Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock 9780691252964

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pi c t u r e s of noth i n g

pictures of nothing Abstract Art since Pollock

kirk varnedoe

The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 2003 National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Bollingen Series XXXV: 48

Princeton Universit y Press Princeton and oxford

Copyright © 2006 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington All rights reserved. Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, NJ 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY This is the forty-eighth volume of the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, which are delivered annually at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The volumes of lectures constitute Number XXXV in Bollingen Series, sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation. Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Varnedoe, Kirk. Pictures of nothing : abstract art since Pollock / Kirk T. Varnedoe. p. cm. — (The A.W. Mellon lectures in the fine arts ; 2003) (Bollingen series ; 48) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-0-691-12678-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn-10: 0-691-12678-X (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Art, Abstract—United States. 2. Art, American—20th century. I. Title. II. Series. III. Series: Bollingen series ; 48. n6512.5.a2v37 2006 709.04´052—dc22

2006006621

This book has been composed in Minion with Gill Sans display.

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

Frontispiece: Ellsworth Kelly, Colors for a Large Wall, 1951. Oil on canvas, mounted on 64 joined wood panels, overall, 243.8 × 243.8 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of the artist. © Ellsworth Kelly; digital image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, New York.

New paperback printing 2023 ∞ ISBN (paper) 978-0-691-12678-4 ISBN (ebook) 978-0-691-25296-4

The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts

have been delivered annually since 1952 at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, with the goal of bringing “the people of the United States the results of the best contemporary thought and scholarship bearing upon the subject of the Fine Arts.” As publication was always an essential part of the vision for the Mellon Lectures, a relationship was established between the National Gallery and the Bollingen Foundation for a series of books based on the talks. The first book in the series was published in 1953, and since 1967 all lectures have been published by Princeton University Press as part of the Bollingen Series. Now, for the first time, all the books in the series are available in one or more formats, including paperback and e-book, making many volumes that have long been out of print accessible to future generations of readers. This edition is supported by a gift in memory of Charles Scribner, Jr., former trustee and president of Princeton University Press. The Press is grateful to the Scribner family for their formative and enduring support, and for their commitment to preserving the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts for posterity. Images in this edition may have been altered in size and color from their appearance in the original print editions to make this book available in accessible formats.

co n t e n t s

Foreword Earl A. Powell III

vii

Preface Adam Gopnik

ix

Note to the Reader Judy Metro

xvii

1

Why Abstract Art?

2

Survivals and Fresh Starts

47

3

Minimalism

91

4

After Minimalism

145

5

Satire, Irony, and Abstract Art

191

6

Abstract Art Now

239

1

Acknowledgments

275

Index

277

Photography and Copyright Credits

287

f o r e wo r d

John Kirk Train Varnedoe was the fifty-second A. W.

editor in chief of the National Gallery of Art, with

Mellon lecturer at the National Gallery of Art. Be-

the help of Professor Pepe Karmel, Adam Gopnik,

tween March 30 and May 11, 2003, he delivered six

and especially, Kirk’s widow, Elyn Zimmerman. The

lectures under the general title, “Pictures of Nothing:

resonance of his oratory, however, remains only in

Abstract Art since Pollock.” Crowds of students, art-

the memory of those lucky enough to have been pres-

ists, critics, family, friends, and the wider public from

ent. Above all, Kirk Varnedoe wanted to persuade his

all over the country lined up every week at the East

audience, down to the last skeptic, and his Georgian

Building of the National Gallery of Art to listen to the

cadences were fully deployed to this end on those

passionate rhetoric that these pages can only echo.

Sunday afternoons.

Just three months after the last lecture, on August 14, 2003, Kirk Varnedoe died of the illness he had battled

The Mellon Lectures were formally inaugurated on

throughout the lectures and in the years preceding

December 6, 1949, by the Board of Trustees of the

his delivery of them.

National Gallery of Art. Their purpose was to bring

Kirk himself took every opportunity to declare

to the people of the United States the results of the

how much the challenge of giving the Mellon Lectures

best contemporary thought and scholarship bear-

meant to him. His appointment to a professorship at

ing upon the subject of the fine arts. Publication was

the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for

envisaged from the beginning, so that the lectures

Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J., from his position

would reach an even wider public and have a more

as chief curator of the department of painting and

permanent influence. Kirk had a strong sense of

sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, was a signal

the historical tradition of the Mellon Lectures, and

honor, but it also provided him the opportunity to

referred to this often. It was important to him that,

concentrate on the construction of the lectures. By

in keeping with the original charter by the trustees,

continuing to teach at the Institute of Fine Arts, New

he was addressing a broad public, not only academic

York, while living in Princeton, Kirk was able to work

specialists. In this he associated himself in particular

out his ideas in the way that he preferred—on his

with the highly successful series delivered in 1956 by

feet, and in public. The prepared spontaneity of his

E. H. Gombrich, and published in 1960 as Art and

address is sustained in the chapters published here,

Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Repre-

which have been edited to that effect by Judy Metro,

sentation. Gombrich, who gave his Mellon Lectures in

the year of Jackson Pollock’s death, had little time for

had a special attachment to the National Gallery of

abstraction. Where Gombrich had considered why

Art. He was awarded a David E. Finley Fellowship for

art has a history through the study of illusion, Varne-

1970–1973 while a graduate student at Stanford. This

doe set out to provide an equally compelling case for

gave him a period of residence at the Gallery, and led

the history, and value, of abstract art over the last fifty

to the exhibition “Rodin Drawings, True and False”

years. Borrowing Gombrich’s idea of the “logic of the

at the Gallery in 1971–1972. Kirk served as a gener-

situation,” and embracing the contingencies of his-

ous and committed member of the Board of Advi-

tory, Varnedoe related an account of abstract art that

sors of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual

is as pragmatic as it is personal. It is the powerful ap-

Arts from 1991 through 1994. At the end of his life he

prehension of the work of art, and Kirk’s deep under-

made an unforgettable contribution in the form of

standing of the experience of artists, that is conveyed

these Mellon Lectures. He spoke of their publication

in these lectures, and that gives them their unity.

often, always envisioning the written words as close

Kirk enriched many institutions with his experi-

to the spoken words of the lectures, and we are hon-

ence, his brilliance, and his fundamentally American

ored to be able to share with the public the thoughts

vernacular wit, which I first encountered in the un-

of a great teacher, critic, and scholar about the art of

dergraduate classrooms and on the muddy playing

our times.

fields of Williams College. We are fortunate that he Earl A. Powell III Director National Gallery of Art

P r e fac e

This book represents transcriptions of the six ­

but more was improvised: looking at the images

Mellon Lectures that Kirk Varnedoe gave in the

­almost always inspired an unexpected thought,

spring of 2003, at the National Gallery of Art in

­instantly blended into the body of the ­ argument,

­Washington, on the subject of abstract art in ­America

and here preserved. He supposed these lectures to be

since the time of Jackson Pollock. Minimal but

his last and intended them to be his most ­important

­immensely skillful editing has been done throughout

work, his testament of faith. He poured all of himself

(by Judy Metro, the National Gallery’s editor in chief)

into them.

essentially to smooth off rough edges, ­ eliminate

Given that truth, it seemed better to take them

­obvious repetitions, and connect loose ends of the

as they were than to try and guess at what ­Varnedoe

narrative. It is no advertisement, but a plain fact,

would have done had he been given the time to do

that this book therefore records what is, if ­ nothing

it. Perpetually dissatisfied with his own work, he

else, an amazing extemporaneous performance,

would have doubtless revised, rewritten, and recast

made all the more amazing by the speaker’s ravaged

many sections; he had barely begun this work when

physical condition. (Varnedoe died of cancer a scant

sickness overcame him. His inability to have under-

three months after giving the last of these lectures.)

taken these revisions is, for his readers, both a good

­Working only with notes, though of course drawing

and bad thing. A bad thing, obviously, because that

on a lifetime’s reservoir of looking and thinking, the

work would have enabled him to seal off his points

seemingly crafted and pregnant sentences present on

and drive home his arguments in the finished text

these pages really were improvised by the speaker in

in a way that would have, among other things, made

the course of an hour’s talking.

this preface unnecessary. And his characterizations of offhand

other critics’ and historians’ arguments and ways of

improvisation—he knew more or less what he wanted

It

was

not

an

irresponsible

or

looking at these pictures, necessarily summary given

to say and had often rehearsed it, in his own mind and

the constraints of time and the need not to lose his

at length with listeners. (And, of course, he worked

listeners in academic pilpul, would certainly have

with an outline and a huge number of slides, which

broadened and deepened.

played a mnemonic role.) But the words came ring-

And yet their unfinished nature is a good thing, or

ing out, every Sunday, fresh and unplanned, just as

at least not necessarily a bad one, because the work of

the reader meets them here. Much was ­premeditated

revision—shutting off exits, italicizing ­easily missed

points, and giving academic heft to the whole—might

Bauhaus utopianism and American minimalism,

have diminished or even eliminated the ­extraordinary

or the parodies of abstract expressionism found in

urgency and sense of discovery, and even joy, that

American pop art—and turning it round and round

still glimmers from these pages. Whatever might

in the light of his mind, while deliberately evading,

have been gained in argumentative conclusiveness

as often as not, one single conclusive reading. The

might have been lost in improvisational ­ electricity.

lack of neat conclusiveness was part of the point—

­Varnedoe did not value too much “finish” in a work

art evades a single or even a double rule. He jokes at

of art, and the hot-off-the-press quality that he ­valued

the beginning of the third lecture that two listeners

in his favorite ­pictures—preferring rough and ready

came away with diametrically opposed ideas of what

cubist collage of the first ­ lyric rapture to its later

he had been arguing for, because he had in fact been

synthetic refinements—is present here. The ­lectures

arguing for both.

are, exactly in their non-finito form, more exciting,

But though refusing to ride any pet theory to the

and a better representation of the speaker’s mind

doom of art, he would never have wanted this work to

and heart, than the more deliberate book he might

seem simply an “appreciation” or a series of fine point

­finally have produced. Varnedoe’s unique quiddity as

considerations. The lectures were meant to be an

a lecturer—his contagious excitement in the presence

­argument, and quite a tight, strong, and provocative

even of reproductions of works of art, his skeptical

one; it would be a mistake to take the speaker’s ­allergy

will to ask questions of received wisdoms, and then to

to theoretical hobby horsing for a reluctance to enter

ask questions of the questions, and the sheer love of

his horse into the race. That larger ­argument—though

painting and sculpture that exuded from him almost

always alive in suspension in these pages, and often

as a physical aura—is present on these pages as it is

spelled out in summary parts—is never, perhaps, as

perhaps nowhere else in his published work.

entirely summed up as he would have wanted it to be

Yet this unfinished nature brings challenges too, to both editors and readers. This book as we have

in a final draft, and it might be useful to try and at least sketch it out, however inadequately, here.

it, with its central argument dispersed throughout

Varnedoe intended these lectures, as he ­explained,

its pages rather than focused on a few of them, risks

to be a riposte or answer or reply to the Mellon Lec-

being seen as a series of evocations and epiphanies,

tures of Austrian-English art historian E. H. ­Gombrich

rather than as a pointed single argument about the

almost fifty years earlier, which ­ produced Art and

nature of abstraction, and its meaning for American

­Illusion—one of those rare books that ­ deserves the

experience and modern consciousness. Varnedoe

much abused adjective “seminal,” since almost

conceived each lecture as a kind of microhistory unto

­everything that has been made of the ­philosophy of

itself, taking a small issue—the relationship between

representation descends from it. In Art and ­Illusion,

Gombrich wanted to show that the ­ history of

the same kind of historical ­criticism and ­reasoning.

­representational art since the Renaissance was not a

Abstract art might be mystical and romantic in many

history of disciplined acts of copying-from-nature,

of its achievements, but it was ­ essentially liberal,

but one of heroic acts of invention, comparable to,

­humane, and rational in its historical sequencing and

and inseparable from, the parallel growth of science

broader cultural existence—historical and ­ rational

around them in the same historical time frame. For

in the simple sense that each moment in its ­history,

Gombrich the rise of abstract painting, which was in

far from being trapped in a narrow subjectivity,

its heyday as he wrote, was a return of the irrational,

drew like a motif in a symphony on what had gone

a romantic rebellion against that rational human-

­before and opened possibilities for what might come

istic tradition of representation—impressive in its

next. This evolution depended, in turn, on stable but

achievements at times, but essentially “primitivizing”

open-minded institutions and audiences in order

and limiting in its expressive range and vision of the

to do this; a scrawl might suggest freedom because

world. The abstract artist could say only one thing,

a splash had before suggested the Self. The abstract

again and again.

artist might seem to say one thing—reiteration was

Varnedoe wanted to show something like the

part of his rhetorical arsenal—but abstract art could

­opposite: that abstract art was not an undifferenti-

say many things. The practice of artists and viewers

ated wave of negations or calls away from order, but

had for fifty years supplied an artistic language for

a series of unique inventions—situated in history,

American art, expressive and world-encompassing,

but responsive to individual agency, and immensely

that could register nearly any emotion or idea, from

­varied in tone and meaning. He wanted to show that,

rhapsodic lust to Zen asceticism. What the history of

like the history of representation, the real history of

abstraction gave us was not a series of cri de couers,

abstract painting shows the continuous evolution of

pots of paint flung in the face of the bourgeois, or

a new language for art that, through the slow growth

of Big Brother, but a set of ­responses to life in a self-

and accretion of symbolic meaning—so that a splash

made language—sly and complicated and varied, and

might come to suggest freedom, and a scrawl the

in need of poetic parsing.

Self—would capture truths about the world, and about modern existence. This language might be

What had intervened between Gombrich and

coded and “corrected,” changed, in ways very ­different

­Varnedoe to create this radical difference of view was,

from the ways that the Renaissance language of art had

of course, a developed and more complicated practice

been changed and corrected, but it was in other ways

of abstract art. But also, and just as important, there

continuous with that language, or to its ­ underlying

had been a ­series of changes in art history, and these

assumptions about the role of art, and susceptible to

lectures ­ respond to both kinds of change. In fact,

this book ­ represents the culmination of ­ Varnedoe’s

bloody suppression of the Commune in 1870. It was

lifelong ­ attempt to ­ reconcile the ­ sensibility of an

very much a lecture about absences, things evaded

­unreconstructed aesthete with the consciousness of

and not shown even in advanced painting: seeing this

an unapologetic postmodern ­historian. Varnedoe’s last

black hole at the center of Paris at the making of the

major lecture series before this one, his still ­unpublished

impressionist moment helped us to understand that

Slade Lectures at ­ Oxford in 1992, had been entirely

moment far more fully, as a time of razor-edge uncer-

devoted to untracking and unraveling the debates on

tainties, violence, destruction, and passionate politi-

the idea of “postmodern theory” in art history, which

cal quarrels, very different from the hazy bourgeois

had so changed the field since his youth, let alone

paradise of conventional thought.

Gombrich’s time. (He left them unpublished because,

He never abandoned his commitment to this kind

ironically, those lectures seemed too ­heavily argumen-

of historical criticism. Varnedoe’s first question on

tative and not sufficiently ­appreciative or art-loving.)

­approaching a work of art was ­always to ask, ­Under

These Mellon Lectures are, in a sense, his response to

what circumstances was it made? Rather than, Who

the crisis of postmodernism in art history that he had

made it? Or even, What feelings does it evoke in me?

identified in the Slade Lectures: an example of what he

(That question was crucial, but it came last.) But

thought art history could do without abandoning its

he soon became uneasy with what seemed to him

commitment to historical criticism, while still insisting

too great or too easy a desire among his contempo-

that when we talk about art as a thing unto itself, and

raries to use social history to write away art history.

the presence of art as an experience irreducible to any

That project was not one that he could sympathize

other, we are talking about something real.

with. The presence of the aesthetic—not as a narrow,

For Varnedoe wasn’t, despite long years as a

frightened repetition of a set series of OK forms but as

­curator at the Museum of Modern Art, a stranger to

something viscerally ­thrilling, a frisson, an excitement

the tumult in his discipline that had led to so many

unlike any in the world—was at the heart of his work

fundamental alterations in the way that art history is

and his life. He spent most of his career as a scholar

conceived. His original contributions to his field had

trying to define ways in which you could understand

always belonged to that enterprise. His first impor-

art as history, without looking past the art only to the

tant lecture, presented in the late 1970s and repeated

history around it. “We have no satisfactory account of

many times, “The Ruins of the Tuileries, 1871–1883:

modern art as a part of modern culture,” were the first

The Aesthetics of Shock and Memory” had been a set-

words of his Slade Lectures. The Mellon Lectures were

piece of social history, ­taking as its subject a seeming

part of his project to help supply one.

nonsubject—the ruins of the ancient palace of the

His attempts to do this involved many kinds of

Kings of France left in the middle of Paris after the

inquiry, lit by much reading, an intellectual ­journey

whose full and complex history will have to be saved

the 1990s, to the work of the neo-­pragmatists and the

for another day. In order ­ better to understand this

philosopher Richard Rorty. (A conversation with the

book, however, it might be helpful to see what had

historian and critic Louis Menand, just as Menand

­preceded it. His search for a new model of ­ history

was finishing The Metaphysical Club, his history

brought him first, in his revisionist ­ history of

of the origins of pragmatism in American history,

­modern art, A Fine Disregard, and in High and Low:

played a crucial role in deflecting Varnedoe from the

Modern Art and Popular Culture toward a kind of

first subject he had considered for these lectures, the

Darwinian vision of art history. Greatly influenced

history of portraiture, toward this knottier but, in the

by the ­ neo-Darwinian ideas of Stephen Jay Gould

end, more central one of abstraction: it was easy to

and Ernst ­Mayer, of ­constant creative change through

see the ground for looking at pictures of faces, but

the ­ recycling of existing parts, these ideas seemed

why at pictures of nothing?) In Rorty and pragma-

to ­ Varnedoe profoundly ­ applicable to the story of

tism he found philosophical reinforcement for his

art. This neo-Darwinian emphasis on evolution as

belief that just going on was enough, that no founda-

a means of using the old to make the new and, still

tion, no ground was needed to make art from—art

more profoundly, on the idea of the individual varia-

made its own ground—and that all the choices were

tion as the only ­existing thing, illuminated his studies

ours: the artist to choose and make, ours to see and

in the nature of innovation: it helped him to under-

discover. Irony was not limiting if it meant a sense

stand the cycle of perspective passing from Europe

of proportion, an ability to bracket experience. This

to Japan to be remade by Hiroshige and Hokusai,

kind of pragmatism led him back away from mega-

only to return to Europe crucially reimagined for

history, back toward biography and small stories. (He

the advantage of impressionism; or the way that the

sketched the barest outlines of a triple life of Johns,

overhead viewpoint passes from art to photography

Twombly, and Rauschenberg.)

and back again, each time adapting to new meanings through the inflection of familiar form.

