Minimalism and the Object

In his beginning sentence for his seminal 1966 article, Notes on Sculpture, the Minimal artist Robert Morris noted that “There has been little definitive writing on present day sculpture.” The factual statement reflected the way in which, up to this point, painting had dominated the art scene in New York City.  Like Donald Judd, Morris had to begin his explanation of Minimal Art by removing sculpture far from the domain of painting.  The essay by Morris has labored language and suffers from disorganization but it lays out the argument against traditional painting and sculpture along two lines: anthropomorphism and opticality.

Unlike Judd, Morris seemed more comfortable with the term “sculpture.”  In fact Morris wanted to set off the “distinctions sculpture has managed for itself” in that “the concerns of sculpture have been for some time not only distinct from but hostile to those of painting.”  Morris explained that the (possibly illegitimate) concerns of painting have been with structure or “the literal qualities of the support,” which were the result of painting’s long entanglement with “illusionism.”  His quarrel with illusionism was the beginning of his attempt to set three dimensional objects apart from the lingering effects of the Renaissance attempt to copy reality.  Morris wanted “sculpture” to be a thing unto itself.

Since the prehistoric origins of sculpture, the role of three dimensional objects, no matter how symbolic, conceptual or abstract had been to respond to real, living beings from the actual world.  Carl Andre laid the flat units of his grids in order to avoid the inherent anthropomorphism of sculpture—the uprightness of the object itself; the uprightness that referred to the human being. Morris put forward David Smith’s Cubi  sculpture series as examples of an artist who failed to capitalize on the significant move away from anthropomorphism by the Russian Constructivist movement in the 1920s. The relationship between sculpture and the human body, canonized by Greco-Roman sculpture, linked three dimensional art to “illusionism.”

Morris also objected to the role of color and light—color which “transcended” painting and light which reflected off the surfaces of sculpture, such as Smith’s Cubi structures. When I was studying in Paris, I visited a gallery showing a large group of sculptures by Donald Judd.  A colleague and I were discussing the ways in which light reflected off the highly polished metallic wall sculptures which also cast shadows.  As we were speaking, a man on a tall ladder was carefully switching off each spot light on each object.  When we asked him why, the man stated that he was the photographer for Donald Judd’s art and that the artist wanted his works to be seen under natural light only.  In other words, it was the object that was paramount not ancillary effects, such as reflected light and shadows.

Wary of object that had many “relational” parts, in Notes on Sculpture, Morris discussed the role of the gestalt in Minimal Art. For Morris, the “poetic” meanings of his objects vanished in favor of a phenomenological experience of a mute geometric object. The artist was interested in the philosophy of Edmund Husserl and wrote frequently of the “gestalt” experienced by the viewer in the encounter with the object.  By stripping the objects of any representational or historical traces, Morris sought to intensify the spectator’s experience of the pure form that could be “bracketed” or cleansed of extrinsic suggestions.

Relationships among parts implied composition and arrangements or the intervention of a decision making process of the artist. Rather than offering itself solely to the delighted eye, reveling in the “opticality” of the painted surface, the Minimal object, secure unto itself, had no parts and was all that gestalt implied—wholistic and essential—self-definitional.  The viewer “sees” a Sol Le Witt grid, not as a group of parts, but as an whole, an entirety, and s/he sees not just visually but also conceptually.  One understands in a gestalt moment of comprehension that the grid is an infinite measurement of space.  Because the Le Witt grid can be extended mentally, its physical existence implies that there can be no beginning, no end, and hence no center.  Without composition, without a central spine or organizational feature, the Minimal object escapes the confines of traditional “art.”

A specific Minimalist object, whether three or two dimensional,  cannot be analyzed in Modernist or formalist terms or subjected to a formal analysis.  As Michael Fried pointed out, Frank Stella’s paintings are “deduced” from the shape of the canvas, the support, which determined the internal organization of the painted surface.  The uninflected marks on the canvas were devoid of artistic touch or presence.  The paint is applied “out of the can,” as Stella said, without being changed or modified in any way. Stella’s large shaped paintings are literal presences, projecting outward from the wall by three or four inches.  Large and imposing, these shaped canvases questioned the distinction between painting and sculpture and become “Specific Objects.”

