THE THEATRE OF RADICAL ART (or WHY IS ‘LESS MORE’?)

The concepts and context of the development of 20th

century practice represents a time when artists, critics

and curators were battling to bring an understanding of

what modernism was becoming. Into this frame came a group

who brought the notion of “Less is More”.1 This and other

mantras – “What you see is what you get”2, “Doing more

with Less”3 – were like mission statements or, as some

critics would have you believe, an excuse for their

‘ism’. Was this the birth of Minimalism or was it the

birth of a debate? Through exploring the work of these

artists, the development of new types of ‘gallery’ spaces

and the reactions of audiences and critics, I will

explain and introduce the reader to how the acceptance,

or not, of art forms and their processes have been a key

to the contemporary art development of the 20th and 21st

centuries.

“ There are a number of boxes and columns, both simple

and combined…..the work looks serious without being so.

The positioning of the colours on the boxes is merely

that, and the arrangement of the boxes is……thoughtless.”4

1 Ludwig Lies van de Rohe, Architect. ‘Minimalism’, Wikipedia, www.wikepedia.org2 Frank Stella, Artist quoted in ‘A familiar ‘ism’ Tate Online Archive, Barbara Reiss (2003)3 Buckminster Fuller, Designer4 James Meyer. ‘Minimalism”, Donald Judd on Anne Truitt (1963), Phaidon, London (2000) p.194

I entered the decadent, money-perfumed gallery space,

from the equally austere, chauffeur driven Mercedes

strewn, Piccadilly street. I found myself in a SPACE.

“Fabricated from wood and painted with monochromatic

layers of acrylic, the works resemble sleek, rectangular

columns ……..”.5 The white walled room had become part of

the whole, the positioning of these pure sculptural

obelisks created a sense of harmony and the feeling that

the works were not the sole content of the art, but they

needed the space around them in order to complete the

‘picture’. I was conscious of moving through the space,

becoming part of that harmony and that my experience was

derived from being inside the subtle process of the

installation. (Fig.1)

The sculptural practice of Anne Truitt is an example of

how the world of art was moving in the 1960s. The leading

figures of this ‘movement’ (although they never

acknowledged their allegiance to Minimalism) – Donald

Judd, Frank Stella, Robert Morris, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre6

– were creating works that blurred the boundaries of art

technique, often using industrial materials and taking

away any references to symbolism, figurative sources,

traditional audience participation and creating, not only

5 Stephen Friedman Gallery. ‘Anne Truitt: Works from the Estate’, Exhibition leaflet October 2011, p.16 All of these artists also wrote articles and books to support their work within the ongoing debate.

the works themselves, but an increased importance of the

surrounding space, without which their art did not

function or exist in its entirety. In addition the

process involved the exploration of colours, values,

shapes, lines and textures, but not within any

representational context.

The examples indicate a pureness of structure, colour and

form. Judd uses industrial materials in clearly defined

shapes and colours. He was concerned about the exact

positioning of each piece in a precisely ordered

configuration (Fig. 2 & 3). There is no reference to

craftsmanship or artistic intent. It needs nothing else

to create its harmony, resonance and, dare we use the

word, beauty: any ‘More’ and the work would become

‘Less’. He was erasing the distinctions between other art

forms and creating “specific objects”.

Robert Morris’ grey blocks (Fig. 6) or mirrored cubes

(Fig. 7) are designed to have complete interaction with

the viewer and the space. The audience is forced to be

aware of their position in the space in relation to the

art.

The most obvious use of everyday objects was by Dan

Flavin, who chose to work with fluorescent tubes in a

variety of chosen colours, installed in shapes and at

angles, which then gave the works the added dimension of

the light and shadows created by the art (Fig. 4 & 5).

Donald Judd (Fig. 2 & 3), Dan Flavin (Fig. 4 & 5) and

Robert Morris’ (Fig. 6 & 7) work give more insight into

how Minimalism was bringing the viewer into the space

inhabited by the work, thereby creating a relationship

between the two and ultimately with the artist. The

materials and objects used are recognizable to the viewer

in the context of the gallery, but take that away and

they return to their everyday usage.