This intellectual arc—from the excitement of discovering ways for material and social ­history to shed

This kind of history made for a thrillingly good

unexpected life on art, through the larger view of the

big-picture story, but in the 1990s ­ Varnedoe began

problem of creativity and change, into a final faith in

to feel that it was inadequate to the specific pictures

art itself, in lives and objects—was in many ways gen-

themselves. Artists had agency, in ways that animals

erational. One sees the same move from a new his-

didn’t. The big picture looked right, but as soon as you

toricism toward a revived attention to biography and

got down to the small pictures, you were in a world of

close reading of single forms and episodes in the work

a thousand conscious choices that had to be honored

of his friend Simon Schama and in that of the Shake-

on their own. He was therefore increasingly drawn, in

spearean scholar Stephen Greenblatt: it is not forces

from outside bearing down on the artist that count,

flowed from that project. It is based on a ­fanatically

but choices made within the picture from a palette of

close and microscopically detailed study of a ­period,

possibilities. And, as much as the Tuileries lecture was

yet is rooted in the ­simple-seeming belief that social

the masterpiece of his first “phase,” and the “Fine Dis-

life already has an artistic structure. It is not simply

regard” lectures of his second, a lecture Varnedoe gave

that ­ culture has its politics, but that all social and

in 2000 on the Van Gogh portrait of Joseph Roulin,

­political life has its culture—that our social life is

which he had acquired for the MoMA, was the mas-

­inherently artistic, shaped by a set of rhetorical ­devices

terpiece and keystone of his final phase of thought.

and symbols and ways of speaking and ­ showing

In that lecture he concerned himself with only one

and seeing that exist already, and that artists articu-

­image, this single portrait of a man in a ­uniform with

late. Minimal art takes place ­within a broader social

a beard, with each element in the ­ picture squeezed

­dialogue about the uses of simplicity; this doesn’t put

and poked until the last juice of meaning was pressed

it in its place, but it does place it. The artist is posi-

from it. It was a lecture not about absences but about

tioned among codes and conventions common to her

presences, choices. Roulin’s beard, his uniform, the

time—but she is positioned within them, and they

background behind him, the wallpaper, the Socratic

operate as perplexing and demanding choices rather

nose, the Slavic eyes—every single thing that Van

than as high-pressure systems, raining down whether

Gogh had registered, every choice that he had made,

she has an umbrella or not. The artist is a permanent

was assumed to be lit with the light of the time as it

Hercules at a perpetual crossroads, forever forced to

had passed through the prism of his mind. Everything

make choices in pairs of meaning that are not of his

depended on looking at what was there and how it

own making. But he is a kind of Hercules, and it is he

happened, and every look at the picture led you back

or she who does the heavy lifting. In these lectures, in

into the world in which it was made. This kind of

this book, Varnedoe attempts to practice this kind of

close looking demanded a lot of specialized knowl-

history in the most resistant of contexts, taking this

edge, about the artist and his times, and this meant, in

matter of abstract art in America, which had none of

turn, that looking at pictures, and particularly look-

the easy crannies and nooks—the “hooks” of familiar

ing at modern pictures, had some of the qualities of

imagery and icons—that allow the climber to find his

a learned game; but then, Varnedoe thought, learned

way easily up the mountains of meanings. This was

games have all of the quality of learned games, and no

sheer blank rock face, and to climb it required a deli-

one thinks our taste for chess or football aberrant or

cate touch and an unmechanical sensibility.

fraudulent or imposed by a conspiracy of taste.

It could be objected that what Varnedoe set out

These last Mellon Lectures, the book before us,

to achieve here—a map of choices within ­ circum-

represent an extension and final achievement that

stances, gestures within social givens—is simply what

­inspired traditional scholars have always done, and

­possibilities, one that saw hope, change, and even a

that a ­cultural poetics is just another name for good

kind of progress where others saw only ­ pessimism,

art criticism. And, in a funny way, what ­ Varnedoe

individual repression, and constant ­ negation. In this

ended up doing in these lectures resembles what

sense, the key argumentative passage in these lectures

Kenneth Clark did in The Nude, another set of ­earlier

occurs at the beginning, rather than the end of the

­Mellon Lectures that Varnedoe keenly admired, as

book, because it is meant to be an opening onto de-

much as it does what Gombrich did in his study of

scription rather than a closing down on a single view.

­representation: a study of seemingly set-piece forms evolving radically different meanings through ­subtly

Abstract art, while seeming insistently to ­reject

differing inflections and changing communities of

and destroy representation, in fact steadily

“readers.” Exactly so. (Or as ­ Varnedoe would have

­expands its possibilities. It adds new words and

said, “That’s right! That’s right!”) Among his favorite

phrases to the language by colonizing the lead

lines on art, or anything else, were those of Matisse in

slugs and blank spaces in the type tray. ­Seeming

his Notes of a Painter, pointing out that all the great

nihilism becomes productive, or, to put it

discoveries in art and life were simple, familiar truths

­another way, one tradition’s killer ­virus becomes

seen new. In a sense, that was and became the point of

another tradition’s seed. Stressing ­abstract art’s

these lectures—that abstract art was art, resistant to

position within an evolving ­ social system of

any procrustean explanation, and requiring the same

knowledge directly belies the old notion that

patient work of re-creation, sympathetic summary,

abstraction is what we call an Adamic ­language,

interpretation, and historical reasoning, as any other

a bedrock form of expression at a timeless

art had ever done.

point prior to the accretion of conventions. If

To see the long chain of events of which one is mere-

anything, the development of abstraction in

ly another link, but to be acutely aware of that chain,

the last fifty years suggests something more

and to see all of the ways in which creative ­originality

­Alexandrian than Adamic, that is, a ­tradition of

involves forging a new link within it; to grasp the pres-

invention and interpretation that has become

sure of the past ­ neither as a limiting boundary nor

exceptionally refined and intricate, encom-

as a fixed inheritance; to re-create old value through

passing a mind-boggling range of drips, stains,

new arguments and use old arguments to make new

blobs, blocks, bricks, and blank canvases. The

values—that was, for Varnedoe, exactly the project of

woven web of abstraction is now so dense that,

modern abstraction, and the place where art touches

for its adepts, it can snare and cradle ­vanishingly

life and reaffirms its connection to our experience.

subtle, ­evanescent, and slender forms of life and

His was, above all, an optimistic view of art and its

meaning. . . .  ­Abstraction is a remarkable ­system

of productive reductions and destructions

that borrows most heavily from the familiar dignities

that expands our potential for expression and

of architecture and theater. The number of questions

­communication.

that arise is proof of the fertility of the thinking. Which leads to one last, more personal, reflection.

These lectures were his testament of faith—he

Though I wish with all my heart that Varnedoe could

ends the last one by the iteration of the words “I

have lived to polish these lectures, I would not have

­believe”—but since the faith was explicitly not dog-

them other than they are. They feel free. For, in an

matic, the faith it demands from us in turn is one

irony that even a writer as keenly aware of the power

of, well, asking more questions. We might ask, for

of irony as he was could not have anticipated, their

instance, if Varnedoe here comes perilously close to

necessarily unfinished nature—their existence as

asserting that the proof of the value of modern art is

lectures, still-breathing sketches toward a final work,

that it makes more modern art—a notion that seems

drafts and researches not yet fully closed—may allow

to invest a lot in pure production, and reminds one

readers more room for exactly the kind of open-

of the cartoon cat who runs across empty air through

ended responses, the inventive reinterpretations, the

sheer belief and pedal-power (an image of art’s power

structured but uncoerced freedom to use another’s

he might have liked). In another way, we might ask

thought to think again for ourselves, that Kirk Varne-

if the search for an abstract art that can rival more

doe thought was at the heart of all creative endeavors.

obviously figural art for power and dignity leads in-

An irony as happy, in its way, for new-arriving readers

evitably to a concentration on that side of abstract art

as it is tragic for those of us who knew him. Adam Gopnik

N ot e to t h e r e a d e r The Mellon Lectures are presented here in large mea-

added a helpful layer of annotation to the first three

sure as Kirk Varnedoe delivered them from the podium,

lectures. (He is identified as “PK” in notes at the foot

extempore and with vibrance. Transcripts made from

of the page.) My colleagues in the department of

the audiocassettes of the six lectures were edited at the

­modern and contemporary art at the National Gallery

National Gallery of Art with an effort to preserve not

of Art, headed by Jeffrey Weiss, were scholarly touch-

only their narrative content but the sound and ener-

stones in the editing of the last three lectures. Paulina

getic pace of Varnedoe’s delivery. The change in venue

Wanda Pobocha of New York University tracked down

from lecture hall to printed page necessitated revisions:

sources for some of the more elusive quotations and

the argument has been tightened, the prose manicured,

references in the text and was herself a valuable source

and the number of images reduced; the sequencing of

of information about the illustrations for these lec-

a few paragraphs and many images has been altered to

tures. Tam Curry Bryfogle, in the Gallery’s publishing

improve clarity; summaries and recapitulations have

office, ­ prepared the transcriptions of the audiotapes;

been condensed; and of course audience reaction (the

Alex McSpadden annotated the transcriptions with

transcripts are peppered with laughter and applause)

notes from the videotapes; and Sara Sanders-Buell

and Varnedoe’s personal asides to the audience have

and Evanthia Mantzavinos Granville brought together

been eliminated. Dimensions, whether in captions or

from a complex web of descriptions and reproduction

text, have been converted to metric form.

rights the picture program and captions for this book.

Not all the editing has taken a reductive tack: a

This volume and all of us who saw it through

framework of references directs readers to some of

publication owe a great deal to Elyn Zimmerman,

Varnedoe’s sources; a few explanatory footnotes have

who from start to finish has been as generous with

been added; and descriptive phrases may fill in for at

her time and good advice as she has been steadfast in

least a few of the missing one thousand words that a

her pursuit of a distinctive publication.

picture, projected larger than life on an auditorium screen, is said to be worth.

Apologies to the author and the reader for any errors that may have found their way into the tran-

In the effort to prepare these lectures for publica-

scription, editing, and illustration of these enlighten-

tion, I was greatly assisted by Pepe Karmel, associate

ing lectures. Kirk Varnedoe’s Mellon Lectures series

professor of art history at New York University, who

may be viewed on videotape at the National Gallery

resolved queries, further smoothed the prose, and

of Art by prior appointment with Gallery Archives. Judy Metro Editor in Chief National Gallery of Art

1

W h y A b s t r ac t A rt ?

The main title of this year’s Mellon Lectures,

both nothingness and likeness have a looming

“Pictures of Nothing,” is from an essay by Wil-

presence in these lectures, the borrowing from

liam Hazlitt about one of his contemporaries,

Hazlitt seemed to me an appropriate provoca-

the early nineteenth-century English painter

tion with which to begin.

J.M.W. Turner. Turner was celebrated (or no-

Throughout these lectures I am going to talk

torious) for painting vaporous and indistinct

about abstract art during the last fifty years or

conjurings of atmospheric effects, as you can

so. The big question I want to ask eventually is

see from one of his landscapes of the 1840s,

the one you are entitled to ask up front, and it is

Snowstorm: Steamboat off a Harbour’s Mouth (fig. 1.1). In his essay, Hazlitt reports the remark of a dyspeptic viewer about one such work: “ ‘Pictures of nothing,’ the viewer harrumphed, ‘and very like. ’ ”1 This attitude, skeptical at best,

1.1

dismissive at worst, seems as premonitory of

J.M.W. Turner, Snowstorm:

modern reactions to abstract art as Turner is of abstraction itself. Because such skepticism is what I want to confront, and because issues of

Steamboat off a Harbour’s Mouth, exhibited 1842. Oil on canvas, 91.4 × 121.9 cm. Tate Gallery, London

1.2 Pablo Picasso, “Ma Jolie” (Woman with a Zither or Guitar), 1911–1912. Oil on canvas, 100 × 65.4 cm. The Museum of

the title of today’s talk: Why abstract art? But let

Modern Art, New York, acquired

me dodge that question for a moment and start

through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest

with a second one: Why abstract art of the last fifty years? The quick answer is that fifty years takes us to the mid-1950s, a crucial juncture in twentieth-century culture. To say why it was crucial requires looking back even farther to the decades before World War II, when modern art in general and abstract art in particular had been dominated by Europe. The fragmentation and reassembling of the world effected by Pablo Picasso and ­Georges Braque in their Parisian cubism of 1909 to 1914 (fig. 1.2) had allowed, encouraged, even goaded several artists, especially from outlying

1.3

countries such as Holland and Russia, to push

Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist

farther into a world of forms, leaving behind

Composition: White on White,

any trace of reference to recognizable objects

1918. Oil on canvas, 79.4 × 79.4 cm. The Museum of Modern

or scenes (fig. 1.3). The invention of these new

Art, New York, acquisition

kinds of abstract or “nonobjective” art coincided

confirmed in 1999 by agree-

with the cataclysm of World War I, and the artists

ment with the Estate of Kazimir Malevich and made possible with

involved explained their innovations in terms

funds from the Mrs. John Hay

of contemporary revolutions in both society

Whitney Bequest (by exchange)

and consciousness, proposing in numerous manifestos that their art laid bare the fundamental, absolute, and universal truths appropriate to a new spirituality, to modern

 PICTURES OF NOTHING

1.4 Pablo Picasso, Accordionist (L’Accordéoniste), Céret, summer 1911. Oil on canvas, 130.2

science, or to the emergence of a changed

× 89.5 cm. Solomon R. Guggen-

human order.

heim Museum, New York, Gift,

In the 1920s and 1930s these principles of

Solomon R. Guggenheim, 1937

abstract art were institutionalized in academies such as the Bauhaus in Germany, and they had a pervasive impact, reconfiguring the look of the man-made world in architecture, graphic design, film, and photography as well as in painting and sculpture. But the original utopian aspirations of the pioneer abstractionists seemed thwarted, and their collectivist optimism discredited, by the rise of totalitarian governments and the eventual collapse of Europe into a second world war. During and immediately after the confla-

made “out of ourselves,” without any accompa-

gration of European culture in World War II, a

nying insistence on the former metaphysical or

new push toward abstract art occurred among

social agendas of abstraction.2

younger artists in America, especially in New

In the mid-1950s abstract expressionism was

York. But this time the artists’ motivations and

exported internationally in important exhibi-

ambitions seem sharply different. What came

tions. It was a key moment in the emergence

to be called abstract expressionism in the art

of this new kind of American abstract painting.

of Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Willem

When Pollock died in 1956 in a car crash he was

de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and others emerged

hailed by his prime champion, the critic Clem-

now from the context of surrealism, with its

ent Greenberg, as the legitimate inheritor of the

stress on visual free association. Abstract expres-

great tradition of European abstract art repre-

sionist painting had its roots in the unconscious

sented by cubist pictures such as Picasso’s Accor-

mind. It was, to paraphrase one of these artists,

dionist of 1911 (fig.1.4). Pollock was said to have

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?  

 PICTURES OF NOTHING

“picked up for America the torch of innovations

of painting without any extraneous literary

lit by Picasso,” eliminating deep perspectival

content.3

space, for example, as in Number 1, 1950 (Lav-

Yet if Greenberg could see Pollock’s poured

ender Mist) (fig. 1.5). Greenberg argued that

paintings as extending the European avant-

Pollock had advanced the line of abstraction’s

garde tradition, these same works also displayed

logical progress toward its supposedly destined

some radically new aspects. They brought the

goal of expressing the essential visual qualities

process of art-making to the fore, so that the

1.5 (opposite) Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), 1950. Oil, enamel, and aluminum on canvas, 221 × 299.7 cm. ­National Gallery of Art, Washington,

painting seemed only like the record of the event

by a then-unknown Southerner in his mid-

documented by Hans Namuth in his famous

twenties. Whereas painting such as Pollock’s

photographs of Pollock pouring and dripping

seemed expressive of a heatedly urgent, physi-

paint onto a canvas in his barn studio on Long

cal, psychic, and emotional engagement, Johns’

lock creating Autumn Rhythm

Island (fig. 1.6). Pollock’s work allowed for the

painting seemed the opposite: coolly detached,

(Number 30) in his barn

forceful expression of chance in the way the

diffident, suffused with irony—an impassive

studio in Long Island, 1950

paint fell uncontrollably in spatters and drips

presentation of commonplace things. Johns

Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

1.6 Hans Namuth, Jackson Pol-

across the canvas, dissolving traditional distinctions between figure and ground. A picture such as Lavender Mist shows a nearly even dispersal of pictorial incident over the entire field of the canvas, yielding a new “allover” wholeness that seemed a kind of anti-composition. Moreover, the most celebrated of Pollock’s drip pictures were big, up to five-and-a-half meters across, and this mural-like scale suggested a sharply different relationship between the body and pictorial space. In these ways Pollock’s paintings seemed to offer a thoroughly new point of departure for abstraction. But this moment in the mid-1950s also saw what has come to be seen as the death knell of abstract expressionism and the launch of an antithetical idea of art in Jasper Johns’ White Flag of 1955 (fig. 1.7), a deliberately deadpan work

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?  

1.7 Jasper Johns, White Flag, 1955. Encaustic, oil, newsprint, fabric, and charcoal on canvas, 198.9 × 306.7 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace, Reba and Dave Williams, Stephen and Nan Swid, Roy R. and Marie S. Neuberger, Louis and Bessie Adler Foundation, Inc., Paula Cussi, MarieGaetana Matisse, the Barnett Newman Foundation, Jane and Robert Carroll, Eliot and Wilson Nolen, Mr. and Mrs. Derald H. Ruttenberg, Ruth and Seymour Klein Foundation Inc., Andrew N. Schiff, the Cowles Charitable Trust, the Merrill G. and Emita E. Hastings Foundation, John J. Roche, Molly and Walter Bareiss,

seemed to resurrect a different European tradi-

the way for artists to work in what his partner,

tion of the prewar era, not the tradition of Pi-

Robert Rauschenberg, famously referred to

Lougheed Gifts, and gifts from

casso and cubism but the tradition of Marcel

as the space between art and life.4 Along with

friends of the Museum; Kathryn

Duchamp and Dada, with its subversive pranks.

Rauschenberg’s work, Johns’ flag catalyzed the

E. Hurd, Denise and Andrew Saul,

The ready-made imagery of White Flag recalled

explosion of a new realism in pop art. This was

Duchamp’s decision to select a urinal from a

a realism that embraced photography, advertis-

tion purchase, and Cynthia Hazen

plumbing supplier, sign it, and submit it to a

ing, and the image-saturated world of modern

Polsky and Leon B. Polsky funds;

New York art exhibition under the title Foun-

media—everything that Greenberg’s ideal of a

tain (fig. 1.8). But Johns’ scrupulously hand-

pure abstraction had so strenuously excluded.

