Sculpture

Masterpieces of Minimalism by Robert Morris

Piotr Policht 20 February 2017 min Read

What do you get when you strip art of metaphor, representation, or metaphysics? It turns out that even if “what you see is what you see,” as Frank Stella put it, and there’s no “hidden meaning” in the piece, you can still make breathtaking art. On the occasion of Robert Morris’ birthday on February 9th, we’d like to show you some of Minimalism’s high points.

Robert Morris, Untitled 1965/71, mirror plate glass and wood, object: 914 x 914 x 914 mm © ARS, NY and DACS, London 2002
Robert Morris, Untitled 1965–71, mirror plate glass and wood, object: 35 63/64 x 35 63/64 in (914 x 914 x 914 mm) © Artists Rights Society, NY and DACS, London 2002

Minimal Art is not only about an object but everything surrounding it, including the viewer, his bodily presence, and movement. However, the scope of sensations is relatively narrow when it is made for the gallery or rests in the typical museum. In most cases, such a place is a so-called white cube—white walls evenly lit by electric light. A cold, calm beauty remains, like in Robert Morris’ work.

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Dan Flavin, untitled (to Helga and Carlo, with respect and affection), 1974. Fluorescent lights, each unit: 48 x 52 x 3 in (121.9 x 132.1 x 7.6 cm) as installed: dimensions variable. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection. Photo courtesy © Arts Observer

There are some ways, however, to transform such a place by the artist’s own means. The method Dan Flavin chose for that purpose was light. Ordinary neon tubes from offices and supermarkets are rigorously arranged, flooding gallery spaces with light and color.

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Donald Judd, 100 untitled works in mill aluminum, 1982–1986. Courtesy of the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas

Light and color can also transform a work of art from the outside. In a Texas desert, Donald Judd turned abandoned artillery sheds into an exhibition site housing his untitled metal and concrete works. Simple, multiplied forms of industrially created materials are melted into their half-industrial, half-desert surroundings, changing their looks with every passing hour.

Carl Andre, Copper-Magnesium Alloy Square, 1969
Carl Andre, Copper-Magnesium Alloy Square, 1969, 6 ft 6.7 in x 6 ft 6.7 in x 25/64 in (200 x 200 x 1 cm), collection of Dorothee and Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf. © Carl Andre, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Carl Andre was deeply impressed when he first saw Stonehenge. It might not be apparent at first glance in his works, usually not grandeur by any means, but the impression of large, man-made structures is still present in his sculptures. Andre, a British representative of the distinctly American movement of Minimalism, strongly emphasized material. It could be modular, industrially made, but not as cold as Americans’ favorite sheet metals.

Andre used bricks and wood arranged in the shape of small cubes. He often focused on the ground. When he used metal, it took the form of a checkered floor. His art is all about attention to your surroundings. “Don’t we start on a floor when we’re infants?” Andre said once. “I just wound up where I started.”

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Agnes Martin, Night Sea, 1963 Oil, crayon, and gold leaf on linen, 6 ft x 6 ft (182.9 × 182.9 cm) © Estate of Agnes Martin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Agnes Martin was a real workhorse. Living most of her life in the seclusion of her house in New Mexico, USA, she devoted her life to painting. Not only did she paint every day, but she could paint one motif she imagined ten times over and over again. If she wasn’t pleased with the result, she destroyed every unsuccessful piece and started from the beginning.

She experimented for some time until she finally settled on the basic structure she used in her paintings—a grid. Like in Neoplasticist compositions, Martin used straight vertical and horizontal lines, stripes of color, and very pale, delicate lines. But they were without theosophic, spiritual undertones—just pure emotions.

Like many abstract painters, she referred to music, from which people don’t demand an explanation, just embracing pure emotions. And she was a true mistress of them. If we can compare her painting to music, it would sound more like the most subtle suites by Purcell, as opposed to, for example, the pompous Wagnerian tunes of Rothko.

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Frank Stella Avicenna, 1960. Aluminum oil paint on canvas, 6 ft 2.5 in x 6 ft 2.5 in (189.2 × 182.9 cm) The Menil Collection, Houston. © 2015 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Frank Stella’s paintings from the late 1950s and early 1960s also featured strictly drawn rectilinear patterns, but the patterns’ principle lay in the painting itself, not the emotions it could express. Subordinate to the painting’s shape, they were meant to merge the perception of painting as an image and an object into one.

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