“Minimalism sought to de-mystify art, to reveal its most

fundamental character, its reality ……..exposing its

materials and processes, it attempted to engage the

viewer in an immediate, direct and unmediated experience

…. The work was uncompromisingly radical and challenging”7

“Minimal Art has become a creature of myth: it is said to

have never existed and yet it is present everywhere”8

The debate raged. These factory-made industrial creations

showed no trace of emotion, intuitive decision making and

certainly gave no indication about the artist’s

7 Michael Craig-Martin, as quoted in ‘Minimalism catalogue, Tate Liverpool, 19908 David Batchelor. ‘Less is More’, Frieze Magazine, Issue 31, Nov – Dec 1996

creativity or aesthetic involvement. The space was also

an important element these works could not function

without careful non-traditional installation. This was a

total rejection of the most recent movement of Abstract

Expressionism, but moving forward from their concerns of

the process and nature of materials. Pop Art had taken

everyday objects as sources also paving the way for

Minimalism and it could be argued that the work of Marcel

Duchamp was an important factor of introducing the

stripped back ‘it is what it is’ attitude.

Artist and writer John McCraken saw Minimalism as a

medium of the purest form. It reflected visual thought

and thoughts could be translated into objects. ‘The form

equaled the language and spoke with gesture and geometry.

The colours and surface equaled the body. Pure Form

cannot exist – it has no substance and is therefore

invisible’.9 Within this purity of form was a structure,

which gave the works an order and put them into a

designated space, which in turn created a feeling of

place surrounding the objects and also transference of

these emotions to the observer.

“ Order, it is extremely ordered; purity, because it is

perfectly stripped down. But above all, truth because it

9 James Meyer ‘Minimalism’, John McCracken p. 291, Phaidon, London (2000)

doesn’t pretend to be anything else. And, like Shelley

says, truth is beauty and beauty is truth.”10

Critics were concerned, both Greenberg and Fried

considered it a threat to the modernist developments.

They emphasized the break from the ‘compositional

relationships’, ‘subtle nuances’11, which they considered

were essential in modernist sculpture. According to

Fried this was not art. It was a “political and/or

ideological statement against the nature of art”12. He

maintained that “just because Judd and Morris arranged

identical non-art objects in a three-dimensional field

and proclaimed it “art”, didn’t necessarily make it so.

Art is Art and an Object is an Object”.13 The most famous

example of critical resistance came with exhibition of

Carl Andre’s ‘Equivalent VIII’ (1966; London, Tate)(Fig. 8) or

to the lay observer ‘a pile of bricks’, in 1976.

“Bricks are not works of art. Bricks are Bricks. You can

build walls with them or chuck them through jeweler’s

10 Simon Wilson, Curator to Jonathan Feedland. The Guardian, 1 Dec 2011, Tate Online ‘A familiar ‘ism’ , Archive Journeys: Reise Minimalism (2003)11 Christopher Want. ‘Minimalism’, from Grove Art Online, MOMA/ The Collection/Minimalism (OUP 2009)12 Michael Fried ‘Art and Objecthood’., published in Art Forum (1967) accessed through www.theartstory.org by Justin Wolf13 Ditto

windows, but you cannot stack them two deep and call them

sculpture”.14

The idea of ‘theatricality’ as introduced by Fried in an

attempt to cover for the absence of ‘presentness’, helped

Minimalism develop through other areas, including

Performance Art and Installation. The boundaries had

been pushed wider and curators, audiences and critics had

to embrace the need, within a fast changing world

globally and technologically, to allow experimentation to

be nurtured and explored.

Dematerialisation was another word introduced into the language of Minimalism. In 1973 Lucy Lippard wrote ‘’Six Years: the dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972……..”. It was an archive of those years and a record of an incredible period of change in the history of art. Dematerialisation refers to a wide and extremely diverse range of artistic practices and reflections.

“Dematerialisation aims to deemphasize the material aspects of art, and especially of art as an object, and its prevailing orthodoxies of uniqueness, permanence and decorative attractiveness”15

At this point we may be said to have reached a perverse

situation where Minimalism is judged in too many apposing

ways: “too literal or not literal enough, too pictorial

or not pictorial enough, too theatrical or not theatrical

14 Barbara Reise ‘Archive Journeys: Public Reactions to Minimalism and Conceptual Art”, Keith Waterhouse, Daily Mirror, 19 Feb 1976,www.tate.org.uk. 15 Edward Allington. ‘About Time’, Frieze Magazine Issue 92, June – Aug 2005

enough”16. So does it exist as something between sculpture

and the Readymade? John Pawson in ‘Minimum’ creates a

new tradition of ‘Simplicity’ to describe the historical

context and encompasses work as diverse as 16th century

Japanese Gardens, New York skyscrapers, shaker furniture,

Stonehenge and Egyptian structures. He uses the phrase

“voluntary poverty” to explore the bonds of Minimalism

within art and architecture. Have artists chosen

‘voluntarily’ or has there been more purpose and dogged

determination towards the radical?

