Annotated Mona Lisa, The - Strickland, Carol [137]
MINIMALISM
LOCALE: U.S. in 1960s-70s
FORM: Abstract, geometric modules
LOOK: Clean, bare, simple
TECHNIQUE: Machine-made
MEANING: You be the judge
For these sculptors, minimum form ensured maximum intensity. By paring away “distractions” like detail, imagery, and narrative — i.e., everything — they forced the viewer to pay undiluted attention to what’s left. “Simplicity of shape does not necessarily equate,” said Robert Morris, “with simplicity of experience. ”
A MINI-ROUNDUP OF THE MOST PROMINENT MINIMALISTS
DONALD JUDD (b. 1928) makes machine-made stainless-steel, Plexiglas, and plywood boxes arranged in horizontal or vertical rows on walls. “A shape, a volume, a color, a surface is something in itself,” he said.
CARL ANDRE (b. 1935) went to the opposite extreme from traditional vertical, figurative sculpture on a pedestal. Instead, he arranged bricks, cement blocks, and flat slabs on the floor in a horizontal configuration, as in his 29-foot-long row of bricks on the ground.
DAN FLAVIN (b. 1933) sculpts with light, attaching fluorescent tubes to the wall in stark geometric designs giving off fields of color. Hint: Look at the light, not at the tubes.
SOL LEWITT (b. 1928) creates simple forms in series like white or black cubes, either open or closed. Although he later added primary colors, LeWitt stresses that art should “engage the mind rather than the eye or emotions.”
ROBERT MORRIS (b. 1931) is known for large-scale, hard-edged geometric sculptures like big, blocky right angles. “Unitary forms do not reduce relationships,” he said. “They order them.” Morris also does antiform sculpture in soft, hanging material like felt. The pieces droop on the wall, sculpted by gravity.
RICHARD SERRA (b. 1939) became infamous for his huge metal sculpture “Tilted Arc,” which aroused such hatred in a public square in New York that it was removed in 1989. Serra’s entry for the 991 Cornegie International art show consisted of two black rectangles, each hanging on a different wall, one placed high and the other near the floor.
CONCEPTUAL ART: INVISIBLE VISUAL ART
“Painting is dead,” the art world proclaimed in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Not just painting — sculpture, too, in the opinion of a group called Conceptual Artists. “Actual works of art are little more than historical curiosities,” said Joseph Kosuth. This didn’t mean that Art was dead. This development was just part of a trend called “dematerialization of the art object.” In simple terms: if a creative idea is fundamental to art, then producing an actual object provoked by that idea is superfluous. Art resides in the core concept, not the practical work. Minimalists scrubbed their art clean of image, personality, emotion, message, and handcrafting. Conceptualists went a step further and eliminated the art object altogether. “The idea itself, even if not made visual, is as much a work of art as any finished product,” said sculptor Sol Le Witt, who gave the movement its name.
Conceptual Artists include Germans Joseph Beuys (1921-86), Hanne Darboven, and Hans Haacke; Americans Le Witt, Kosuth, John Baldessari, Jenny Holzer, Bruce Nauman, Chris Burden, Jonathan Borofsky; and Bulgarian-American Christo. In fact, Conceptual Artists do create works, but they barely resemble traditional art. The label is an umbrella term covering diverse movements — anything that is neither painting nor sculpture, which emphasizes the artist’s thinking, not his manipulation of materials.
Any action or thought can be considered Conceptual Art. Japanese-American artist On Kawara, for instance, has painted a date on a small gray panel each day since January 25, 1966, and exhibits randomly selected dates. Les Levine ran a Canadian kosher restaurant as an artwork. Morgan O’Hara obsessively records how she spends each moment of her life. John Baldessari placed the letters C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A at different locations around the state. It’s all Conceptual Art, as long as the idea rather than the art