre
Carl Andre But the common man thought the work was incomprehensible
Carl Andre, Equivalent VIII, 1966 Tate Gallery
Carl Andre In another series, Andre created flat Hles out of industrial materials such as aluminum, steel, zinc, lead, and iron, placed in modular units on the floor
Carl Andre, Steel-‐Aluminum Plain, 1969 Art InsHtute of Chicago
Carl Andre, Steel-‐Aluminum Plain, 1969 Art InsHtute of Chicago
Carl Andre To differenHate his work from sculpture on a pedestal, he invited viewers to walk on the work
So what are we actually supposed to do with a sculpture
like this?
Carl Andre
This guy actually has the right idea
hRp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4VZtNa01EA
Carl Andre
Think about Cage’s 4’ 33”
Carl Andre, 144 Lead Squares, 1969 MOMA
Where is the sculpture? There’s nothing there!
Carl Andre, 144 Lead Squares, 1969 MOMA
It’s like a monchrome
painHng, only its on the floor . . .
Robert Morris Like Donald Judd, Robert Morris was influenHal as both an arHst and a theorist
Robert Morris, I-‐Box, 1962
Robert Morris In the 1960’s Morris embarked upon a series of L-‐beams made of plywood and painted a dull gray
Robert Morris, Un5tled (L-‐Beams), 1965 and 1967 (original destoryed)
Robert Morris Like Tony Smith's cube, the L-‐beam is a simple shape that the mind immediately grasps
Robert Morris, Un5tled (L-‐Beams), 1965 and 1967 (original destoryed)
"One need not move around the object for the sense of the whole, the gestalt, to occur." Robert Morris
Robert Morris Yet the arrangement of the L-‐beams complicates this certainty, challenging our "faith" in existenHal absolutes -‐-‐ since it takes us a moment to understand that each of the different objects is actually the same.
Robert Morris, Un5tled (L-‐Beams), 1965 and 1967 (original destroyed)
As Hal Foster notes, Morris' L-‐beams are like a "phenomenological gymnasium" for the mind: as our eyes move about the objects, we test perceptual experience against known reality
Dan Flavin Dan Flavin began working with a different kind of industrial material in the 1960's -‐-‐ fluorescent light bulbs
“The arHst radically limited his materials to commercially available fluorescent tubing in standard sizes, shapes, and colors, extracHng banal hardware from its uHlitarian context and inserHng it into the world of high art.” hRp://www.nga.gov/exhibiHons/2004/flavin/introducHon/introducHon.shtm
Dan Flavin, Un5tled (to Henri Ma5sse), 1964 pink, yellow, blue, and green fluorescent light Private CollecHon
Dan Flavin The works were first exhibited at the Green Gallery in 1964, where they were shown in a variety of arrangements
RecreaHon of Dan Flavin’s 1964 Green Gallery ExhibiHon Zwirner & Wirth, 2008
RecreaHon of Dan Flavin’s 1964 Green Gallery ExhibiHon Zwirner & Wirth, 2008
“Flavin’s show pushed the Duchampian line of thinking a giant leap forward, arranging unaltered ready-‐mades, in this case standard fluorescent fixtures and tubes, into intensely opHcal aestheHc experiences. Just as Pollock found and deployed the drip—something that had always been there—Flavin wed medium, message, and space: Light fixtures became the form and the content of his art. What you saw was the material and the message.” hRp://nymag.com/arts/art/reviews/46424/
Dan Flavin He was inspired by the ideas of the Russian ConstrucHvist Vladimir Tatlin, who proposed a merging of art and technology
Dan Flavin, "monument" 1 for V. Tatlin, 1964 cool white fluorescent light 8 Z. (244 cm) high Dia Art FoundaHon
Dan Flavin
“Tatlin treated art in engineering terms and embraced industry and technology. Flavin described Tatlin as, 'the great revoluHonary, who dreamed of art as science’.” hRp://www.naHonalgalleries.org/index.php/collecHon/online_az/4:322/results/0/285/
Dan Flavin, Monument for V. Tatlin no.30 1966-‐69 NaHonal Gallery of Australia
Dan Flavin Flavin was also aRracted to the work of BarneR Newman, but like others of his generaHon he rejected Newman’s metaphysical aspiraHons
BarneR Newman, Onement I , 1948 Museum of Modern Art