“The more stuff in it, the busier the work of art, the

worse it is ……”17

“There isn’t anything to look at”18

“It does not pretend to be anything than what it is”19

Minimalist work needs an art context in order for it

become itself, if we take Anne Truitt’s ‘ First’ (1961) (Fig.

9) and place it within a field or garden it would not be

out of place, but neither would it be considered art, if

we placed it leaning against a fountain in Trafalgar

Square it would be cleared away with the rubbish, but if

we put it on the fourth plinth or in the National Gallery

it would then become what it is – a work of art.

16 David Batchelor. ‘Less is More’, Frieze Magazine issue 31, Nov – Dec 1996 (Review of John Pawson’s ‘Minimum’)17 Ad Reinhardt18 Donald Judd “Black White and Grey”, exhibition catalogue, (1964)19 Tate

“ A fundamental factor of a Minimalist exhibition is the

space in which it is located. Art was changed

significantly by Minimalism, because it transformed what

was considered ‘acceptable’”20

Galleries and Museums have, throughout history, been the

spaces that have created the opportunities and the

barriers for artists. These new sculptural forms were to

start the growth of the new style of Art Space, which we

still see in abundance today. This explosion has included

the expansion of the traditional longstanding museums,

the use of old warehouses and buildings in less

‘artistic’ quarters and architect created ‘art spaces’

that are works of art in their own right and alongside

these are the commercial galleries, as visited previously

in the essay (Fig. 10).

Minimalism pushed the perception and nature of museum

space and how it could be used. It radicalized spaces and

displaced rooms within locations, due often to sheer

scale, for example the work of Richard Serra (Fig. 11).

Therefore the nature of the museum space became revised

in response to the needs of the Minimalist artists and

became Theatres of Radical Art.

Alongside changes to ‘art spaces’, the concept of ‘Public

Art’ took on new dimensions. Minimalist ‘structures’ were20 www.students.sbc.edu/wise06/Home.htm ‘Minimalism versus Academic Art”, p.1

also replacing traditional sculptures in many towns and

cities. Works to large to be exhibited in any existing

art space have continued to embrace the Minimalist

tradition, for example ‘Cloud Gate’ (2006) in Chicago by

Amish Kapoor (Fig. 12) and New York City Waterfalls

(2008) by Olatur Eliasson (Fig. 13). Minimalism has

become the official language of public sculpture public

memorials.

“In space ‘itself’ independently of the presence of a

pycho-phyisical subject, there is no direction, no inside

and no outside.”21

Minimalism was not exclusively the domain of Art. The

movement was seen working within Music, Literature and

Design. One of the leading music exponents was John Cage,

also an artist, who stunned the musical world with his 4’

33”. (Fig 14) The composer sits in front of the piano

for the allotted time and the restless movements, coughs

and whispers of the listener’s become the work’s focus.

He also has very strong views on the importance of

Silence – is this a musical form of Space? (Fig 14) Music

used Minimalism to bring about a paradigm shift in the

way that sound was made, heard and thought of. Steve

Reich, one of the foremost composers of the American

scene, was searching for a new musical language that

would “truthfully reflect the real context of tail fins, 21 James Meyer. “Minimalism’, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phaidon, London (2000) p.196

Chuck Berry, and millions of burgers sold”.22 This all

American minimalist impulse was the downtown art scene of

the late 50s and 60s and “painters, dancers, filmmakers

and writers were all “swimming in the same soup”’23

Was the Minimalist Canon ever accepted?

Is it or is it not an‘ism’? Its developments certainly

led to Post-Minimalism, Conceptualism, Feminist Art and

Earth Art, but there was still the underlying

dissatisfaction with the factory-made objects. Minimalism

is still a key factor in the critical debates around

Postmodernism. It is a radical exploration of order,

reproduction, a form of spectacularistion and a desire to

‘play’. It was an art form that was unique, handcrafted,

even if it was mass produced.

