Art Still Matters: Art in the Contemporary Australian ContextShepparton Art Museum2015

LECTURE 3: MINIMALISM AND POSTMINIMALISM

Suggested Further Reading

Minimalism:Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood” in Artforum, Summer, 1967, V

Postminimalism:Briony Fer, “Objects Beyond Objecthood” , Oxford Art Journal, 1999,

Vol.22(2), pp.27-36

Minimalism

• Art reduced to its fundamentals: colour; shape; line; texture

• Non-representational

• Non-symbolic: “It is what it is”

• A module - endless configuration and repetition

• Artists associated with Minimalism– Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol Le Witt, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris,

Anne Truitt

“Barnett Newman and his acres of the sublime has been pointed out as a forerunner of Minimalism. Not for me any Vir Heroicus Sublimis. Transcendent trash.”

Robert Morris quoted in Christopher Cherix, Notes on Print : With and After Robert Morris, p. 9

Barnett Newman Vir Heroicus Sublimis 1950-1

Michael Fried, “Art & Objecthood”, Artforum, 1967

Robert Morris Untitled (Mirror boxes) 1965/71

Robert Morris, Untitled (3Ls), 1965

Andre, Carl Equivalent VIII 1966

Andre, Carl Equivalent V 1966-69

Original drawing for a beer advertisement (1976) inspired by Carl Andre's 'Equivalent III,' in Tate CollectionTate

Daily ExpressCartoon satirising 'The Bricks' Controversy

19 Feb 1976

Donald Judd Untitled 1969

Essay:Donald Judd, “Specific Objects”, 1965

11

Dan Flavin, Monument for V. Tatlin 1, 1964

Robert Morris

“one of the conditions of knowing an object is supplied by the sensing of the gravitational forces acting upon it in actual space.” Robert Morris “Notes on Sculpture” in Artforum, 1966

• Return of the ‘gesture’

• Relationship between the artist’s body and the production of art

• Initially opposed to hard edged geometric abstraction

• The repetition of form first came through the process of making rather than as outcome

Postminimalism

Richard Serra Hand Catching Lead 1968

SF MoMA, Eva Hesse’s Materials, 2002

Eva Hesse Accession II 1968

Eva Hesse, Repetition Nineteen III, 1968

Eva Hesse, Hang Up, 1966

Richard Serra, Splashed Lead, 1968

Richard Serra, To Lift, 1967

Bruce NaumanWalking in a Exaggerated Manner Around Perimeter of a Square (film still), 1968

Eva Hesse, Right After, 1969

The dematerialization of the art object - Lucy Lippard, 1968