Linda and Morton Janklow, Aaron I. Fleischman, and Linford L.

George A. Hearn, Arthur Hoppock Hearn, Joseph H. Hazen Founda-

Mayer Fund; Florene M. Schoenborn bequest; gifts of ­Professor and Mrs. Zevi Scharfstein and

painted flag transmutes Duchamp’s idea of the

Our starting point in the mid-1950s, then,

Himan Brown, and other gifts,

ready-made into something new. It is a way of

seems simultaneously to present a new form of

bequests, and funds from various

making art rather than a way of not making

abstraction and a new resistance to its premises.

it. Instead of remaining a hermetic in-joke, a

This contradictory development is what I want

piece of art about art, Johns’ White Flag opened

to document and explore. For many people

donors, by exchange, 1998. Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

   P I C T U R E S O F N OT H I N G

1.8 Alfred Stieglitz, Fountain, photograph of sculpture by Marcel Duchamp, 1917. Gelatin silver print, 23.5 × 17.8 cm. Succession Marcel Duchamp,

who think and write about culture, this mo-

Villiers-sous-Grez, France

ment marks an even larger watershed between the end of modernism and the inauguration of a postmodern world, a great divide between the world of, say, Henri Matisse and Picasso and that of contemporary art. I am not one of those people, however, and this dichotomy is not what I am here to talk about. Those who believe in a strict opposition between modern and postmodern art will perhaps be discomfited by the story I have to tell. For instance, I want to

canvas; the black industrial house paint—are a

show how strains from two seemingly opposite

direct response to Pollock’s work. On the oth-

camps—from Johns and Pollock, for example,

er hand, Stella’s stripes, as he himself has said,

or from Picasso and Duchamp—overlapped

come directly from Johns. Stella’s work does not

and blended, and how the emergence of impor-

seem to make sense unless we combine (rather

tant new artistic languages depended precisely

than set in opposition) the modern Pollock and

on those unexpected hybrids.

the postmodern Johns—just as Johns’ hand-

Let us look, for example, at Frank Stella’s

made flag is unthinkable without the seemingly

The Marriage of Reason and Squalor of 1959

antithetical influences of Paul Cézanne and Du-

(fig. 1.9). Stella himself described this work as a

champ.

piece of “negative Pollockism”—a radical reac-

Conundrums such as this interest me a great

tion against Pollock, and yet at the same time an

deal. Moreover, I do not accept the modern/post-

extension of Pollock. Many things about it—the

modern split because I do not put much stock

allover composition, wall-to-wall, edge-to-edge;

in either—or any—“ism.” Epochs do not have

the even distribution of emphasis across the

essences, history does not work by all-­governing

5

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   

1.9 Frank Stella, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor (second version), 1959. Enamel on canvas, 230.5 × 337.2 cm. Collection of the artist 1.10 Detail of figure 1.9

 PICTURES OF NOTHING

unities, and works of art in their quirkiness tend

feathered edge of the touch of the picture, and

to resist generalities. These Mellon Lectures will

the dark, espresso-ground, Beat-generation

dwell on experience and works of art. Between

blackness that places the picture in its epoch

the vague confusions of individual experience

(fig. 1.10). This does not translate well in pho-

and the authority of big ideas, sign me up for

tographs, and it is easy to lose in theory, yet it

experience first. Given one minute more to

is critical to the experience of the picture. Hard

­either parse critical theory or stammer toward

examination and questioning of the specificity

the qualities of the individual work of art, I will

of works of abstract art, combined with the ex-

use the time for the latter. Now this may sound

perience of the viewer, are our best ways to hold

like dumb anti-intellectualism, but I hope it is

out against and to test “big ideas.” What we want

something better. Abstraction, of course, has

to do is cut through the gas and grab the ideas

a lot to do with ideas and theory. One of the

that flow out of and drive us back toward such

valuable things it does more fiercely than a lot

confusing, gritty particulars of experience, rath-

of other art is to make us think and read what

er than the ideas that constantly and confidently

­others think: Greenberg on Pollock, ­ Professor

blend such things into soupy generalities.

Michael Fried, Mellon lecturer in 2002, on ­Stella,

Still, even though these talks will focus on

and so on. But it is also crucially about experi-

individual works and creators, I am going to try

ence and about particulars. The less there is to

to indicate the connection of these artists and

look at, the more important it is that we look at

their art with broader histories: the Cold War

it closely and carefully. This is critical to abstract

and Vietnam, America versus Europe, capital-

art. Small differences make all the difference.

ism and socialism, and so on. While I make

For example, the next time someone tries to

no pretense to inclusiveness, there is so much

sell you on the mechanical exactitude of Stella’s

ground to cover that I am necessarily going to

stripes, think again about the beautiful, delicate,

paint, time and again, with comically broad

breathing space in these stripes, the incredible

brush strokes. Thus those who prefer reductive

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   

1.11 Ellsworth Kelly, Colors for a Large Wall, 1951. Oil on canvas, mounted on 64 joined wood ­panels, overall, 243.8 × 243.8 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of the artist

generalization and crude caricatural summary

not only flawed in itself but also hides more

will probably find a lot to like.

­interesting, complex confusions and overlaps

Here are some of the stories I want to tell in

between, on one hand, the prewar tradition of

the course of these lectures. I will begin, in the

constructivism, with its agendas of science and

next lecture, by talking about the 1950s. One of

objective order, both aesthetic and social, and, on

the standard art historical accounts of recent

the other, new styles that utilized similar forms

years tells how, in the 1950s, the CIA and the

but with very dissimilar premises. A key exam-

Museum of Modern Art colluded to promote

ple is the work that Ellsworth Kelly did in Paris

abstract expressionism as an American tool

in the early 1950s, such as the beautiful 1951

in the Cold War battle. This paranoid cliché is

work called Colors for a Large Wall (fig. 1.11). The painting resembles but is crucially different from the math-based, systematic art of the Zurich “concrete” artists such as Richard Paul Lohse, whose Complementary Groups Formed by Six Horizontal Systematic Color Series (fig. 1.12) dates from about the same year that Kelly painted his Colors for a Large Wall. Compared to Pollock’s broad, gestural abstract expressionism, work like Lohse’s seemed very retrograde. It looked back to the beginnings of the concrete art movement in the early 1930s. Suddenly, in the 1960s, Kelly’s work was exhibited along with minimalist avant-garde work by younger artists such as Carl Andre, as if Kelly and Andre were doing the same thing.

1 0  PICTURES OF NOTHING

1.12 Richard Paul Lohse, Complementary Groups Formed by Six Horizontal Systematic Color Series, 1950/1975. 150 × 150 cm. Collection of the Richard

­Andre’s floor piece of 1969 (fig. 1.13) seems to

split with Europe. But at the same time the art

have exactly the same modular construction

seems to coincide with and to draw on Euro-

and the same rigor as Kelly’s Colors for a Large

pean art—on the work of Romanian sculptor

Wall.6 In the 1950s, when abstract expression-

Constantin Brancusi, for example, and on Rus-

ism defined the New York School, Kelly left New

sian constructivist art. I also want to contrast

York for Paris. The story of his artistic forma-

the strains of minimalism that appear in New

tion there, and of his co-optation in the 1960s

York and Los Angeles. For example, in 1966

by minimalism, will provide a different view of

New York artist Robert Morris makes a box

the 1950s.

painted neutral gray that has a reductive feeling,

Then in the third and fourth lectures I want

Paul Lohse Foundation, Zurich

a feeling of utter object-hood (fig. 1.14); in the

to turn to the 1960s, and to minimalism in its multiple forms. This new kind of hard-edged abstraction emerged around 1960 in sharp reaction to the loose, gestural abstract painting that had followed from abstract expressionism. Minimalism was so drastically reductive that it appeared utterly nihilistic. But within the dead certainties that it seemed to propose lurk many an ambiguity and contradiction. I want to examine the battles within—and overlaps between— the different readings of this new direction in abstract art. Minimalism claimed to be purely American in its philosophical grounding—in its “I’ve got to kick this to believe it” empiricism. This represented a willed and self-proclaimed

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   1 1

1.13 Carl Andre, 144 Lead Square, 1969. 144 lead plates, each approximately 0.95 × 30.5 × 30.5 cm, overall 0.95 × 368 × 369.6 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Advisory

same year, the Los Angeles artist James Turrell

Harley-Davidson paint, galvanized metal, col-

Committee Fund (494.1969).

uses light projection to conjure a box that does

ored Plexiglas, for example—­materials that

not exist at all, that is purely a light illusion, that

offer a different kind of delicacy and ­ subtlety

has entirely to do with playing on the sensorial

than one finds in Judd’s manifestos.

Art © Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

1 2  PICTURES OF NOTHING

(fig. 1.15). While Turrell on one coast is creat-

I am interested in looking at the degree to

ing inner events, Morris on the other is creating

which 1960s minimalism expresses something

something that only exists outside.

quintessentially American. Some scholars have

Then I want to look at the varieties of mini-

told us that Pollock’s loose gestural freedom

malist art in between. Between the gray neutral-

and broad cowboy scale offered an epitome of

ity of Morris and the shining illumination of

American society, and that the CIA plotted to

Turrell’s Afrum-Proto, one might position some-

promote his work in Europe for just this rea-

thing like Donald Judd’s open aluminum boxes

son.7 More recently, other scholars have told

of 1969 (fig. 1.16). Judd is someone we want to

us the exact opposite: that American society is

explore for his combination of a seemingly rig-

really dominated by corporate capitalism, that

orous reductive geometry and odd ­materials—

minimalism expresses an industrial aesthetic,

1.14 Robert Morris, Untitled, 1966. Gray painted plywood, 121.9 × 243.8 × 243.8 cm. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, the Panza Collection

and that it is therefore in collusion with the

Hesse in 1968—one sees a rebellion against

military-industrial complex.

the pure, strict, seemingly neutral geometry of

8

In the fourth lecture I will look at how mini-

minimalism. In the case of Hesse’s piece, with

malism changed very swiftly around 1968, as

its rubber tubing entering the inside of a cube,

seen in works such as Richard Serra’s One Ton

we find a new kind of organicism with entirely

Prop and Eva Hesse’s Accession II (figs. 1.17,

different psychological and social ramifications,

1.18). In this short time span—between the

particularly in regard to the body and women. It

Morris and Turrell in 1966, and the Serra and

is so interesting to think about how the ­Pollock

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   1 3

1 4  PICTURES OF NOTHING

1.15 (opposite) James Turrell, Afrum-Proto, 1966. Tungsten projection. Michael and Jeanne Klein Collection, Houston, Texas

exhibition of 1967 inflected the change and in-

as Morris’s gray box, Serra’s four pieces of lead

1.16

terpretation of minimalism after it, and how

poised against one another threaten to collapse;

Donald Judd, Untitled, 1969.

two things that represented the macho ideal in

they have a real-time relationship to gravity and

art—Pollock’s bold athletic drip paintings and

to the body that dramatically changes the prem-

× 152.1 × 707.4 cm. Saint Louis

Judd’s stern cubes—in combination became

ises of minimalism.

Art Museum, funds given by the

an ideal vocabulary for feminist art in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

These changes, effected by a younger generation who were inheriting the vocabulary of

Another aspect of minimalism I will explore

minimalism in the late 1960s, also come to bear

is how it changed in its relationship to scale and

on the earlier minimalists themselves and what

the body. In contrast with an inert cube such

they do in later years. Thus the minimalism of

Anodized aluminum and Plexiglas, four units, installed: 120.7

Schoenberg Foundation, Inc. Art © Donald Judd Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   1 5

1.17 Richard Serra, One Ton Prop (House of Cards), 1969. Lead antimony, four plates, each 121.9 × 121.9 × 2.5 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of the Grinstein family

1 6  PICTURES OF NOTHING

Judd or Morris in the early 1960s that had been

the monumental. It also takes on a new related-

proposed as an art of immediacy—an art of

ness to America and to the American landscape,

awareness of the sensory relationship to the ob-

in works such as Walter De Maria’s amazing

ject in the present tense—becomes in the 1980s

Lightning Field near Quemado, New Mexico,

and 1990s an art par excellence of memory and

an array of stainless steel, javelin-like rods in a

­giant, empty Southwestern landscape, making

­desire for control into a whole new environ-

up a grid that extends for a mile along one axis

ment, quite different from its containment in

and for a kilometer along the other. A work like

the early boxes of the 1960s (fig. 1.19).

this changes what scale means for minimalism

From works like De Maria’s in the 1970s, I

and releases the potentially megalomaniacal

will move on in the fifth lecture to the 1980s and

1.18 Eva Hesse, Accession II, 1967. Galvanized steel and rubber tubing, 78.1 × 78.1 × 78.1 cm. The Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society purchase, Friends of Modern Art Fund and Miscellaneous Gifts Fund

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   1 7

1.19 Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field, 1977. Four hundred polished steel poles, grid array: 1 mi × 1 km. Quemado, New Mexico, © Dia Art Foundation

1 8  PICTURES OF NOTHING

away from weighty issues into apparent jokes.

like one of Stella’s striped paintings, Zambezi,

The opening premise of this lecture on satire

of 1959 (fig. 1.21). It is an extended joke about

and irony will be the truism that an abstraction

the relationship between pop, as Lichtenstein

often inadvertently looks like something. For

practiced it, and minimalism, as represented by

example, Roy Lichtenstein’s Ball of Twine from

Stella’s black painting. It is just one of any num-

1963 (fig. 1.20) was designed to look exactly

ber of examples of pop artists—Lichtenstein,

Andy Warhol, Claus Oldenburg, and ­ others—

what begins to happen in the 1980s, with paint-

­thumbing their noses at the pretensions of

ings such as Peter Halley’s Two Cells with Circu-

minimalist art, and bringing those pretensions

lating Conduit of 1985 (fig. 1.22). The joke here

back to earth by showing that exactly the same

is that Halley’s painting looks a lot like a Bar-

designs appear in crass, man-made objects.

nett Newman (fig. 1.23). But Halley’s painting

This forces open an issue—the relationship

is accompanied by an enormous commentary

between abstraction and mere design—that has

in which the joke becomes deadly earnest. Hal-

lingered as a haunting doubt within the idea of

ley argues that there is a resemblance between

abstract art. Yet Lichtenstein’s jibe at Stella seems

Newman’s paintings and diagrams of computer

lighthearted or dryly ironic once compared with

chips, and that this resemblance is not in fact

1.20 Roy Lichtenstein, Ball of Twine, 1962. Magna on canvas, 101.6 × 91.4 cm. Private collection 1.21 Frank Stella, Zambezi, 1959. Enamel on canvas, 230.5 × 200 cm. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gift of Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   1 9

coincidental, because the strictures and pretensions of hard-edged abstraction emerged at the same time that the hegemony of control and order became the dominant feature of modern society and philosophy.9 Halley’s argument here comes from the French philosopher Michel Foucault.10 Following Foucault, Halley discerns a sinister, constraining order that links together the geometry of prisons, the organization of 1.22 Peter Halley, Two

information in cyberspace, and the inclination

Cells with Circulating

toward geometric abstraction. Hence the pres-

Conduit, 1985.

ence of the word “cell” in the title of so many of

Acrylic, Day-Glo

Halley’s paintings, referring simultaneously to

acrylic, Roll-a-Tex on canvas, 160 × 274.3 cm. Collection of Michael and B. Z. Schwartz

the modular unit of Newman-style abstraction and to the confining spaces of a prison. Another representative figure of 1980s abstraction is Philip Taaffe. In a picture like Blue,

1.23

Green of 1987 (fig. 1.24), Taaffe takes a big blue

Barnett Newman,

arrow shape, quoted directly from early Ells-

Who’s Afraid of Red,

worth Kelly, and doctors it up with wavy lines

Yellow and Blue II, 1967. Acrylic on can-

and flower patterns, cheapening it and making

vas, 305 × 257.7 cm.

it look like a trivial plastic decoration. Where

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Halley tells us that abstraction is all-powerful and dominating, Taaffe tells us that it is inconsequential and thin. This kind of politicized

2 0  PICTURES OF NOTHING

critique of abstraction dominates much of the 1980s. From there I want to look at the larger ­question raised by all of these jokes and satires as to whether abstraction is even possible after Johns’ flag and the triumph of irony in contemporary art. Can artists have it both ways? Can they be ironic and abstract? Among the paintings we will look at are Gerhard Richter’s Gray Streaks of 1968 (fig. 1.25), which has an obvious relationship to Stella’s work (see fig. 1.9), and at Johns’ own paintings of the years 1972 to 1980, when he painted pure abstract pictures in a crosshatch mode that seems like a geometrized variant of Pollock’s allover space and gesture. I want to examine the ­ phenomenon of part-time abstractionists, artists such as Johns and Richter and Twombly, for whom abstract art is not an end-of-the-line ­ distillation but rather one option among many. On one

nomenon unique to the period after World

1.24

day, or in one week, or in one decade, they

War II.

Philip Taaffe, Blue, Green, 1987. Silk screen, collage, and acrylic

might make abstract work, but it would ­ exist

Having moved through the 1960s, 1970s,

in counterpoint with the photographic real-

and 1980s, in the final lecture I will arrive at the

Private collection, courtesy

ist work that they would make on the next day

present day, talking about the remarkable new

Gagosian Gallery, New York, and

or week, or in the next decade. This is a phe-

installations at the Dia Art Foundation facility

on canvas, 219.71 × 172.72 cm.