Compared to the emphasis on personal and subjective approach to art on the part of the Modernist artists, Minimal artists confined the art making process to the planning of the object.  Once the basic concepts were decided upon, the process was ended. Execution is secondary. Most importantly, the concept guided, controlled and directed the end result. Once the “system” was in motion, the outcome was pre-determined. Compared to the tradition of “chance” and “accident” in fine art, the procedure of the Minimal artists resembled that of an engineer who hands over plans to a construction firm and walks away. Indeed as Frances Colpitt pointed out in her 1990 book Minimal Art. The Critical Perspectives, Donald Judd’s Minimal objects were manufactured by Bernstein Brothers in order to remove the “touch” of the artist.

Thus, many of the Minimalist makers of three-dimensional objects were not “makers” at all in the traditional sense of making.  They sent their plans to  fabricators who made the objects for them.  The resulting art work is modern in the industrial, manufactured as pristine and untouched by the artist’s hand.  The materials used were non-traditional  non-art materials, coming from contemporary industry, unsanctified by the art world. Carl Andre went even further from the craft of “art” by simply buying squares sheets made of various metals for manufacturing purposes or ordinary building bricks. He did not alter or carve or add to these spare materials in any way. Responding to an inspiration from Frank Stella, Andre arranged the industrial elements to cut into space, slicing across the gallery floor, defying the visitor to step on them or not.

Andre thought of his placements as “cuts” into the space of the gallery.  The assortment of materials consisted of, for example, a square composed of eight plates horizontally, and eight plates vertically, making a total of 64 plates.  The viewer immediately “got it” in a gestalt of instant understanding: 8 X 8 = 64 and the square could be endlessly extended.  There was a strong relationship between serial or system based painting and Minimal sculpture. However, this apparent similarity was based more upon the historical juxtaposition of the exhibition in the Jewish Museum and Lawrence Alloway’s exhibition of Systemic Painting at the Guggenheim Museum. The artists selected by Alloway began with an idea of a system but actually “made” their own works.

Although Alloway’s description of a system seems to lend itself to an impersonal approach, he immediately stresses the occurrence of “trial and error” which took place off “off the canvas.” For Donald Judd, Minimalism was “one thing after another,” that is, a sequence of “specific objects” that generated a serial format. Because repetition and counting are pre-existing systems, Judd’s concepts are not “systems” created by the artist through a process of “trial and error.” The whole concept of “making art” is therefore eliminated, firmly separating Alloway’s selected artist, Kenneth Noland, from Minimal Art.

In fact, Judd began his career as a painter but moved away from painting and began to conceive of objects that were neither painting nor sculpture. For Judd, Minimalism was based upon systems, pre-existing, a priori, or beforehand, before the actual execution.  These systems are numbers based and the system of counting generated the resulting objects.  The mathematical system, not the historical forces that presumably generated art, drove the work to its final form. Like Frank Stella, Judd was concerned with eliminating the elements of composition or “relational art” inherited from Mondrian in which the artist arranged elements into a composition or design.  In a dialogue with Stella, Judd insisted, “…I don’t have any ideas as to symmetry. My things are symmetrical because, as you said, I wanted to get rid of any compositional effects, and the obvious way to do it is to be symmetrical.”

Minimalism was the product of concepts that were non-art concepts, ideas that existed extraneous to high art, procedures that were pre-determining and that eliminated the creative process and even banished the artist. Nevertheless, each Minimalist artist acquired a signature look to the seemingly bland objects: Dan Flavin borrowed but did not alter florescent bulbs, Carl Andre used industrial materials, uncut and unchanged, Sol Le Witt made pristine wooden sticks and fitted them into conceptually endless grids that mapped the world.  Robert Morris presented large gray objects that were geometric but that were not geometry. Judd is best known for his cantilevered forms made of industrial materials projecting from the wall.

Morris concluded his essay with a long section discussing the importance of the relationship between the object and the visitor to the gallery. Quoting Tony Smith, who did not want to make a “monument” or extremely large structure or a small “object,” Morris insisted that Minimalist works had to be body sized.  By stating that the Minimal sculpture is “autonomous” Morris implied that the viewer and the object are co-equals in their specificity.  The object, Morris stated, became “self-important.” The object, as Judd insisted became “specific,” complete unto itself, serving no other purpose, such as referring outward to something else. Minimal objects reacted to the installation space and to the spectator but remained completely self-sufficient. As Frank Stella, expressed it, “What you see is what you get.”

If you have found this material useful, please give credit to

Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette and Art History Unstuffed.   Thank you.

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