Dan Flavin He much preferred the literal “objecthood” of Jasper Johns’ flags
Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954-‐1955 Museum of Modern Art
Dan Flavin Flavin’s flourescent works were a kind of marriage between the two
Dan Flavin, Pink out of corner (to Jasper Johns), 1963
Dan Flavin They are like a Barnet Newman zip painHng -‐-‐ only made out of real objects, rather than painted simulaHons
Dan Flavin, The nominal three (to William of Ockham), 1963 Cool white fluorescent light, 8 Z. (244 cm) high Dia Art FoundaHon
Dan Flavin Flavin’s works create walk in environments that invite viewers to experience actual color and light
Dan Flavin, Un5tled (to Jan and Ron Greenberg) 1972–73 Guggenheim Museum
“NoniniHates and skepHcs oZen scratch their heads at Flavin’s work. They look for deeper meanings or are stymied by the simplicity and ephemerality in his art. Yet for all the rigor and reducHvism, Flavin’s ideas are very romanHc: He wanted art to be new, to ravish the eye, and to do it in a simple, direct, dumb way.” hRp://nymag.com/arts/art/reviews/46424/
Sol LewiB Another leading Minimalist, Sol LewiR played a crucial role in the transiHon from Minimalism to Conceptual art
Image source: hRp://portablework.orgallery.org/2011/07/sol-‐lewiRs-‐studio/
Sol LewiB His work typically consists of open modular structures that perform infinite modulaHons on the simple form of the cube
“The most interesHng characterisHc of the cube is that it is relaHvely uninteresHng. It is best used as a basic unit for any more elaborate funcHon, the grammaHcal device from which the work may proceed.” Sol LewiR
Sol LewiB In this series, LewiR explores the apparently simple problem: how many variaHons can you make on an incomplete open cube?
Sol LewiR, Incomplete Open Cube, 1974 Baked enamel on aluminum
Sol LewiB The idea is worked out in diagrams and models that aRack the problem with the relentless logic of a computer
Sol LewiR, Varia5ons of Incomplete Cubes, 1974
Sol LewiR, Varia5ons of Incomplete Cubes, 1974
Sol LewiB In the open modular structures, the simplicity of the concept is complicated by the complexity of the perceptual experience as you move around the work
Sol LewiR, Six Towers, 1987. RISD Museum
Sol LewiR, Nine Part Modular Cube, 1977 Art InsHtute of Chicago
Sol LewiB In Serial Project, the arHst conducts a series of permutaHons on the theme of solid and open squares containing an interior verHcal rectangular shape
Sol LewiR, Serial Project #1 ABCD 6, 1968 Image source: hRp://www.remediosvaro.biz/AucHon_Results/Contemporary/sothebys_may_12_2004.html
Sol LewiB The idea can generate a variety of permutaHons
Sol LewiR, Serial Project (set B), 1966 Image source: hRp://www.thecityreview.com/f06ccon1.html
Sol LewiB This one is a room scale installaHon
Sol LewiR, Serial Project, I (ABCD) 1966 Museum of Modern Art
Sol LewiR, Serial Project, I (ABCD) 1966 Image source: hRp://www.flickr.com/photos/islespunkfan/3863371250/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Sol LewiR, Serial Project, I (ABCD) 1966
Sol LewiB LewiR transiHoned to Conceptual art when he realized that he did not even have to make his art
Sol LewiR, Un5tled drawing, 1968 Image source: hRp://www.hearzineart.com/Poveralist.html
Sol LewiB Because the work is based on logical systems, the arHst could simply provide instrucHons
Sol LewiR, Fieeen Etchings, 1973 NaHonal Gallery of Australia
Sol LewiB In his series of wall drawings, the arHst provides instrucHons
Sol LewiR, Instruc5ons faxed for wall drawing installa5on at Franklin Furnace, 1996
Sol LewiB Assistants carry out the work
Assistant execuHng Sol LeWiR’s Wall Drawing #65. Lines not short, not straight, crossing and touching, drawn at random using four colors, uniformly dispersed with maximum density, covering the enHre surface of the wall 2004 NaHonal Gallery of Art
Sol LewiB The work is painted over at the end of the exhibiHon, but the museum owns the instrucHons, and a cerHficate of authenHcity
Sol LewiR, wall drawing instrucHons, Tate Gallery
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