Thomas Ammann Fine Art, Zurich

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   2 1

1.25 Gerhard Richter, Gray Streaks, 1968. Oil on canvas, 200 × 200 cm. Private collection

status of abstraction, and particularly in the status of minimalism. There are now monuments to the achievement of minimalism all over the country. Following the model of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, the minimalist shrines range from Turrell’s Quaker meeting house in Houston, to Judd’s vast complex in Marfa, ­ Texas, to De Maria’s Lightning Field in Quemado, to Heizer’s complex City monument outside of Las Vegas, and ultimately to Dia Beacon itself. The strange thing is that, despite the enshrinement and monumentalization of mini-

2 2  PICTURES OF NOTHING

in Beacon, New York, which open[ed] in May

malism, abstraction now seems to be in suspen-

2003. The work on view at Dia includes a Michael

sion, or even in eclipse. The great lions of mini-

Heizer piece, North, South, East, West, which

malism, like Heizer and Serra, are into or well

consists of extremely large depressions cut into

past their sixties. It is not clear whether abstract

the floor and lined with Cor-Ten steel (fig. 1.26).

art holds the same attraction for a younger gen-

This was originally conceived in 1967, although

eration, or whether the most contentious issue

it was only permanently realized at Beacon. In a

in visual culture of the twentieth century has

large train shed at Beacon, there is a whole run

now lost its urgency.

of Richard Serra’s “torqued ellipses” designed

Included in these decade-by-decade time

in 1998 (fig. 1.27). Thirty years stretch between

capsules that I have summarized here, there will

Heizer’s original proposal for North, South,

be stories of lofts and deserts, hot rods and phi-

East, West and Serra’s series of torqued ellipses.

losophy seminars, Day-Glo paint and dirt, rust-

In this time span there are huge changes in the

ing steel and shiny brass that will take us from

Patagonia to Paris. My hope is that these selec-

obliged to ask some “why” questions, includ-

1.26

tive histories will offer a chance to review, look

ing ultimately the overarching one I deferred at

Michael Heizer, North, South,

at, and think about some of the best and most

the outset: Why abstraction? Why abstract art? I

challenging art of our epoch. Simply to sum-

believe in abstract art, and I like a lot of it, and

mantled); recreated in 2002 at

marize this history may be more than enough,

obviously part of what I hope to do in these lec-

Dia: Beacon, Beacon, New York.

more than you or I can handle in a handful of

tures is to make you like it too. But whether or

Collection Dia Art Foundation

lectures. But I also think there’s a point to all

not I succeed, there will be a question hanging

these accounts, to this chronology—that is, a

over us. Beyond my liking abstract art, or your

general meaning behind the unfolding of par-

liking it, or even all of Washington, DC, liking

ticular facts. And perhaps there is a basic doubt

it; beyond the commitments of the artists who

haunting everything I’ve laid out so far. So in

make it; and beyond the collectors and institu-

addition to all the “how” stories about the way

tions that support it, What is abstract art good

this art developed over several decades, I feel

for? What’s the use—for us as individuals, or for

East, West, 1967. Steel, Sierra Nevada Mountains, Reno (dis-

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   2 3

1.27 (opposite) Richard Serra, Torqued Ellipse II, 1996; Double Torqued Ellipse, 1997; Torqued Ellipse I, 1996 and 2000. Cor-Ten steel, installation view at Dia: Beacon, New York.

any society—of pictures of nothing? What’s the

(fig. 1.28). Given that the elements of the nat-

use of paintings or sculptures or prints or draw-

ural world have always looked as they do, and

ings that do not seem to show anything except

given that human vision has always functioned

themselves—big holes in the ground, or huge

as it does, Gombrich wanted to know why an-

Nude Woman Posing in

curved pieces of steel?

cient Egyptians and medieval Italian monks

Front of Class (#40987).

I take this topic ultimately because it seems

and baroque ceiling painters depict the world

to me one of the most legitimate and poorly ad-

so differently. He was intensely dissatisfied with

dressed questions in modern art. Put another

explanations that rested on some quasi-mystical

way, I want to ask whether there is any grounding

spirit of the age or zeitgeist. Instead he wanted

for abstraction, perhaps an underlying logic, or

an explanation of the history of art that had

specifically a “logic of the situation,” to borrow

more scientific and philosophical rigor, that

a term from E. H. Gombrich. Almost fifty years

would take into account both the “hard-wiring”

Collection Dia Art Foundation 1.28 Alain, Egyptian Art Class.

© The New Yorker Collection 1955 Alain from cartoonbank. com. All rights reserved

ago, Gombrich gave the epochal Mellon Lectures that became his book Art and Illusion, and I want to recapture some of the excitement that must have filled the National Gallery’s lecture hall in 1956 when Gombrich spoke. He asked at that time one of the most resounding questions of all: Why does art have a history? Gombrich wanted to crack what he called the “riddle of style,” that is, to find an explanation for the succession of odd stylizations by which different epochs and civilizations have represented the visible world.11 He opens Art and Illusion with a cartoon of Egyptian boys drawing from a model

*The joke here is the suggestion that ancient Egyptians actually stood and walked the way they do in their pictures, and that the seemingly peculiar style of their art can therefore be explained as a literal transcription of reality. We assume that this is not the case: that the Egyptians stood and walked more or less the way we do.—PK

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   2 5

1.29 Albrecht Dürer, “A Man Drawing a Lute” from The Art of Measurement, 1525. Reproduced in Willi Kurth, ed., The Complete Woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer, 1927/1963, pl. 338). National Gal-

of human perception and the way knowledge

was taken for granted by the wider public.

lery of Art, gift of Robert Erburu

has progressed cumulatively through successive

Gombrich wanted to reproblematize that com-

ages and societies. Gombrich’s proposal, which

monplace: to show that, far from being a merely

drew on the best minds of his time in areas such

servile copying of nature—we see it, we draw

as perceptual psychology and the philosophy of

it—illusionist representation was a willed,

science, was that within the confounding vari-

hard-fought achievement of human culture.

ety of the history of Western art one could trace

It was the result of a cumulative dialogue be-

a long, halting, but ultimately rational prog-

tween invented conceptual schemas and their

ress toward the development of a credible illu-

corrections—a dialogue that was worthy of be-

sionism, that is, the feat of getting a viewer to

ing regarded, like science, as a unique virtue of

conjure from painted marks on a flat surface a

the Western tradition, stretching from what he

convincing illusion of such things as seamlessly

called “the Greek miracle,” in the vase painting

receding space and three-dimensional volumes.

and sculpture of the fifth century b.c., through

Albrecht Dürer, in his 1525 woodcut of an art-

Dürer and the Italian Renaissance up to John

ist trying to reason out the correct way to show

Constable’s naturalist landscape paintings, such

a lute in perspective, reminds us how long and

as his beautiful 1816 picture of Wivenhoe Park,

hard artists had to work to achieve this illusionism (fig. 1.29). Gombrich delivered his Mellon Lectures in 1956, the year of Pollock’s death, when, as we have seen, abstract art appeared to be spreading triumphant. At the same time, realist illusionism, propagated on every pulp page and street corner billboard by magazine illustrations, ­advertisements, and above all by ­ photography,

2 6  PICTURES OF NOTHING

1.30 John Constable, Wivenhoe Park, Essex, 1816. Oil on canvas, 56.2 × 101.3 cm, framed: 77.8 × 122.5 × 8.8 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Widener Collection

Essex from the National Gallery of Art collec-

up and interpreting his many writings on the

tion (fig. 1.30).

subject of abstract art—he saw the claim that

But this noble progress foundered when it

modern abstract art might be something more

came up against the wall of the oncoming twen-

than decoration as based either in mystifica-

tieth century. As much as Gombrich cherished

tions about abstraction reflecting hidden meta-

the triumph of illusionism, he disliked and mis-

physical truths or in specious arguments that

trusted its demise in abstract art. The antipathy

the tides of history somehow required such

was partly personal. Gombrich was, after all, a

innovations.

Renaissance scholar, and his tastes and sympa-

It was precisely that lethal combination of

thies were grounded in an earlier humanism.

belief in “higher ideals,” stretching back to Plato,

But his was also an intellectual and even ideo-

and pronouncements about the “requirements”

logical bias. Gombrich thought that abstrac-

of history, grounded in Hegel, that Gombrich’s

tion was understandable as an extension of the

close friend, the philosopher Karl Popper, in

history of decorative pattern-­making, as in Al-

his wartime book The Open Society and Its En-

hambra tiles (fig. 1.31), rugs, basket weaves, tile

emies, had recently scourged as the false philo-

work, and the like. But—if I can risk ­summing

sophical foundations of totalitarian thinking,

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   2 7

1.31 Moorish, Nasrid Dynasty,

free inquiry and criticism in the open society of

Grabados. Marble ornaments

the West. Conversely, Gombrich’s subsequent

above glazed tiles from the

put-downs of abstract art present its excesses as

Alhambra, Granada, 1338–1390

being, at best, whims of trendy fashion, and, at worst, tainted with the most dangerous policies of totalitarian thought. I admire so much about Art and Illusion. Rather than critique the flaws that have become evident in Gombrich’s arguments over time, I want to wonder with you whether there can ever be an argument for abstract art that is as good, as generous, as ambitious, and as challenging as Gombrich’s argument for its opposite. Because as Sir Ernst rightly saw, all the many claims about timeless universal forms and historical

2 8  PICTURES OF NOTHING

­propounded by both Fascism and Soviet Com-

destinies that have been used to explain mod-

munism. Thus, to put it far more crudely than

ern abstraction are, however sincere or sophisti-

Professor Gombrich, the implicit message of

cated, intellectually bankrupt. There are not any

Art and Illusion is two-fold. On one hand, Gom-

“hard” reasons why abstract art has to be. Nor

brich argues that the construction of illusion-

any teleology that explains why it developed as

ist naturalism is directly consonant with the

it did. And it is useless to keep looking for those

neurological hard-wiring of human nature. On

kinds of justifications.

the other, he suggests the progressive way illu-

This does not invalidate abstract art. The fa-

sionism developed also makes it the appropri-

miliar arguments that abstraction is just a big

ate “house style” of the best liberal traditions of

hoax, a colossal version of the “emperor’s new

clothes,” perpetrated on a duped public by cyni-

necessitates revising and expanding Gombrich’s

cal art mandarins, seem like tiresome whistling

idea of making, by which he meant the invention

in the dark. Abstract art has been with us in one

of forms and schemas, the mind’s primal work

form or another for almost a century now, and

in building knowledge. Especially in the last fif-

has proved to be not only a long-standing crux

ty years, a lot of abstract art has demonstrated

of cultural debate, but a self-renewing, vital

that our intelligence innovates not by making

tradition of creativity. We know that it works,

things up out of whole cloth or by discovering

even if we’re still not sure why that’s so, or ex-

new things about nature, but by operating with

actly what to make of that fact. To borrow the

and upon the repertoire of the already known:

phrase of the apocryphal contemporary aca-

by adapting, recycling, isolating, recontextual-

demic, “Okay, so it works in practice. But does

izing, repositioning, and recombining inher-

it work in theory?” What is still needed, what

ited, available conventions in order to propose

seems well overdue, is to make the case for a

new entities as the bearers of new thought. In

logic of abstract art, as Art and Illusion made

the case of art, these conventions are dumb,

the case for illusionism, that would describe it

man-made forms like cubes, stripes, and other

(with respectful opposition to Gombrich’s own

architectural configurations. With illusionism,

dismissals) both as a legitimate reflection of the

the argument could be made that art progressed

way we think individually and as a valid and

by a series of corrections, made according to the

valuable aspect of liberal society.

unchanging standard of nature and perceptual

This is, of course, a tall order, not least be-

mechanics. But there obviously is not any stan-

cause at the start of the twenty-first century we

dard of measurement or external resemblance

have very different ideas about how our minds

by which we could correct abstractions such as

work and how a just society functions. Look-

LeWitt’s or Flavin’s, or establish their relative

ing at early minimalist works by artists such as

success or failure. So we have to expand our

Sol LeWitt and Dan Flavin (figs. 1.32, 1.33)

sense of the drives wired into human cognition,

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   2 9

1.32 Sol LeWitt, Untitled Cube (6), 1968. Painted metal, overall: 38.7 × 114.9 × 114.9 cm. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, gift of Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation, Inc. 1.33 Dan Flavin, “monument” for V. Tatlin, 1964. Flourescent lights and metal fixtures, 243.8 × 71.4 × 11.4 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of UBS

3 0  PICTURES OF NOTHING

recognizing that we are set up not just to make

resemble any number of things, but look like

­connections and find resemblances, but also to

nothing in particular. This situation is ­lovingly

1.34

project ­meanings onto experience.

summed up in another cartoon (fig. 1.35) that is,

Joseph Jastrow, Rabbit or Duck? 1899

In Art and Illusion Gombrich discussed the

in effect, the modern inversion of Gombrich’s

classic drawing that looks like both a duck and

cartoon of Egyptian boys drawing from a

1.35

a rabbit (fig. 1.34). We can see either the duck

­model.

Charles Martin, Little Girl



Dancing in Front of Class.

with its beak to the left, or the rabbit with its

Where Gombrich remains useful, here, is in

ears to the left, but we cannot see both at the

reminding us that abstraction, even more than

same time, so we have to decide to see it as one

illusion, can never reside solely in the inten-

herself (#36784). © The New

animal or the other. Gombrich uses the drawing

tion of the artist, but must also be in the eye of

Yorker Collection 1961 Charles

to illustrate the way that our visual perception

the beholder. Artist x may think he’s making

All children picture her differently than she pictures

E. Martin from cartoonbank. com. All rights reserved

involves what he calls “the viewer’s share,” that is, the active imposition of an interpretation on incoming experience. The point made by the duck-rabbit drawing can be broadened into a suppler and more inclusive notion of cognition as a process of finding meaning in the world. Gombrich’s model reminds us that works of art are vessels of human intention. The problem is that he judges artistic schemas exclusively by how well they transcribe reality. This is a useful yardstick for discussing representational art, but it is not much help in talking about artists whose goal is to have no reference. In abstract art, we face the problem of interpreting images that

 Here we see a little girl in kindergarten performing a dance. From the thought balloon above her head, we can tell that she is giving her impression of a flower. Unfortunately, it is not obvious to the other children in the class what the little dancer has in mind, as we can see from balloons above their heads. This is the problem with abstract art: we know that it means something, but we’re not sure what it is. By definition, the art does not give us enough information to decide.—PK

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   3 1

1.36 Donald Judd, Untitled, 1962. Cadmium red light oil and wax on Liquitex, 122 × 243.8 × 19.3 cm. Collection of the artist. Art © Donald Judd Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

3 2  PICTURES OF NOTHING

something that looks like nothing, but Viewer

weird works is known as the “Letter Box”

y may think the work is just the color of Aunt

(fig. 1.36), while the other is commonly referred

Emmy’s purse, or curves just like the bent blade

to as “The Bleachers” (fig. 1.37). Other early

of his favorite golf club, or involves the key

Judds got nicknamed “The Harp” and “The

­principles of 1911 Picasso. I could take the case

Lifeboat.”13

of Judd’s early minimal sculptures as somewhat

Almost as fast as artists can open blank

comic examples (figs. 1.36, 1.37). These early

slates, others hasten to inscribe something on

Judds are what he called “specific objects,” that

them, trivially at first, as in this case, but even-

is, things that do not seem to be either painting

tually with more serious freights of meaning.

or sculpture, that escape category, that are not

Hence the difficulty of enforcing the “abstract-

familiar, that cannot be pinned down as to what

ness” of abstraction. Pollock told an interviewer

they are.12 Judd intended these works to be en-

that when he poured his paintings, he was ever

tirely idiosyncratic, outside the common bounds

mindful to suppress unwanted imagery or any

of descriptive language. But in fact he himself,

apparent figuration that his lines might inad-

and his viewers and critics, immediately started

vertently suggest. “I try to stay away from any

to categorize these objects, and continued to

recognizable image; if it creeps in, I try to do

do so. In the literature on Judd, one of these

away with it.”14 Since then artists have worked

harder and harder to keep the crutch of resem-

then, because the overlays and ­ densities begin

blance permanently kicked out from under

to create a sense of space or depth that is no-

their viewers. They understand that abstraction

where cued by perspective but is suggested by

1.37

is most successful and effective when associa-

the blurring, cloudlike structure, we lose aware-

Donald Judd, Untitled, 1963–

tion and meaning appear to be out of reach. The

ness of the scale of the body as well. My wife,

absence of resemblance allows the work to

who is an artist, said of this picture that it’s so

and aluminum tube with purple

embrace a great range of intuitions barely

large and complex that it has its own weather.

lacquer, 122 × 210.8 × 122 cm.

imaginable before the work was done, and only

We sense that it has a kind of energy to it, a

marginally present in the artist’s conscious

pulse like that of a cosmic nebula. And we keep

© Donald Judd Foundation/

intention.

reaching for analogies—weather, night sky,

Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

1975. Plywood and pine beams with light-cadmium-red oil paint

National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, purchased 1975. Art

Take for example the huge painting—about four by six meters—done in 1970 by Twombly (fig. 1.38). Drawn with what looks like chalk but is actually an oil crayon on gray ground, it is one of his so-called blackboard series; this label is itself a kind of joke, like the descriptive titles people gave Judd’s work. In fact, it is not a blackboard, and this forces us to deal with what it is. But what is it? It is a kind of furious scribbling, a seemingly mindless repetition of the same hand-drawn gesture. But the gesture is repeated so often and on such a scale that it begins to vault into a different set of references. We lose sight of the arm or the wrist, and begin instead to be aware of the scale of the whole body. And

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   3 3

1.38 (opposite) Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1970. Oil-based house paint and crayon on canvas, 397.2 × 640.4 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest and

impulsiveness—for a vocabulary that in the

At the same time, this expanded, open-­ended

the Sidney and Harriet Janis

end describes nothing other than this ­ picture.

process of matching forms with meanings,

We grapple with the combination of things

by means of projection and cued invention,

the picture presents: with minute, intimate,

constantly turns abstractions into represen-

and grand scale; with flatness and depth; with

tations in a broadened sense, and defines the

huge energy and vast, dissolving serenity. And

nature of abstract art in our time. In early

we ­ continually wind around something that

modern art, abstraction was often promoted

never becomes any particular thing but itself,

(or scorned) as a final destination, an ultimate

that has all of the complexity and energy that

endpoint of art, the culmination of a progres-

only it has, and that did not exist before.

sive divorce from appearances, or the terminal

Collection (both by exchange)

3 4  PICTURES OF NOTHING

Gombrich showed that, in representation,

cancellat­ion of ­everything that art required. But

recognition and resemblance required interpre-

by now we have seen art declared “dead” too

tation. But abstractions such as Twombly’s show

many times, and we’re weary of going to fake

that interpretation does not demand recogni-

funerals. (My ­ colleague Robert Storr taught

tion or resemblance and may in fact profit from

a course in ­ abstract painting a few years ago

its absence. In cases like this, abstract art ab-

that he called “Dead but Won’t Lay Down.”)

sorbs projection and generates meaning ahead

In our model of history, there is not any

of naming, establishing the form of things

progress at all, in the sense of straight-line,

unknown, sui generis, in their peculiar com-

cumulative refinement toward a fixed goal.

plexities. This is one of abstraction’s singular

We have seen the end of the line become a

qualities, the form of enrichment and alteration

departure station frequently enough to under-

of experience denied to the fixed mimesis of

stand that even the seemingly purest abstrac-

known things. It reminds me of the joke about

tion that looks like a fat zero is in fact often

the person who invented the cure for which

an egg waiting to hatch. Not the ­ period at

there was no known disease.

the end of the story, but an ellipsis . . . (to be

continued) within a looping and ­ branching

the abstract artist may colonize a new realm

system that ties together a wide range of ­visual

of feeling, as Twombly does, unique to his or

representation: loquacious, laconic, dumb,

her forms, and may also invent a new alphabet

and all stops in between. Within that system,

which a great many others—artists, designers,

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   3 5

1.39 Robert Morris, Untitled, 1965. Glass mirrors on wood, four boxes, each 53.3. × 53.3 × 53.3 cm. Destroyed

3 6  PICTURES OF NOTHING

filmmakers, and so on—can use to represent the

thing to do with his desire to produce a totally

world in very different ways.

neutral, industrial-looking form—something

For an example of how things get recycled,

that seemingly is not made by the human hand,

let’s look at the use of mirrors in minimalism

has no room for touch, is absolutely hard—and

and postmodernism. In 1965, Robert Morris

with his desire to force us to recognize the space

created a set of untitled mirrored cubes that were

around the object as part of the work of art.15

just that: cubes with mirrors fixed to the five vis-

Then, in 1968, when a new organicism appeared

ible sides (fig. 1.39). These may have had some-

in minimal or postminimal art (as I described

1.40 Robert Morris, Untitled, 1968. Felt, asphalt, mirrors, wood, copper tubing, steel cable, and lead, 54.6 × 668 × 510.5 cm, variable. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of Philip Johnson

earlier), Morris created a very different piece,

­using mirrors from Morris, but his use of them

using mirrors stuck into a pile of thread waste

was radically different. His combination of mir-

(fig. 1.40).

rors with natural materials had to do with a

In the same year, Robert Smithson made

science fiction idea of crystallography, with the

his Red Sandstone Corner Piece (fig. 1.41). This

notion of the inertness of mineral matter as a

is like an inside-out version of one of Morris’s

paradigm for the entropic universe and for the

mirrored cubes, with a pile of broken sandstone

way that life forms lose their energy; it had to

inside it. Smithson may have got the idea of

do with the idea that glass is made by grinding

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   3 7

1.41 Robert Smithson, Red Sandstone Corner Piece, 1968. Mirrors and sandstone from the Sandy Hook Quarry, New Jersey, (3) 121.92 cm mirrors. Art © Estate of Robert Smithson/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

3 8  PICTURES OF NOTHING

up sand, and that the two are different states of

In the 1970s the young artist Jeff Koons

the same thing. For Smithson there was a pseu-

comes along and puts an inflatable rabbit

do scientific rationale to using mirrors, but the

and flower on a mirror in the floor corner

mirrors themselves functioned as abstract ele-

­position—the same mirror arrangement that

ments in his work.