Minimalism today?

There does not need to be a ‘Why?’ Acceptance is hard,

but also liberating. Is it that this freedom is

embarrassing? Our perception as the viewer is too often

dictated by our previous knowledge and experience gained

before we are confronted with art. In many walks of life

our minds are strewn with a plethora of opinions from the

media and critics, but we have to be confident in our own

personal judgment, emotions and response to art.

22 Steve Reich. quote from FACT magazine ‘A brief History of Minimalism’, www.factmag.com (2010) 23 Steve Reich ditto

‘The function of criticism should be to show ‘how it is

what it is’, even ‘that it is what it is, rather than to

show ‘what it means’…24

In this ‘Theatre of Radical Art’ are we, the artists and

audiences, the actors and the gallerists, reviewers,

curators and media the directors?

In the Art circles of today there still lie many

divisions. These have been created by our constant

craving for materialistic outcomes. We live in a world

where, despite freedom, individualism, entrepreneurialism

and opportunities, we are controlled by the non-art

‘isms’ and ‘tions’: capitalism, consumerism,

commercialism, globalization, institutionalization,

aestheticism, spectacularization, marginalization and

cultural hierarchy.

“The industrialization of the ‘art world’ is a purely

social and financial phenomenon. In fact, it has grown to

such bureaucratic dimensions that a new and unprecedented

ugly hybrid – the local government/contemporary art/real

estate exploitation Godzilla – coming to an overlooked

and underpriced area near you – soon.” 25

These words show the pressure that art, artists and

audiences in today’s world are facing and, like the

24 James Meyer. ‘Minimalism’, Susan Sontag, p.202, Phaidon, London (2000)25 Gavin Brown

criticism piled upon Minimalism, it is our reactions to

these and how we use the opportunities to continue to

explore and experiment that will determine the survival

and innovation for the future. There will always be a

scenario for artists to play, engage and question.

“In Minimal art what is important is the phenomenological

basis of the viewer’s experience, how he or she perceives

the internal relationships among the parts of the work

and of the parts of the whole.”26

Perhaps we should leave the last word to the images of

David Shrigley (Fig. 15 & 16)

26 Guggenheim www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collections - online/show-full/movement - Minimalism , New York 1960s

List of illustrations

Fig. 1 Truitt, Anne, ‘Works from the Estate’ Exhibition,

Stephen Friedman Gallery, October 2010

Fig. 2 Judd, Donald, ‘Untitled’ 1990

Fig. 3 Judd, Donald, ‘Untitled 85-20’ Aluminum enameled,

1985

Judd, Donald, 'Untitled 2-5-75 Bernstein’, Blue anodized

aluminum, 1975

Fig. 4 Flavin, Dan, ‘Diagonal of May 25’, Flourescent tubes,

1963

Fig. 5 Flavin Dan, ‘Monument 4 for those who have been killed in

ambush (to PK who reminded men about death)’, Blood coloured

fluorescent tubes, 1966

Fig. 6 Morris, Robert, ‘ Installation in the Green Gallery, New

York’, Seven geometric plywood boxes painted grey, 1964

Fig. 7 Morris, Robert, ‘Untitled (Mirrored Cubes)’, 1965

Fig. 8 Andre, Carl, ‘Equivalent VIII’, Firebricks, 1966

Fig. 9 Truitt, Anne, ‘First’, Latex on wood, 1961

Fig. 10 Art spaces – National Gallery, London; Turner

Contemporary, Margate; Whitechapel Gallery, London;

Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain; Eastside Project, Birmingham;

Waddington Custot Galleries, London

Fig. 11 Serra, Richard, ‘A Matter of Time’, Installation,

2005

Fig. 12 Kapoor, Amish ‘Cloud Gate’, Installation, Chicago,

2006

Fig. 13 Eliasson, Olatur “New York City Waterfalls’, Installation,

2008

Fig. 14 Cage, John, ‘4’ 33”’, composition for piano

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEFKFiXSx4&feature=related

‘John Cage about Silence’

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y&feature=related

Fig. 15 & 16 Shrigley, David, Cartoons

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