Robert Morris: Art Pared Down

Robert Morris - Untitled (Brown Felt) - 1973 - Felt - Dimensions variable - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY (click photo for larger image)Robert Morris (1931-2018) was one of the central figures of Minimalism. Through both his own sculptures of the 1960s and his theoretical writings, Morris set forth a vision of art pared down to simple geometric shapes stripped of metaphorical associations, and focused on the artwork's interaction with the viewer. However, in contrast to fellow Minimalists Donald Judd and Carl Andre, Morris had a strikingly diverse range that extended well beyond the Minimalist ethos. Through both his artwork and his critical writings, Morris explored new notions of chance, temporality, and ephemerality.

From the late 1960s, Morris moved toward a more spontaneous, if anonymous, expressiveness. He experimented in a wide variety of forms, including the “happening”; “dispersal pieces,” in which materials were strewn in apparent randomness on the gallery floor; and environmental projects. His work of the 1970s showed a preoccupation with paradoxes of mental and physical imprisonment.

Tony Smith: “Presences”

Tony Smith - Cigarette - 1961 - Painted steel - 15' 1" x 25' 6" x 18' 7” - Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NY (click photo for larger image)American sculptor and visual artist Tony Smith (1912-1980)  was a pioneering figure in Minimalist sculpture, despite having close personal ties with the Abstract Expressionists Rothko, Pollock, Newman and Still.

Heavily influenced by his one-time employer Frank Lloyd Wright, Smith's sculptures were comprised of modular block formations, designed to physically alter the space in which they existed. 

Like the creative pioneers of the Bauhaus, Smith was not constrained by medium-boundaries. However, he moved in the opposite direction to many of the luminaries associated with that school, turning from architecture to art, rather than vice versa, to realize his creative principles. He referred to his sculptures as “presences”.

Minimalism and Donald Judd

Donald Judd Untitled - 1967 - Lacquer on galvanized iron - Twelve units, each 9 x 40 x 31" (22.8 x 101.6 x 78.7 cm), installed vertically with 9" (22.8 cm) intervals - Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (click photo for larger image)Minimalism emerged in New York in the early 1960s among artists who believed that art had become stale and academic. A wave of new influences and rediscovered styles led younger artists to challenge boundaries with respect to media, subject matter and styles. They favored the cool over the dramatic and employed a host of industrial materials to their artistic production. In contrast to Abstract Expressionism, the Minimalists avoided overt symbolism and highly charged emotional content, they called attention to the materiality of the works.

Donald Judd (1928-1994) was an American artist, whose rejection of both traditional painting and sculpture led him to a conception of art as the object as it exists in the environment. He created works built from single or repeated geometric forms, using industrialized, machine-made materials. 

Judd is regarded as one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century, and his influence on art, design, and architecture continues to be felt today.

Donald Judd: Getting Rid of Illusionism

Donald Judd - Untitled - 1963 - Oil on wood with Plexiglas - 49.5 x 123.2 x 123.2 cm (19 1/2 x 48 1/2 x 48 1/2 in.) - National Gallery of Art - Washington, D.C.American artist Donald Judd’s (1928-1994) rejection of both traditional painting and sculpture led him to a conception of art built upon the idea of the object as it exists in the environment. Judd's works belong to the Minimalist movement, whose goal was to rid art of the Abstract Expressionists' reliance on the self-referential trace of the artist, in order to form pieces that were free from emotion. The credo of Minimalism is, “it is what it is”.

Judd and other Minimalists created works comprised of single or repeated geometric forms produced from industrialized, machine-made materials that eschewed the artist's touch. Judd's geometric and modular creations have often been criticized for a seeming lack of content; it is this simplicity, however, that calls into question the nature of art, and becomes art itself.

Frank Stella: Dynamism, Tactility, and Scale

Frank Stella - Chodorow II - 1971 - Felt, paper and canvas collage on canvas - overall: 274.4 x 269.3 cm (108 1/16 x 106 in.) - National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.Focusing on the formal elements of art-making, Frank Stella (born 1936) has created complicated works that embody dynamism, tactility, and scale. Though technically part of the Second Generation of abstract expressionists, Stella dramatically departed from that tradition in the late 1950s, becoming a leader and practitioner of what would become Minimalism. He became known for his irregularly shaped works and large-scale multimedia reliefs. 

Stella studied painting at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and history at Princeton University (B.A., 1958). He gained recognition for his art when he was still in his mid-20s, and has enjoyed a long and productive career. MoMA and the Whitney, in New York, have both held retrospectives of his work, and one of his freestanding public sculptures is installed in front of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. 

To learn more about the artists featured on What About Art? this week, register HERE for Jill Kiefer’s Post-Modern Art class, beginning shortly at the Bethany Arts Community in Ossining, New York.