Smithson used, but with a completely different

1.42 Jeff Koons, Inflatable Flower and Bunny (Tall White, Pink Bunny), 1979. Plastic and mirrors, 81.3 × 30.5 × 31 cm. Collection of Stavros Merjos

effect. We are no longer in the world of entropy

­realization when Koons puts the mirror on the

and crystallography; we’re in the world of bou-

rabbit by recasting the rabbit in shiny stainless

tique design (fig. 1.42). The mirror suggests glitz

steel instead of plastic (fig. 1.43). This amazing

and glamour. This evolution reaches its final

object is often taken to be the ultimate symbol

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   3 9

1.43 Jeff Koons, Rabbit, 1986. Stainless steel, 104.1 × 48.3 × 30.5 cm. The Eli & Edith L. Broad Collection, Los Angeles

of ­Reagan era glitz, a critique of the commodification of society. So the inclusion of the mirror begins as a neutral, formal element in Morris, becomes a sci-fi image in Smithson, and finally provides Koons with a symbol for the hard sheen and glamour of American consumer culture. In this fashion, abstract art, while seeming insistently to reject and destroy representation, in fact steadily expands its possibilities. It adds new words and phrases to the language by colonizing the lead slugs and blank spaces in the type tray. Seeming nihilism becomes productive, or, to put it another way, one tradition’s killer virus becomes another tradition’s seed. Stressing abstract art’s position within an evolving social system of knowledge directly belies the old notion that abstraction is what we call an Adamic language, a bedrock form of expression at a timeless point prior to the accretion of conventions. If anything, the development of abstraction in the last fifty years suggests something more Alexandrian than Adamic, that is, a tradition of invention and interpretation that has become exceptionally refined and intricate, encompassing a mind-boggling range of drips,

4 0  PICTURES OF NOTHING

stains, blobs, blocks, bricks, and blank canvases.

that requires an M.A. in art history and a sub-

The woven web of abstraction is now so dense

scription to Artforum to understand what goes

that, for its adepts, it can snare and cradle van-

on in the Chelsea galleries. Dealing with recent

ishingly subtle, evanescent, and slender forms

abstraction is neither like falling off a log nor

of life and meaning. The tradition of abstract

like solving differential equations. But the fact is

art has recently shown time and again that, for

that it does profit from some prior knowledge.

those who learn it, it can make something out of

Because contemporary abstract art operates

apparent nothing. All in all, this is a good thing.

within a long tradition, it helps to be aware of

Like Gombrich’s illusionism, abstract art is

the parameters and rules of that tradition.

a construction that began in Western Europe

Understanding the tradition of abstract art

but that has proved useful for a broader world.

sharpens our experience of what we are see-

Early modern society created—and we have in-

ing. The idea that you need to learn about ab-

herited—that paradoxical thing: a tradition of

stract art to enjoy it strikes some primal nerve,

radical innovation. Abstraction is a remarkable

arousing our anxiety about authentic versus

system of productive reductions and destruc-

fake experience. It offends the know-nothings,

tions that expands our potential for expression

who fall back on: “I don’t know art, but I know

and communication.

what I like.” But this cliché flies in the face of

Just the same, this is a risky business. Abstract

our common sense awareness, reinforced a

art is a learned language, and not always easy

thousand times in our life, that some of the

to understand. I do not mean there is nothing

most deep-seated pleasures of our natural

to be had from an unprepared, naïve encoun-

selves—from sex and food on up to music—

ter with Flavin’s “monument” for V. Tatlin (see

involve appetites that had to be educated. If

fig. 1.33), or with a blank, waxy monochrome

these pleasures are rooted in crude instinct,

canvas by Brice Marden (fig. 1.44). Nor do I

they nonetheless grow in depth and power as

mean to endorse the sense of cultish elitism

we acquire hierarchies of discrimination, until

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   4 1

1.44 Brice Marden, Grove Group, I, 1973. Oil and wax on canvas, 182.9 × 274.6 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Treadwell Corporation Fund

4 2   P I C T U R E S O F N OT H I N G

second nature is nowhere separable from the

ness, dancing on the knife edge of nonsense and

first. Yet visual art—and ­abstract art most par-

beckoning us to come along.

ticularly—remains one of the last bastions of

Why put up with it? Because we want what

unashamed, unrepentant ignorance, where edu-

only this risk has been able to give us. Of course,

cated experience can still be equated with phony

what we want from many of the forms of our

experience. In regard to abstract art, this syn-

culture is comfort and continuity, a sense of con-

drome becomes ever more acute as the tradition

nection to enduring traditions, a respite from

gets fatter and the works get leaner. What we see

the relentless clocks that drive our individual

gets simpler, and what we can bring to it gets

lives. But, in modern society, we also live with

more complex. So we are constantly worried

a sharply ambivalent, painfully keen awareness

that we are being played for fools by works like

that our lives are irremediably different from

Flavin’s sculpture or Marden’s painting. What

those of the past. We rise each day to a particu-

makes the anxiety even worse is the fact that

lar mix of sharpened pleasures and deepened

this is an art that, by its very nature, willfully

anxieties that quickens our sense of separation

and knowingly flirts with absurdity and empti-

from other days—a century ago, a decade ago,

two years ago. This arouses in many of us a hun-

that abstract art, which was initially advanced

ger for a culture that affirms this sensation, by

by its advocates as a culture of crypto-religious,

giving us new forms that give shape to our feel-

timeless certainties, associated closely with the

ings, our moment in history—as distinct from

new monolithic collectivism in society, should

the feelings of our forebears, even of our youth.

have been reinvented and flourished the last fif-

We torment (and flatter) ourselves with the be-

ty years as a paradigmatic example of secular di-

lief that it has not all been said, that life as we

versity, individual initiative, and private vision.

live it is more complex than has until now been

It is a prime case of modern Western society’s

articulated. And in order to allow room for the

willingness to vest the fate of its communal cul-

new cultural forms we feel might be adequate

ture in the play of independent subjectivities,

to this vivifying hubris and doubt, we are will-

and to accept the permanent uncertainties, plu-

ing to accept the destruction of past cherished

ralities, and never-ending, irresolvable debate

norms, to endure large measures of disorienta-

that come with that territory.

tion in the present, and to sift through a great deal of dreck.

But if we are going to spend time trying to worry out a philosophy of abstract art, we

Abstract art is propelled by this hope and

should also remember that the prime contribu-

hunger. It reflects the urge to push toward the

tion of America to philosophy is perhaps prag-

limit, to colonize the borderland around the

matism. And the pragmatist’s question is basic:

opening onto nothingness, where the land has

“Does it work? What do we get out of it?” What

not been settled, where the new can emerge. That

I am going to try to deliver in the next five lec-

is part of what drives modernity: the urge to re-

tures is a partial answer to that uncertainty, a

generate ourselves by bathing in the extreme,

selective sketch of what we have learned from

for better and for worse. What is remarkable is

abstraction these past fifty years.

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   4 3

N ot e s

1. William Hazlitt, Complete Works. Centenary Edition, ed. P. P. Howe (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1930–35), 18:95. We here allude particularly to Turner, the ablest landscape-painter now living, whose pictures are however too much abstractions of aerial perspective, and representations not properly of the objects of nature as of the medium through which they were seen. . . . They are pictures of the elements of air, earth, and water. The artist delights to go back to the first chaos of the world, or to that state of things when the waters were separated from the dry land, and light from darkness, but as yet no living thing nor tree bearing fruit was seen upon the face of the earth. All is without form and void. Someone said of his landscapes that they were pictures of nothing, and very like. It should be noted that this was written in 1816, when Turner exhibited The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius. 2. Barnett Newman, “The Sublime Is Now,” 1948; reprinted in Clifford Ross, ed. Abstract ­Expressionism: Creators and Critics, an Anthology (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990), 127: “We are creating images whose reality is self-evident and which are ­devoid of the props and crutches that evoke ­associations with outmoded images, both sublime and beautiful. We are freeing ourselves of the impediments of memory, association, nostalgia, legend, myth, or what have you, that have been the devices of Western European

4 4  PICTURES OF NOTHING

painting. Instead of making cathedrals out of Christ, man, or ‘life,’ we are making it out of ourselves, out of our own feelings.” 3. Greenberg gave the clearest—and perhaps oversimplified—summary of his theory of the evolution of modern art in his 1960 lecture, ­“Modernist Painting,” reprinted in John O’Brian, ed., ­ Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism: ­Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957–1969 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), where he writes that “the stressing of the ineluctable flatness of the surface” was “fundamental” to modernism; to achieve this flatness, modernist painting had “to exclude the representational or literary” (pp. 87–88). Abstraction was, in other words, a kind of by-product of the stress on flatness. Pollock is not mentioned in “Modernist Painting,” and Greenberg’s early writings on Pollock (those that helped make Pollock’s reputation in the late 1940s) did not present him as an abstract painter. It was only in the later 1950s, looking back, that Greenberg discussed this aspect of Pollock’s work, writing that, “By means of his interlaced trickles and spatters, Pollock created an oscillation between an emphatic surface . . . and an illusion of indeterminate but somehow definitely shallow depth . . . it was only at this . . . point in his own stylistic evolution that Pollock himself became consistently and utterly ­abstract” ­(“American ­Painting,” revised version of 1958, ­ published in Greenberg, Art and Culture ­[Boston: Beacon Press, 1961], 218–219). 4. Statement by Robert Rauschenberg in Dorothy Miller, ed., Sixteen Americans, exh. cat. (New York: The

Museum of Modern Art, 1959), 58: “Painting ­relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. (I try to act in that gap between the two.)” 5. Stella said that, “I tried for something which, if it is like Pollock, is a kind of negative Pollockism. . . . I tried for an evenness, a kind of all-overness, where the intensity, saturation, and density remained regular over the entire surface.” Cited in William S. Rubin, Frank Stella (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1970), 29. 6. Both artists were included, for instance, in the seminal exhibition Primary Structures, ­ curated by ­Kynaston McShine for the Jewish Museum in 1966. 7. See Max Kozloff, “American Painting during the Cold War,” Artforum 11:9 (May 1973), 43–54; Eva Cockcroft, “Abstract Expressionism: Weapon of the Cold War,” Artforum 12:10 (June 1974), 39–41; and Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of ­Modern Art: Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983); see also the critique of these views by Michael ­Kimmelman, “Revisiting the Revisionists: The ­Modern, Its Critics, and the Cold War,” in The Museum of Modern Art at Mid-Century: At Home and Abroad; Studies in Modern Art 4 (New York: The ­Museum of Modern Art, 1994), 38–55. 8. Anna C. Chave, “Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power,” Arts (January 1990), 44–63. 9. Peter Halley, Collected Essays, 1981–87 (Zurich: Bruno Bischofberger Gallery, 1988); see, in particular, “Nature and Culture,” “The Crisis in Geometry,” and “The Deployment of the Geometric.”

10. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 2nd ed. (New York: Vintage Press, 1995). 11. Ernst Gombrich, Art and Illusion, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 33. 12. Donald Judd, “Specific Objects,” Arts Yearbook 8 (1965), 74–82; reprinted in Donald Judd, ­Complete Writings, 1959–1975 (Halifax: Press of the Nova ­Scotia College of Art and Design; and New York: New York University Press, 1975), 181–189. 13. For the “Letter Box,” see James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), caption to fig. 34; for the “Bleachers,” see the caption to fig. 40; for “Harp,” see the caption to fig. 45. The piece known as the “Lifeboat” is reproduced in James Meyer, ed., Minimalism (London: Phaidon, 2000), 85. 14. Pollock’s remarks were captured in Dorothy Seiberling’s notes for her profile of Pollock in the ­August 8, 1949, issue of Life magazine. Seiberling’s unpublished notes are cited in Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, Jackson Pollock: An American Saga (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1989), 591. 15. In “Notes on Sculpture, Part 2,” originally published in Artforum (October 1966), and reprinted in Gregory Battcock, ed., Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968), 232, Morris writes that: “The better new work takes relationships out of the work and makes them a function of space, light, and the viewer’s field of vision.”

W HY A BSTR A CT A RT ?   4 5

2

s u rv i va l s a n d f r e s h s ta rt s

I was asked by a friend after last week’s lecture

forms from visual experience and those who

why I had settled on the term “abstraction”

claimed that they were creating pure forms not

­instead of “nonfigurative” or “nonrepresenta-

derived from vision or nature. Other artists have

tional,” which he preferred. “Abstraction,” after

proposed the term “concrete art” to represent

all, comes from the Latin abstractus, a word

something that is not abstract or drawn out of

meaning to pull or draw away from. It tends to

experience. I always thought this sounded too

suggest that abstraction is somehow a derivative

much like cement, so I am staying with “abstrac-

or second-order kind of art, drawing away from

tion.” I purposely use it because I think everyone

something the artist has actually seen.

understands what I mean by it, and because I

In fact, this distinction between reductive

would rather say something more productive and

and productive ideas of abstraction has been a

positive about the nature of abstraction than that

­bugbear in the history of art. When the French

it is “not something else.” I also dislike the oppo-

abstract artists of the 1930s tried to form a group,

sition between abstraction and creation because

they got caught up in a huge debate about what

it seems to me to pose a false dichotomy between

to call their movement: they could only agree

what the eye does and what the mind does.

on a hyphenated term, “abstraction-­création,”

As I pointed out in the last lecture, talk-

­distinguishing between those who were ­distilling

ing about Gombrich’s Art and Illusion, there is

4 8   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

no seeing without some schema in mind, and

Second, the belief that abstract expressionism

­certainly there are very few thoughts in the

was killed off around 1960 by the young turks

mind that do not, in some sense, depend on

of pop and minimal art, whose inventions were

­experience. You cannot draw a circle around the

simply a reaction to the exhaustion and deple-

mind and say that everything inside the circle

tion of abstract expressionism. On the one hand,

is pure creation and everything outside is mere

we have the conspiracy theory of a CIA plot; on

observation. I prefer to roll with the circle: to

the other, we have the catastrophe theory about

insist on the constant cycling between represen-

the collapse of abstract expressionism and its

tation and abstraction, between drawing forms

replacement by minimalism. It seems to me that

out of the world and adding new forms to it.

each of these theories oversimplifies history and

This is true neurologically, in the way that we

falsifies some very basic issues.

perceive and interact with the world, and it is

Let us look first at the CIA plot. In 1958,

also true socially, in terms of abstraction’s his-

the International Program of the Museum of

tory: there has been a constant cycling between

­Modern Art sent abroad an exhibition called

seeing and inventing, representing and abstract-

The New American Painting, which was seen in

ing. This pertains especially to the use of already

London, Paris, Milan, and five other ­European

extant man-made forms such as those we will be

cities (fig. 2.1).1 Along with other traveling exhi-

examining here.

bitions mounted by MoMA—so the argument

Today’s lecture is largely about the 1950s,

goes—this exhibition was a stalking horse for a

and before we look at any work, I want to begin

governmental or at least an ­establishment ­vision

with two pieces of received wisdom about the

of America and American freedoms. ­Supposedly

1950s and 1960s. First, the belief that abstract

the government, together with various corpo-

expressionism like Pollock’s succeeded because

rate interests (such as those of the Rockefellers),

of a CIA plot, that its triumph was engineered

used the Museum of Modern Art as a cover for

by malevolent and manipulative forces who ex-

exhibitions that were tools in a battle for the

ported it as propaganda for the United States.

hearts and minds of the ­European intelligentsia.

2.1 Cover of The New American Painting: As Shown in Eight European Countries 1958–1959 (exh. cat., New York: The

were extremely interested in waging a cultural

­Museum of Modern Art, 1959)

battle during the Cold War. Major magazines thought to be liberal and independent, like Encounters, were in fact funded by the CIA.3 The same was true on the Left as well: it was not just a right-wing paranoid fantasy that the peace movement in Europe in the 1950s was substantially funded by Moscow. There was plenty of cultural propaganda on both sides. I just don’t think the idea of cultural propaganda applies to The New American Painting or to the Museum of Modern Art. That is, they were Cold War weapons aimed

Perhaps it is because I worked at MoMA for

against the Soviet Union to demonstrate the

almost twenty years that I have a hard time see-

greater freedoms and possibilities of the Ameri-

ing the museum as an efficient tool of any par-

can way. The exhibitions were a way for Ameri-

ticular interest. My friend Adam Gopnik used

cans to show the Europeans that America was

to say that, from the outside, the Roman Empire

not all Coca-Cola and bubble gum but in fact

looked like all aqueducts and legionnaires; but

had a culture worthy of respect. In short, the ex-

from the inside, it looked like rats in the sew-

hibitions were designed to win the intellectual

ers. But even an objective outsider, looking at

leadership of Europe over to the American side

the conspiracy theories about abstract expres-

in the Cold War.

sionism, would notice that they involve a lot of

2

Now there is perhaps more than a grain of

guilt by association and examples of six degrees

truth to this argument. It is well documented

of separation: the protagonists at MoMA are

that many government agencies, such as the

tools of the establishment because someone’s

CIA and the USIA (U.S. Information Agency),

brother’s cousin worked for the Rockefellers, or

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   4 9

2.2

because they were in the OSS (Office of Stra-

the cancellation, for instance, of the ­exhibition

Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm

tegic Services) during World War II, etcetera,

Advancing American Art organized by the State

­etcetera. And the argument, it seems to me, loses

Department in 1946.) I think that no two peo-

a lot of ground just on its particulars.

ple were in more agreement about their dislike

(Number 30), 1950. Enamel on canvas, 266.7 × 525.8 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, George A. Hearn Fund, 1957

5 0   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

First of all, it would certainly be ironic,

for abstract art than Stalin and President Harry

though not implausible, that America would

Truman, for example. Both of them disliked it

be exporting as a tool against Communism the

a lot.4 It is also ironic that critics discuss these

very art that at the time was being denounced as

shows as if they were imposed on Europe as an

Communistic in the House of Representatives.

act of brutal American imperialism, when in fact

(There was in the late 1940s and early 1950s a

the Europeans strongly beseeched the adminis-

major campaign against modern art, spear-

trators and curators at the Museum of Modern

headed in Congress by Representative George A.

Art to send the shows; that is why the shows

Dondero of Michigan and echoed by politicians

were mounted. The French critics were the ones

and newspapers across the country; this led to

who read abstract expressionism as being echt

American. They were the ones who insisted on

Clement Greenberg and his followers, the ­logical

2.3

Pollock, for example, as a lariat-swinging son of

consequence of Pollock culturally, in the line

Morris Louis, Tet, 1958. Synthetic

Wyoming, whereas at home Clement Greenberg

that started with Picasso and Braque and ana-

and later William Rubin were insisting on Pol-

lytic cubism, would be a more ethereal, still form

Art, New York, purchase, with

lock’s links to Picasso and Braque and analytic

of abstraction, that is, something more ­allover,

funds from the Friends of the

cubism of 1911 and 1912.5

even less dependent on line and ­traditional space,

But the big problem with the idea of these

such as the gorgeous stain paintings of Morris

exhibitions as tools of Cold War propaganda

Louis (fig. 2.3). In ­Greenberg’s view this would

is that one simply cannot control the outcome

be the logical progression of where an artist

of abstract art such as Pollock’s (fig. 2.2). For

should go having been ­ stimulated by ­ Pollock’s

polymer on canvas, 241.3 × 388.6 cm. Whitney Museum of American

Whitney Museum of American Art

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   5 1

example.6 But for many European ­ artists, ­Pollock’s example led in a completely different direction. Even before they saw ­Pollock’s paintings, they had seen Hans Namuth’s photographs of Pollock at work (fig. 2.4). These photographs inspired for them a very different idea of what the next logical step in modern art might be. For example, in 1960 the French artist Yves Klein staged a performance piece, Anthropométries (fig. 2.5), that clearly relates to Pollock’s idea of painting on a canvas laid on the floor. The difference is that, instead of dripping paint from a stick, Klein hires models, covers them with blue paint, and has them dragged across the canvas, while an orchestra plays in the background in front of a suited audience. Considering the complexity of translating Pollock into French, one might say in response, “Vive la traduction” (Long live translation). The photograph could be the frontispiece for an essay on the Frenchness of French art. But I’m not at all sure what it did to change Jean-Paul Sartre’s ideas about Coca-Cola as a symbol of U.S. imperialism. More seriously, however, once abstract expressionism was let loose on the world, it ­became

5 2   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

2.4 (opposite) Hans Namuth, Jackson ­Pollock, 1950. Gelatin silver print, 37.8 × 30.5 cm. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian ­Institution, Washington, gift of

the preferred style of artists and ­ intellectuals

the Estate of Hans Namuth

who dissented against dictatorial governments supported by the United States in Europe, and in

2.5 Yves Klein, Anthropométries

Latin America and the Caribbean as well.7 Thus,

(performances), 1960. “Anthropo-

if the U.S. officials were trying to use abstract

métries de l’époque bleue,” Galerie

expressionism as propaganda, they had picked up a loaded gun, and they were just as likely

Internationale d’art contemporain, Paris, March 9, 1960

to shoot themselves in the foot as to discredit

2.6

Communism. Abstract expressionism just does

Cecil Beaton, “The New Soft

not work that well as agitprop. The [art historical] Left, it seems to me, has

Look,” March 1, 1951, page 158, Cecil Beaton / Vogue, © 1951 Condé Nast Publications Inc.

a contradictory view of abstract expressionism. On the one hand, it is seen as such a powerful carrier of American values that it gets a headlock on its viewers, brainwashing them. Or it is no more than a decorative necktie, something that can be easily trivialized and turned into a fashion accessory, so that Cecil Beaton, in 1951, could use Autumn Rhythm as the backdrop for a Vogue feature on “The New Soft Look” (fig. 2.6).8 The Left is unsure whether abstract expressionism is an opiate or a cocktail, a sinister Trojan horse for American values or a pathetic running dog of American capitalism. Either way, the ­ assumption is that abstraction—and

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   5 3

5 4   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

­abstract ­ expressionism in particular—is too

not have been shown or even reproduced in

easy to ­manipulate, its meaning is too unclear,

Moscow in 1950. Pollock’s painting does not,

and it is too usable by the bad guys.

of course, excuse lynchings in the South or bad

From a leftist point of view, Autumn Rhythm

wages in Detroit or poverty in Appalachia at

functions as an oversized allegory: the enor-

that time, any more than the peace movement

mous scale of the painting stands for the vast

in Poland excuses the Gulag. As for the read-

space of the North American continent, while

ing of minimalism as a coded representation of

the freedom of Pollock’s gestures stands for the

power, it seems to me that minimalism is just

freedom of the individual. Such paintings could

plain odder than that. Judd’s metal works were

be promoted and hyped as seductive symbols

not mass-produced but fabricated at a kind of

for America and for capitalism. But if abstract

mom-and-pop metal shop, Bernstein Brothers

expressionism promoted a fake Americanism,

in Long Island City, using galvanized iron, stain-

the Left sees a true Americanism embedded

less steel, aluminum, brass, colored Plexiglas,

in minimalism, with its repetitious structures,

and the kind of translucent enamel paints used

its hard-edge geometry, its dependence on

to customize Harley-Davidsons. The results

large scale, its regularity, and its cold efficiency­

are not overpowering or impersonal; in fact

(fig. 2.7). From this perspective, minimalism is

they are often kind of fussy, slick, and decora-

seen as a technocratic or corporate kind of art,

tive. There is something small-time and pecu-

an art covertly about the side of American life

liar about the fabrication of a lot of minimalist

that is all about power and production.9

works that suggests not industrial mass pro-

Thinking locally, one could easily argue this

duction, but old-fashioned craftsmanship. In

fake versus real Americanism another way. It is

this sense, minimalism seems to express a nos-

a contingent but meaningful fact that a paint-

talgia for small-product America, for chopper

ing such as Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm of 1950,

shops and body shops or businesses that make

with its allegorical expression of freedom, could

metal door frames or install aluminum siding.

2.7 Donald Judd, To Susan ­Buckwalter, 1964. Galvanized iron and blue lacquer on aluminum, 76.2 × 358.2 × 76.2 cm. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, gift of Frank Stella (PA 1954)

This ­ minimalist nostalgia might dovetail, for

Brothers bears the same relationship to Ray- ­

example, with the nostalgia in Lichtenstein’s

theon that True Romance comics bears to the

embrace of romance comics, or Warhol’s love

mass media. So looking closely at the ­question

for the faded glamour of Marilyn Monroe. The

of fabrication leads you to a very ­different view

leftist view of minimalism sees Judd’s sculptures

of minimalism.

as symbols for industrial defense contractors

Be that as it may, the question of the [art his-

like the Raytheon Corporation; but Bernstein ­

torical] Left’s reading of the fake and the true

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   5 5

5 6   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

Americanism in abstract expressionism and in

­intentions give rise to similar forms. We need to

minimalism begs a much larger question: Can

look ­ extremely closely at the particular things

abstract art have a fixed meaning? As I pointed

before us, ­because in art we do not make things

out earlier, abstract art makes bad agitprop, be-

any simpler by making simpler things. Reduc-

cause the only way to control its meaning is to

tion does not yield certainty, but something

control the people who view it. If viewers have

like its opposite, which is ambiguity and mul-

the right to make up their own minds about Pol-

tivalence. So rather than taking an extremely

lock, some are going to feel that his work is about

complicated and thorny situation and trying to

savage energy, others about lyricism; some will

make it ­simpler, I am trying to sow complexity

think it dances, others that it explodes; etcetera,

and confusion.

etcetera. And when the Left asks abstract art like

My test case for demonstrating the com-

Pollock’s to be more resistant to bad uses, when

plexity of simplicity is the hard-edge geomet-

it calls for greater rebellion and greater intransi-

ric art of the 1960s. I will take as my starting

gence on the part of the art, it seems to me that

point an exhibition called Art of the Real, an-

what is being called for is a monolithic social

other ­ Museum of Modern Art exhibition sent

solidarity that would limit the potential mean-

abroad, this one in 1968, ten years after The New

ings produced by the art.

American Painting. There is ostensibly a shared

As we have seen, the same abstract form can

aesthetic among all the objects in the show

give rise to very different meanings. That is the

(fig. 2.8); its thesis was that, after the weak-

reception end of it. Today I want to ­concentrate

ened, second-generation, Tenth-Street-gallery

on the inception of this art, that is, on the

abstract expressionism of the late 1950s, there

way that different meanings and ­ intentions

emerged in the early 1960s an art of a greater

can give rise to, or attach themselves to, very

certainty, a greater decisiveness, a greater clar-

similar forms. Similar forms give rise to dif-

ity, a greater sharpness. This art had nothing

ferent ­ meanings, and different meanings and

to do with angst or metaphysics or psychology.

2.8 Installation view of the exhibition Art of the Real. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 3 through September 8, 1968

It had no hidden cards; everything was on the

appears Lincoln-Log simple and gruff in a way

surface. It was a new, echt American art: brash,

that fits in with Andre’s reputation as a former

hard-nosed, and empirical. It was all about the

brakeman on the Pennsylvania Railroad in the

­immediacy of sensory apprehension, about

early 1960s. But this is a brakeman who went to

things that were real, that were hard, that you

­Phillips Academy Andover with Stella. Andre’s

could test out by kicking them.

piece may look simple, but it is involved in a

One of the works in the show was Cedar

broad and complicated reinvention of mod-

Piece by Carl Andre, which was originally con-

ern art, breaking with the tradition of con-

ceived in 1959 but then destroyed and rebuilt

structed sculpture that had dominated modern

for an exhibition in 1964. In a photograph of

art from Picasso through David Smith. Such

the 1959 ur-version, now lost (fig. 2.9), the piece

sculpture seemed to Andre to retain a residual

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   5 7

2.9 Carl Andre, Cedar Piece, 1959 (remade in 1964). Wood, 5.08 × 10.16 cm fir (1959), 10.16 × 10.16 cm cedar (1964), 74-unit stack, 10.2 × 10.2 × 92.1 cm each, 92.7 × 92.7 × 174.6 cm

­anthropomorphism, a kind of head-and-torso

overall. Kunstmuseum, Basel

structure. It also ­displayed a residual pictorial-

2.10

ism in the way it hung on a wall or was arranged

Constantin Brancusi, The

in a plane. Instead of looking back to that tra-

Endless Column in Tirgu

dition, Andre reached back to another point in

Jiu, c. 1938. ­Gelatin silver print. Musée ­National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

early modern art, to the art of Brancusi. What he admired about a work like Brancusi’s Endless Column in Tirgu Jiu (fig. 2.10) was that it seemed to eliminate the idea of the head and foot, because it was equal parts of each: turned upside down, it would look exactly the same. Andre also liked the way that the column avoided ­being pictorial: instead of having a pedestal or an implied frame, it sat directly on the floor, with no symbolic separation from us, but instead an immediate involvement in the present tense. Andre’s Cedar Piece, sitting directly on the floor, with its upside-down/right-side-up symmetry, its four identical sides, and its rough, hand-cut edges, had a lot of the same sculptural qualities as Brancusi’s work, in contrast to the cubist tradition of constructed sculpture.

*As a rule, constructed sculpture was meant to be seen from the front like a painting, not from all sides like sculpture.—PK

5 8   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

2.11 Aleksandr Rodchenko, Spatial Construction No. 18, 1921. Wood, 18.5 × 15.5 × 4 cm. Photographed by Aleksandr Rodchenko in 1924, entire series

This is just part of the broader remaking of

destroyed in 1920s and 1930s

the modern tradition that takes place ­ between 1955 and 1960. In the same years, we see a ­revival of Duchamp in the United States and in Britain, accompanied by a revival of Italian futurism, flowing directly into pop art of the 1960s. There is a revival of modern traditions outside the School of Paris, outside the PicassoMatisse mainstream; in the mid-1950s, these are used against both the School of Paris and the New York School deriving from Pollock and de Kooning.

two-by-fours. In doing so, Andre seems to be

Andre, in particular, is doing something

invoking Russian constructivist works such as

more complicated and tougher than just

Aleksandr Rodchenko’s Spatial Construction

­reviving Brancusi. Although he revives some

No. 18 of 1921 (fig. 2.11).

of Brancusi’s forms, he gets rid of the romance

Russian constructivism, like futurism and

of carving that was so important to Brancusi.

Duchamp, was being revived and thought about

The repeated units of the Endless Column look

in a new way in the late 1950s. The year 1958

the same, but they were all hewed by hand,

saw a major Malevich show in Amsterdam, for

and so are subtly different from one another.

example, and in 1962 the British art historian

In contrast, Andre’s Cedar Piece is assembled

Camilla Gray produced The Great Experiment,

from modular units. Instead of the custom-

the first widely available documentation of

made volumetric solids of the Brancusi—a

the early years of constructivist experiment in

­series of back-to-back pyramids—Andre works

­Russia, which had been so effectively suppressed

with ready-made materials like railroad ties or ­

by the Soviets since the 1930s.10 What Andre

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   5 9

2.12

and others learned from Gray was that Russian

So a constructivist like Rodchenko, at the same

Aleksandr Rodchenko, Pure Red,

constructivism was a two-pronged tradition.

time that he was exploring the basic elements

On the one hand, the constructivists wanted to

of painting, was also designing advertisements

Smooth Color, 1921. Oil on

analyze the primary elements of all experience:

(fig. 2.13).

­canvas, 62.5 × 52.7 cm

to go back to a modular two-by-four art, to

Art, as such, was less interesting to the con-

strip away everything until only the fundamen-

structivists than was visual experience and its

tal, elemental basics of art remained. This led to

productiveness in a new society. Their grand

works like Rodchenko’s painting Pure Red, Pure

project was to remake art and society from stem

Yellow, and Pure Blue Colors, which ­consists of

to stern and top to bottom. After ­flourishing in

nothing more than three panels—one red, one

Russia for around a decade, ­constructivism was

yellow, one blue—placed in a row (fig. 2.12).

then suppressed in the climate of the 1930s, when

­Simultaneously, the constructivists strove to

the Soviet government demanded a more under-

make art useful, a tool of mass persuasion.

standable kind of art that could get its message

They wanted to remake everything from ­towers

across to the people—in other words, socialist

to teacups, and especially the means of mass

realism. Meanwhile, however, the ­double tradi-

­communication [billboards, public ­address sys-

tion of elemental analysis and ­public outreach

tems, reading rooms, newspaper kiosks, etc.].

worked its way into ­ European and American

Pure Yellow, and Pure Blue Colors (from the triptych The

each. Museum of Private Collections, Moscow

6 0   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

2.13 Aleksandr Rodchenko, advertisement for cigarettes, 1924. Gouache on photographic paper, 13.4 × 32 cm. Rodchenko Archive, Moscow

culture via the German ­Bauhaus. The elemental

that both ­ paintings are organized around

strain found expression in ­ pedagogical works

­concentric squares. If a graduate student pro-

such as Josef Albers’ ­ Homage to the Square

posed the ­Albers as a “source” for the Stella, the

­series (fig. 2.14); the interest in communication

professor would probably sneer at the student’s

led to a revolution in the look of advertisements

naiveté.*

and posters, such as those designed by Herbert

Let’s go back and look closely at another

Bayer (fig. 2.15). By the 1930s and 1940s, the

descendant of Albers. Thousands of students

fiery ideology of Russian constructivism had

trained in good design and good advertising

been institutionalized, banalized, and commer-

at the Chicago Bauhaus, or Black Mountain

cialized by the Bauhaus and its clones; instead

­College, or Yale under Albers must have been

of preaching revolution, artists were teaching

asked to study works such as Albers’ lithograph

­geometric abstraction as a model for “good ­design” in advertising and publishing. Stella’s 1962 Gran Cairo (fig. 2.16) looks a lot like one of Albers’ homages. But in real life, Stella’s 217-centimeter square is powerful and aggressive merely in its dimensions—as big as

*When American artists like Stella started making hard-edge geometric abstractions in the late 1950s and 1960s, they were excited to discover the revolutionary roots of abstraction, but the last thing they wanted was to be associated with the seemingly exhausted tradition of “good design.” When you look at the Stella and the Albers in reproduction, the difference between the two is not so obvious; the crucial differences are in the details that get lost in reproduction.—PK

a man—and its colors are as jazzy and bold as the colors in the paintings of the contemporary pop artists. It is very 1960s. The Albers is a lot smaller—just 46 centimeters high—and its ­ colors are more harmonious and demure. It seems staid and didactic, the residue of an old system. The differences between the paintings seem a lot more important than the fact

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   6 1

2.14 Josef Albers, Homage to the Square in Wide Light, 1953. Oil on masonite, 46 × 46 cm. The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut

6 2   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

2.15 Herbert Bayer, Architecture Slide Lecture, Professor Hans Poelzig (Architektur Lichtbilder Vortrag Professor Hans Poelzig), 1926. Letterpress, printed in color, 48.6 × 65.1 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of Philip Johnson

of 1942, To Monte Alban (fig. 2.17). It is an

world into the world of art. Morellet’s Paint-

­image that exploits repetition, conundrums of

ing of 1953 (fig. 2.18) clearly anticipates Stella’s

­recession and projection, and qualities of line,

1959 canvas, The Marriage of Reason and ­Squalor

such as the contrast between thick and thin—

(see fig. 1.9), but there is a huge and important

all basic elements of design. Yet certain artists

physical difference between these works. The

trained in this tradition of diluted or so-called

­Morellet is 60 centimeters on the long side; the

diaspora constructivism tried to bring it back

Stella is over 2.3 meters on the short side. The

into the realm of painting. The French artist

Morellet feels like a small demonstration piece,

François Morellet was one of them. He worked

while the Stella is a big physical object, with a

as an industrial engineer or designer for most of

stretcher as thick as your fist. Stella takes the

his career but became interested in moving his

idea of parallel lines—the systematic ­repetition

sense of abstract design out of that ­ utilitarian

of stripes—and elevates it to something larger.

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   6 3

2.16 Frank Stella, Gran Cairo, 1962. Synthetic polymer on canvas, 217.2 × 217.2 cm. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art

2.17 Josef Albers, To Monte Alban, 1942. Zinc plate lithograph, 48.3 × 60.9 cm. The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut 2.18 François Morellet, Painting, 1953. Oil on canvas, 40 × 60 cm. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands

The difference in size corresponds to an impor-

a kind of socially productive anonymity that

tant conceptual difference.

would encourage social solidarity through

Morellet’s systematic approach is an echo—

its universally apprehensible forms. It is an

a ping!—of the constructivist tradition, an

­unromantic, antibohemian aesthetic ­ related to

­approach that revives the movement’s ideals of

the positivist belief in modern technology and

impersonality and objectivity. Morellet ­espouses

modern science as models for a better ­ society.

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   6 5

6 6   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

It reflects the situation of postwar France,

­compare the catalogue for Max Bill’s Fifty Years

and the need for a constructive art that would

of Concrete Art, a 1960 exhibition in Switzer-­

­regenerate European culture after the debacle of

land, to the catalogue for Eugene Goossen’s Art

World War II. In contrast, Stella’s ­impersonality

of the Real, seen at MoMA in 1968, you will find

is ­ likely a reaction against the sloppiness of

many artists whose work appears in both shows.

­second-­generation

expressionism.

Bill claims that he is showing the reflowering of

­Stella’s canvases have the scale and the same

a long constructivist tradition; Goossen claims

­immediate physicality, even the same house

that he is showing the birth of a new, hard-edge

paint you find in Pollock’s big paintings of 1950

American art style. The 1960s saw a collision

(see fig. 2.2). At the same time, they express the

between revivals and fresh takes, but these fresh

year they were done, 1959, in their black espres-­

starts often take the form of a leap back, over the

so-grind kind of darkness, which gives the sense

diluted version of the constructivist tradition to

that they are the last breath of the beat genera-­

its roots in Russian art of 1920 or 1917. So in the

tion. (It’s no accident that many of Stella’s titles

early 1960s, we find Donald Judd writing about

refer to bars and dives in New York.) So between

Malevich, Carl Andre going back to Rodchenko

Morellet and Stella you have two very different

(and Brancusi), Dan Flavin naming his neon

motivations for systematic composition. Morel-­

pieces for Vladimir Tatlin, and so on.

abstract

let gets there from commercial design and con-­

The place where it is easiest to see the confu-­

structivism. Stella gets there from Pollock and

sion between old and new ideas about systems

from the stripes in Jasper Johns’ flag paintings.

and impersonality is in the work of the sculptor

This collision between different traditions, it

Tony Smith. The minimalists embraced Smith’s

seems to me, made the art scene in the 1960s

large-scale geometric sculptures of the 1960s.

a world of confusion, a world in which over-­

And yet Smith was a close friend of Pollock’s

lapping claims are made on very similar art

in the heyday of abstract expressionism in the

forms to argue for very different points. If you

early 1950s, and the roots of his aesthetic are

2.19 Tony Smith, Untitled (Church), c. 1950. Ink on paper, 35.1 × 55.6 cm. Tony Smith Estate

beehive (fig. 2.20). He used an even more com-

2.20

plex, octahedral pattern for sculptures such as

Tony Smith, Bees Do It, 1970.

Smoke (fig. 2.21), designed for Scale as ­Content, a

Wood model, 34.3 × 38.7 × 27.9 cm. Tony Smith Estate

1967 exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery.11 Here, Smith looked completely at home next to younger geometers like Ronald Bladen, with his large X (fig. 2.22). Everyone saw their work as closely anchored in that group. Before his involvement

related, even though they belonged to different

with the abstract expressionist painters, Smith

generations. We are back then, as with Albers,

had trained in architecture, and architecture of

Stella, and Morellet, at a confusing crossroad,

a very particular kind. In his drawings of the

where the juxtaposition of work—because it is

1950s, such as his plan for a Catholic church

similar in form—leads to a ­ misunderstanding

(fig. 2.19), we see nested hexagons and a lat-

of intent. If you look at his origins, it is clear

tice structure reflecting his interest in organic

that Smith is coming from a different place than

form. Smith’s organicism connects in part

Bladen. Therefore, minimalism scholars—and

to the ­ Bauhaus, but more specifically to his

Smith scholars—often talk about him as an

training with Frank Lloyd Wright, who wanted to draw an ideal geometry out of the complexity of nature and use it to reform our lived environment. After 1960 Smith plucked this sense of organic geometry out of its architectural context and used it to make sculpture. One of his later, quasi-minimal sculptures, with the delightful title Bees Do It, looks literally like a section of a

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   6 7

2.21 Tony Smith, Smoke, 1967. Painted plywood mock-up, 61.0 × 121.9 × 86.4 cm. Installed at the Corcoran Gallery, ­Washington, DC, October 1967–January 1968, in the exhibition Scale as Content, subsequently destroyed

6 8   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

anomaly: it is a misunderstanding, they tell us,

and reinventing the past, on the one hand, and

to place Smith within minimalism. And yet, I

on the other of translating from architecture

wonder whether that is true, whether when you

and architectural concerns into painting and

look closely at this pattern of look-alikes that we

sculpture and art.

are building here, Smith doesn’t seem to be part

A more interesting and complex case than

of this larger picture in the 1960s of recouping

Smith’s is that of Ellsworth Kelly, the last

2.22 Ronald Bladen, The X (in the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s 1967 exhibition Scale as Content), 1967. Painted wood, later constructed in steel, 670.877 × 731.943 × 366.183 cm

­American artist of stature, certainly of his

boom years of abstract expressionism. Kelly was

­generation, to have depended crucially on train-

away from the United States in the late 1940s

ing in Paris as the foundation of his work. It had

and early 1950s, and only returned around 1953.

once been necessary for any American artist to

At the moment he came back, his work looked

go to Paris, but Kelly chose to go to Paris at what

pretty retardataire, or backward. But, come the

seems like exactly the wrong time, during the

1960s, it was embraced as a precursor of the

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   6 9

7 0   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

2.23 (opposite, left) Ellsworth Kelly, Window, Museum of Modern Art, Paris, 1949. Oil on wood and canvas, two joined panels, 128.3 × 49.5 × 1.9 cm. Collection of the artist

new hard-edge American art. Kelly’s work was

O’Keeffe, ­insisting that the new “art of the real”

featured in the Art of the Real exhibition, along

had to do with seeing, with ­empiricism—that is,

with Andre’s Pyramid. In fact, Kelly’s black-and-

with sensory apprehension rather than with any

white relief of 1949 (fig. 2.23) was placed on the

smarmy idealism or metaphysics. Rooting the

vas, 101.6 × 76.2 cm. The

opening wall of the exhibition, next to Georgia

new art in actual experience of the world was a

Museum of Modern Art, New

O’Keeffe’s 1929 painting, Lake George Window

way of accenting this difference. Together, Kelly

(fig. 2.24). Both objects are roughly the same size,

and Goossen repositioned Window in the world

which is not very big. The Kelly is a fragile lattice

of American empiricism.

of wood struts with a canvas behind it, rather

In the 1990s the connection between Kelly’s

like a kite. Goossen placed it next to O’Keeffe’s

painting and its source was revised yet again,

painting for a couple of reasons. For one thing,

this time in Duchampian terms. The claim was

he wanted to root the new hard-edge work of the

made that Kelly’s Window represents not merely

1960s in echt American art like O’Keeffe’s. The

a natural impression, but a radical act of mind

precisionist detailing of Lake George Window

and strategy akin to Duchamp’s subversion of

belongs to a vernacular current in American art

authorship, cutting out the idea of composing

going back to the Shakers, and the juxtaposition

or inventing and replacing it with acts of discov-

placed Kelly’s spare, geometric construction in

ery and appropriation as a means of making art.

the same tradition. The second reason was that

Whereas Goossen and Kelly in the 1960s push

both works represented windows. Originally,

against the ideal in the direction of seeing, in

Kelly’s black-and-white relief had been unti-

the 1990s the push is against the ideal in the di-

tled, but he now decided to rename it Window,

rection of thinking, toward a Duchampian sense

­Museum of Modern Art, Paris, taking pains to

of strategy and subversion. In the 1960s, then,

reveal to Goossen and others his exact source

Kelly is more like Judd; in the 1990s, he seems

for the image. In the catalogue, Goossen made a

more like Johns. The same two ideas are being

good deal of the connection between Kelly and

pushed back and forth.

2.24 (opposite, right) Georgia O’Keeffe, Lake George Window, 1929. Oil on can-

York, acquired through the Richard D. Brixley Bequest

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   7 1

2.25 Piet Mondrian, Composition No. II, 1930. Oil on canvas, 50.5 × 50.5 cm. Collection Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

At the risk of piling still more on this deli-

in a walkway there, but this real-world source

cate structure, is there not something missing in

does not disguise its uncanny similarity to the

this equation, some kind of middle road lead-

idealist geometry of Mondrian, van Doesburg,

ing back to the actual relief in black and white?

Georges Vantongerloo, and many other Dutch

After all, it is not just any window in Paris that

artists of the 1920s and 1930s.

Kelly has depicted. Anyone who has been to the

When Kelly was painting in Paris, ­Mondrian

­Palais de Tokyo or the Musée d’Art ­Moderne de

was a relatively unknown artist, but the built

la Ville de Paris, which is now housed in that

environment of the 1930s and 1940s, like the

building, knows that its architecture has a some-

building from which Kelly’s window was ­taken,

what ­Fascist feeling but also has strong echoes of

was suffused with the diluted principles of

modern design. It is right at home with a paint-

Mondrian’s painting. Kelly’s eye absorbed these

ing like Mondrian’s Composition No. II of 1930

principles in an unconscious way. The point

(fig. 2.25). Just as Mondrian drew inspiration

is not to point out a particular source, but to

from architecture, architects drew inspiration from Mondrian. The elongated proportions and the parsing of the tripartite division at the bottom of the museum window echo the formal ideas of artists like Mondrian. And then Kelly comes along and brings those ideas back into the world of painting. So we are again moving in a circle from high abstract art into the broad world of modern design and back again. ­Another Kelly, Neuilly, is identified solely by its locale, a suburb of Paris (fig. 2.26). Kelly later explains that its pattern was traced from paving stones

7 2   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

­recognize a world of forms. Kelly’s earliest

Josef Albers’ Interior of 1929, with its interest in

2.26

­training, before he entered the army and World

proportions, black-and-white reversal, and so

Ellsworth Kelly, Neuilly, 1950.

War II, was at Pratt Institute, where the curricu-

on (fig. 2.27). Presumably because of his design

lum had recently been redesigned in imitation

skills, Kelly served in a camouflage battalion. It

of the Chicago Bauhaus. At that point, Kelly

was only after the war that he moved to Boston,

aspired to be a commercial artist, so he took

where he attended the School of the Museum of

design classes that were based on exercises like

Fine Arts, and then to Paris, deciding to become

Gesso on cardboard mounted on wood, 58.4 × 79.7 × 3.8 cm. Collection of the artist

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   7 3

2.27 Josef Albers, Interior, 1929. Sandblasted opaque flashed glass, 24.8 × 20.7 cm. Josef Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut

Window is the result of neither a pure act of seeing, as ­Goossen would have it in Art of the Real, nor a pure act of thinking and appropriation, as in the Duchampian interpretation. The widespread diffusion and dilution of Mondrian’s art in modern architecture and design meant that both the thing seen and the way the artist saw it were already corrupted, already impure. Let me drill this home further with a slightly a “high” artist rather than a commercial de-

later example of Kelly’s work, La Combe I (fig.

signer. Thus one could argue that Window, Mu-

2.28), which is divided into sectional planes with

seum of Modern Art, Paris represents a marriage

a beautiful rhythmic structure. Like Neuilly, it is

­between the two sides of Kelly’s early life. It is, I

identified only by the place in France in which

think, a self-conscious statement about the pro-

it was made. Much later, Kelly revealed that the

motion of minor forms to major ­ status: their

painting was based on shadows falling on a set of

transformation from design back into art. (I

stairs (fig. 2.29). A quick comparison shows that

think, for example, of my friend Adam Gopnik’s

the painting was not a ­direct translation of the

argument about the process by which Picasso

photograph. There are, in fact, many ­versions of

took the deforming, aggressive, ­caricatural style

La Combe that reuse the staccato beat, the broken

of his sketchbooks and transferred it to the can-

forms, and the diagonals in different ways. When

vas of the Demoiselles d’Avignon, elevating an

Kelly looked down on those stairs, something—

­innate, already acquired language into the realm

perhaps his training at Pratt years before—gave

of art, where it was changed by its new con-

him the ability to apprehend the patterns and

text and in turn changed that context, radically transforming the language of modern art.12)

7 4   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

 According to the artist, the photograph was made after the painting, not before.

2.28 Ellsworth Kelly, La Combe I, 1950. Oil on canvas, 96.5 × 161.3 cm. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, gift of the American Contemporary Art Foundation, Inc., Leonard A. Lauder, President 2002.249

2.29 Elllsworth Kelly, Shadows on Stairs, Villa La Combe, Meschers, 1950. Silver gelatin print, 35.6 × 27.9 cm. Collection of the artist

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   7 5

2.30 Josef Albers, Steps, 1931. Gouache with pencil underdrawing on paper, 45.7 × 59.2 cm. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966 2.31 (opposite) Richard Paul Lohse, Geilinger & Co., New Year’s card for 1962, Frohe Fesstage und beste Wunsche zum Jahreswechsel. 21.5 × 21.2 cm (open). Collection of the Winterthur City Archive, Winterthur, Switzerland

7 6   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

counterchanges between light and dark, to see

the advertising of the time. For example, a 1962

the flat pattern in a three-­dimensional scene.

poster by Richard Paul Lohse takes a familiar

The composition is reminiscent—and again,

object and makes it unfamiliar by breaking it

this is not an argument for a source but a more

up with fields of overlay—a good constructivist

generic reference—of a 1931 design exercise by

principle that has been in play since the 1920s

Albers called Steps (fig. 2.30).

and 1930s (fig. 2.31). Lohse is an interesting

One could find dozens of similar examples,

­figure, almost forgotten in the United States, but

because this is the same vocabulary found in

important in the history of European abstrac-­

tion. Lohse was a concrete artist in Zurich, very close to Max Bill, and like Morellet, he made his living in commercial design and graphic work but aspired to be an artist. There is an obvious similarity between Kelly’s 1951 painting, Colors for a Large Wall, and Lohse’s 1950 conception, Complementary Groups Formed by Six Horizontal Systematic Color Series (see figs. 1.11 and 1.12). The difference is that Lohse’s work is just a conception: a small sketch for a large painting that he did not actually make until 1975 (fig. 2.32). In actuality, Kelly’s 2.4-meter-high painting has a completely different relationship to Lohse’s 1950 sketch than it does to the 1975 painting based on it. As with the paintings by Morellet and Stella that I discussed earlier (see figs. 2.18, 1.9), the difference in size leads to a dramatic difference in effect. Although Kelly was working on the same continent at the same time, he was coming from a completely different place. He was in contact with John Cage in New York, with Jean Arp in Paris, and with a residual Dada tradition. Just as Cage’s musical compositions incorporated random tones and intervals, the arrangement

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   7 7

of Kelly’s Colors for a Large Wall was based

new (and dramatically different) buildings. In

on chance, not on a scientific analysis of the

the recently relocated 1978 work of Kelly’s in the

­spectrum or a systematic organization of colors.

atrium of the ­National Gallery of Art, just outside

Serendipity rather than system was Kelly’s way

this ­auditorium, we can see a distant cousin of

to get outside himself—to escape subjectivity.

Kelly’s early 1950s desire to reunite ­constructivist

Kelly’s faith in serendipity meant that his work

abstraction with architecture. Corbusier’s exam­

was surprisingly sensitive to his environment.

ple seems to have inspired Kelly to find his own

Colors for a Large Wall was painted shortly after

way of uniting constructivist abstraction with



he came back from a visit to the south of France,

architecture. In 1957, after returning to the United

and one gets a strong sense of Matisse in some

States, he makes a huge relief for the lobby of a

of Kelly’s colors (late Matisse was very much a

Philadelphia office building, which takes the anal­

factor in art of the early 1950s); the white panels

ysis of art and color and the spirit of his serendip­

evoke the white light of the Mediterranean basin.

itous arrangement of colors from Colors for a Large

The more you look at Kelly’s picture, the more

Wall and projects it back onto the wall at a much,

you see its syncopation, its jazziness, its bright­

much bigger scale (fig. 2.33).

ness, its upbeat personality—qualities that make

We find something similar in a polychrome

it unpredictable and constantly interesting. In

wall designed by the artist Alejandro Otero

contrast, Lohse’s work looks more static, more

(fig. 2.34) for the school of architecture at the

stable, more inert, with its deadened, scientific

University of Venezuela, in Caracas, which was

impersonality. On his trip to the south of France,

being built by architect Carlos Villanueva in the

Kelly also visited Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation

decade from 1950 to 1960. But there is a differ­

in Marseille, where he saw how Corbusier had

ence between Kelly’s work and that of his peers

painted large blocks of colors on the walls of his

in other countries. In 1951 Kelly painted a pic­

 According to the artist, it was painted while he was in the south of France.

7 8   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

ture called Cité, which he imagined in a sketch as a giant mural (figs. 2.35, 2.36). In this case, Kelly

2.32 Richard Paul Lohse, Complementary Groups Formed by Six Horizontal Systematic Color Series, 1975. Oil on canvas, 150 × 150 cm. Collection of the Richard Paul Lohse Foundation, Zurich

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   7 9

8 0   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

2.33 Ellsworth Kelly, Sculpture for a Large Wall, 1956–57. Anodized aluminum, 104 panels, overall, 354.5 × 1987.6 × 30.5 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   8 1

Max Bill helped export constructivism from Europe to Latin America, where Venezuelan ­artists like Otero and Soto made it into a new high art of socialist solidarity with definite ­political associations. Venezuela was run by a dictator who had overthrown an elected civil government. Contrary to our usual assumptions about avant-garde art and politics, abstraction became a kind of official style, as seen in numerous ­murals at the University of Venezuela. Kelly is on the fringes of this quasi-official resurgence of hard-edge constructivism. He is acquainted with artists like Soto, and he even applies to teach at Max Bill’s school in Ulm. (Lohse taught in the Zurich branch of the same school.) What makes Kelly different is his interest in chance, 2.34

began with a composition of roughly ­ parallel

his ­ refusal to make an art of the necessary. In

Alejandro Otero, Polychrome

slanting lines, of different widths, which he cut

that sense, I think, Kelly is premonitory of much

into squares and then reassembled by chance.

of the abstract art of the 1960s.

Façade for the School of Architecture, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas,

The resulting picture has an odd ­ combination

Finally, I want to look at another artist

1952–1960. Carlos Raul Villa­

of freedom and gridlike rigidity, and it is this

­represented at the University of Venezuela in

n­ueva (architect), Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas

combination that distinguishes Kelly’s work from the very similar work of artists such as Jesús-Raphael Soto (fig. 2.37), a Venezuelan artist who becomes an acquaintance in Paris.

8 2   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

 In the diasporic phase of constructivism, hard-edge abstraction can be associated with either left-wing ideals (as in the cases of Lohse and Bill) or with right-wing regimes (as in the cases of the Venezuelan artists); in either case, it is associated with the idea of social solidarity and a powerful state.—PK

2.35 Ellsworth Kelly, Cité, 1951. Oil on wood, twenty joined panels, 142.9 × 179.1 × 5.08 cm. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and anonymous private collectors, © Ellsworth Kelly

2.36 Ellsworth Kelly, original sketch for Cité. Ink, 4.8 × 5.4 cm. Collection of the artist

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   8 3

2.37 Jesús-Raphael Soto, Parallèles interférentes noires et blanches, 1952. Tempera on hardboard, 120 × 120 × 6 cm. Fundación Museo de Arte Moderno Jesús Soto, Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela

8 4   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

Caracas: Victor Vasarely, who painted a ­mural,

art. When he first came to Paris, he did not go to

Positive Negative, for the university’s concert

the Louvre for years. He was astonished to find

hall. ­Vasarely is the forgotten man of geomet-

out that his favorite artist, the poster designer

ric art. He follows the profile that we have

A. M. Cassandre, was in fact just mimicking

­already identified: he trained as a Bauhaus-style

forms that had been invented years before by

­commercial artist and only later turned to fine

Corbusier and others. He is purely a product of

2.38

design, of corporate advertising; and yet, in the

Victor Vasarely, Ilile, 1956–1959.

1950s, he takes the techniques of tricking the

Oil on canvas, 107.95 × 100.012

eye, the techniques of diluted ­ constructivism,

cm. Collection unknown

and turns them back into a new ambition for a globally meaningful, scientific art. He is the head of a group called the Center for Research in the Visual Arts, a team of artists who aim to be anonymous—not bohemian or romantic. They want to promote a kind of vision that depends on the purely optical, on the retinal vibrations of the eye (fig. 2.38). It is an utterly democratic kind of vision because it requires no elite training, because it speaks directly to every person; it harkens to an ideal of social solidarity at the same time that it venerates science. Vasarely’s work is intriguingly close to Stella’s (fig. 2.39). Both use stripes, and yet there is a

2.39 Frank Stella, Palmito Ranch, 1961. 30.5 × 30.5 cm. ­Collection of the artist

crucial difference between them: Vasarely wants a form built-up out of an optical illusion, as in Albers, and Stella does not. In fact, Vasarely was Stella’s great bugbear. In a famous 1964 interview Stella insisted that, in spite of the fact that Vasarely’s work used many of the same basic schemes, “it still doesn’t have ­anything to do with my painting. I find all that ­European geometric

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   8 5

painting—sort of post–Max Bill school—a kind

­Morellet, Vasarely, and Soto, and the leap back

of curiosity—very dreary . . . I can’t think of any-

to the original sources in the work of Stella and

thing I like less.” Stella is at pains to insist that,

Judd—set the stage for a ripe confusion. Very

whatever the formal similarity between his work

different ambitions and intentions gravitate

and Vasarely’s, it is extremely different ­because,

­toward the same set of forms. It is a classic split

in Stella’s work, “What you see is what you

between European and American views of the

see.” He wants to insist that there is no ­social

world: between rationalism and empiricism, be-

agenda in his work, no theory, no rationalism

tween an idealist hope for a universal language

in the European sense. Stella’s ­ relationship to

of forms and a pragmatic insistence on particu-

­constructivism is like Pollock’s relationship to

lar realities (“what you see is what you see”), be-

surrealism. A ­Pollock like Autumn Rhythm (see

tween the belief that you make art more demo-

fig. 2.2) ­offers a translation or extrapolation of

cratic by reducing it to the essence of form and

­surrealism: certain principles of the earlier style

the belief that you make it democratic by reject-

are re­imagined and transformed by a new scale

ing the whole idea of essence. In Vasarely, Soto,

and a new physicality that leaves ­behind the ­earlier

and other European and Latin American artists,

style’s ideological baggage and its metaphysical

the tradition of hard-edge geometry deriving

claims. Similarly, Stella gives a new lease on life

from constructivism assumes a fixed meaning

to the formal language of constructivism by

as the art of a social collective, whereas Stella,

dropping the baggage that it formerly carried;

Judd, Andre, and other North American artists

the forms of abstraction are now literally put

use the same geometry to make an art of indi-

into play.

vidualism that does not attribute meaning to

13

The revival of the Russian constructivist tradition on two sides of the Atlantic Ocean—the

8 6   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

form, but instead emphasizes the praxis of the artist, which we will get to in the next lecture.

contrast between the diluted constructivism

We are back where we started: with the prob-

that rises out of design in the work of Albers,

lem of the eye and the mind. Vasarely stresses

the mind, while Stella calls for a purer, more

with conspiracy theory or catastrophe theory.

immediate opticality that does not involve the

It is not about fixed intentions, clean demises,

mind. Both rebuff subjectivity and make a claim

or new inventions. Rather, it is a history of con-

to objectivity. What results are two very differ-

stant argument, of constant recyclings of form.

ent utopias, each flawed in its own way. The next

Indeed, the reinvention of the old as something

chapter will explore what might be wrong with

new is the engine that makes this history go.

the minimalist vision, with the pragmatic phi-

Forms are endlessly mobile, moving from art to

losophy of “what you see is what you see.” Here

architecture, and then from mere design back to

I only want to stress that we are dealing with a

high art. Even at its most reductive, even when

more confused picture of geometric abstraction

it gets pared down to pure geometry, to a bare-

than we started with. What emerges from the

bones “art of the real,” abstraction provides no

collisions and confusions that I have discussed is

respite from interpretation, nor any retreat from

a certain vision of history. It does not have to do

the contingencies of history.

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   8 7

N ot e s

1. The New American Painting, As Shown in Eight European Countries, 1958–1959, exh. cat. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1959), expanded ­edition including a sample of European reviews. The exhibition was seen in Basel, Milan, Madrid, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, and London. 2. See Max Kozloff, “American Painting during the Cold War,” Artforum 11:9 (May 1973), 43–54; Eva Cockcroft, “Abstract Expressionism: Weapon of the Cold War,” Artforum 12:10 (June 1974), 39–41; and Serge Guilbaut, How New York Stole the Idea of ­ Modern Art: Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983); see also the critique of these views by Michael ­ Kimmelman, “Revisiting the Revisionists: The ­ Modern, Its Critics, and the Cold War,” in The Museum of Modern Art at Mid-Century: At Home and Abroad; Studies in Modern Art 4 (New York: The ­Museum of Modern Art, 1994), 38–55. 3. See Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York: The New Press, 1999), chap. 16 and passim. 4. See ibid., 252–253, and William Hauptman, “The Suppression of Art in the McCarthy Decade,” ­Artforum 12:2 (October 1973), 48–52. 5. For the American view of Pollock as the heir to cubism, see Clement Greenberg, “‘American-Type’ ­Painting,” 1955, reprinted in Art and Culture: ­Critical Essays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961), 218; and ­William Rubin, “Jackson Pollock and the Modern Tradition,” 1967, reprinted in Jackson Pollock: Interviews, Articles, and Reviews, Pepe Karmel, ed. (New York: The

8 8   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

­Museum of Modern Art, 1999), 150–165. For the European view of Pollock as a cowboy ­ flinging paint, see Claudio Savonuzzi, “Polemica su Pollock cow-boy della pitura,” Il Resto del Carlino (Bologna) (March 21, 1958); Jean Rollin, “Eclaboussures et peinture au lasso au Musée d’art moderne,” L’Humanité (Paris) (February 2, 1959); and Jean-Paul Crespelle, ­“Pollock: Peintre-Cowboy,” Le Journal du Dimanche (Paris) (October 7, 1979). 6. On Greenberg’s analysis of Pollock and the logic of his development, see lecture 1, note 3. Greenberg’s analysis was extended by Michael Fried, who traced the evolution between Pollock and Morris Louis in his introduction to Three American Painters, exh. cat. (Cambridge, MA: Fogg Art Museum, 1965), 4–20. 7. David Carrier, Aesthete in the City: The Philosophy and Practice of American Abstract Painting in the 1980s (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994). 8. T. J. Clark, “Jackson Pollock’s Abstraction,” in Reconstructing Modernism, Serge Guilbaut, ed. (Cambridge: MIT, 1990), 172–243. 9. Anna C. Chave, “Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power,” Arts 64:5 (January 1990), 44–63. 10. Camilla Gray, The Great Experiment: Russian Art, 1863–1922 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1962). This was a crucial text for American artists in the 1960s. Kasimir Malevich, 1878–1935. An exhibition of paintings, drawings and studies organized in association with the Stedelijk museum, Amsterdam, October– November, 1959. Pref. by Bryan Robertson. Introd. by Camilla Gray (London: Whitechapel Gallery, 1959).

11. See Joan Pachner, “Sculpture,” in Tony Smith, Robert Storr et al., exh. cat. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998), 128–183. 12. On the caricatural style of Picasso’s notebooks and its relevance to the development of cubism, see Adam Gopnik, “Caricature,” in High & Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture, Kirk Varnedoe and Adam

Gopnik, exh. cat. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1990), 123–126. 13. “Questions to Stella and Judd,” February 1964 ­interview by Bruce Glaser, edited by Lucy Lippard; originally published in ARTnews (September 1966); ­reprinted in Gregory Battcock, ed., Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1968), 149 and 158.

s u r v i v a l s a n d f r e s h s ta r t s   8 9

3

Minimalism

This is the third in a series of six lectures, so we

these, I took Gombrich’s Art and Illusion, based

are approaching halftime, a moment to reflect

in his 1956 Mellon Lectures, as a starting point.

back on where we have been. In the first lecture,

Gombrich argued that illusionism—the de-

I tried to explain that I was starting fifty years

piction of things in a convincing and credible

ago, with the death of Jackson Pollock, because

fashion—was one of the great achievements of

it was a moment when people recognized that

Western civilization. My rhetorical question in

he had introduced a new kind of abstraction.

this first lecture was, Could we ever have an ar-

The wholeness of Pollock’s work, the lack of

gument for abstraction as good as Gombrich’s

compositional hierarchy, the allover dispersal

argument for illusionism?

of paint in his poured paintings—these things

To construct such an argument, we would

seemed to set a new direction for abstraction in

have to wrench abstraction away from the tra-

America in the mid-1950s. I also talked about

ditional arguments about ultimate platonic

Johns’ White Flag, which at roughly the same

forms, and also from the Hegelian or histori-

time started a countercurrent to abstraction: the

cist ­ argument that the spirit of the times in-

advent of pop art, a new imagery, a revival of

evitably demands certain forms—a teleological

Duchamp and Dada that seemed to go against

view that has been used to defend the advent of

the grain of traditional abstraction. Along with

abstraction in the twentieth century. I tried to

9 2   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

suggest that one might make an argument for

different.” And the other person said, ­“Really?

­abstraction that avoided both the platonic idea

I thought he was saying that even though

of absolute form and the Hegelian idea of his-

­everybody says these things are different, they’re

torical necessity. Instead, the argument could be

really quite similar.” They were both right: I said

based on what Gombrich called the logic of the

both of these things.

situation: an argument that abstract art is con-

Albers and Stella represent two very, very dif-

nected both to the way we think and to what we

ferent ends of a long geometric tradition. What

are—a modern, liberal society.

Albers does with the square or with stripes in his

In the second lecture, I set out to deal with

design courses at Yale is very different from what

the 1950s, and particularly with the constructiv-

Stella does in his paintings, where he comes to

ist or hard-edge tradition as it was disseminated

these motifs through the models of Johns and

from Russia in the early 1920s to Germany and

Pollock. Stella is recovering the original impetus

the Bauhaus—leaving a legacy of pedagogy,

of constructivism, as it appeared in the work of

­basic design, commercial design, and so forth,

Malevich and Tatlin. He is working in an en-

before being resuscitated in the 1960s in the

tirely different scale from Albers. And he has no

work of Andre, Judd, and others. Comparing

sociological or ideational agenda.

­Albers’ Homage to the Square in Wide Light of

For any who remain confused, I offer as a

1953 and Stella’s Gran Cairo of 1962 (see figs.

solace or epigram for last week’s lecture, and an

2.14, 2.16), I claimed that I was out to sow

opening for this week’s, a quotation from Donald

confusion, that I wanted to make what seemed

Judd. He said in 1964—and many of us blessed

simple more complex. I believe I succeeded, be-

him for this comment—“The history of art and

cause I heard secondhand about an exchange

art’s condition at any time are pretty messy. They

in the audience after last week’s lecture. One

should stay that way. One can think about them as

person said, “I thought it was really interesting

much as one likes, but they won’t become ­neater;

that he was saying that, even though these two

neatness isn’t even a good reason for thinking

things look very much alike, they’re absolutely

about them.”1 With that, let us move on.

3.1 Stanley Kubrick, still from 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968. © Turner Entertainment Co., a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. All rights reserved

In 1968 when Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C.

very much in the ordinary: a wall in a handball

Clark made the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, they

court, a giant transistor radio, a dawn-of-man

needed a form that would indicate the presence

tape deck (fig. 3.2). A form as clear and simple

of something unknowable and ultimate. What

as a monolith thus lends itself to paradoxical

they came up with was a great, gray, forbid-

interpretation as something absolute and other-

ding slab that first appears to a group of apes

worldly on the one hand, and completely mun-

at the beginning of the movie and later reap-

dane on the other. And it sits on the razor’s edge

pears on the moon, sending out a piercing sig-

between the two.

nal in the direction of Mars (fig. 3.1). Kubrick

The proximate source for Kubrick and

and Clark reached for a form that was at once

Clark’s monolith was probably a 4.6 meter slab

absolute and ambiguous, a form that had a tre-

­sculpture by Los Angeles artist John ­McCracken

mendous amount of authority and an unruly

(fig. 3.3) and was part of the widespread

indecipherability. Yet the form they found was

vocab­ulary of what came to be called mini-

quickly mocked in Mad Magazine not as hav-

malist sculpture. The term “minimalism” was

ing dropped in from Mars, but as something

­adopted from a 1965 essay entitled “Minimal

minimalism  93

3.2 Panel from Dick de Bartolo and Mort Drucker, “2001 Min. of a Space Idiocy,” Mad Magazine, no. 125, March 1969, 5 3.3 John McCracken, Blue ­Column, 1967. Polyester resin and fiberglass over plywood, 457.2 × 68.58 × 50.8 cm.

Art” by British philosopher Richard ­Wollheim.2

say that the reverse, or inverse, seems to be true

Museum Associates/LACMA,

Wollheim’s subject, however, was not the art

about the art of the 1960s. Here we are in the age

itself, but the minimal conditions that might

of Kennedy’s New Frontier space program, of

satisfy the definition “work of art.” The term

political assassinations, of Vietnam, of huge stu-

“minimalism” was borrowed from his specula-

dent protests, of the sexual revolution—­possibly

tions and ­applied to the work of artists such as

one of the most dramatic and exciting periods

McCracken, Judd, and Robert Morris, to the

in the life of our times—and what do we get

gift of Friends of Leonard B. Hirsch, Jr., through the Contemporary Art Council

great distaste of most of the artists thereby implicated. They did not like the name at all, despite the fact that defining minimal conditions for art in the face of these extremely reductive, mute objects did seem apt at the time. When I look at the installation by ­ Morris from 1965 of two 2.5 meter-long L-beams (fig. 3.4), or other early minimalist installations, I am reminded of what I would call Kenneth Clark’s “Rembrandt problem.” In his great television series Civilization, Clark says, You know, here is seventeenth-century Holland, the most philistine, crass, mercantile, money-grubbing society imaginable, and what do they get in the way of art? They get Rembrandt.3 Well, I can

9 4   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

3.4 Robert Morris, Untitled (L-Beams), 1965. Stainless steel in three parts, 243.8 × 243.8 × 61 cm. Whitney Museum of American Art, gift of Howard and Jean Lipman

in the way of art? We get dumb boxes, ­ lattices

imalism. To be honest, even art experts were ask‑

that look like jungle gyms, metalwork rugs that

ing the question, couched in another way: Was

spread on the floor, and things that seem to be

this a new manifestation of the Dada tradition?

mute and inert in the face of the insane dyna‑

Minimalism seemed like a revival of the kind of

mism of the time. In a provocative and challeng‑

anti-art made by Duchamp, who in 1917 pur‑

ing world, we get art that seems as dumb as a

chased a urinal, signed it “R. Mutt,” and submit‑

post. Now many people must have asked when

ted it to an exhibition of avant-garde art, initi‑

they went to an installation such as Morris’s, “Is

ating the long tradition within modern art of

this a joke!?” It is a fair question, and while it

the subversive joke, of anti-art—art that decon‑

has been asked many times about modern art,

structs and disengages the category of art itself.

I think it has never been more to the point and

In a 1965 article called “ABC Art,” art critic

more poignant than at the advent of min‑

Barbara Rose also attempted to make sense of

minimalism  95

the then-unnamed art and to respond to its

and Duchamp as patron saints seemed to pair

3.5

­elemental quality. Rose, who at that time was

two incompatible models. Whereas Malevich’s

Kazimir Malevich, Black

married to Frank Stella, proposed that ­Duchamp

­attempt to find an essence of painting—to re-

and the Russian avant-garde artist Malevich

duce painting to its fundamental building block,

National d’Art Moderne, Centre

were the patron saints under which the new

to its ultimate reduction, the black square—

Georges Pompidou, Paris

art was emerging.4 But the return of Malevich

seemed to be part of a modernist tradition of

Square, c. 1923–1930. Oil on plaster, 36.7 × 36.7 cm. Musée

innovation by distillation (fig. 3.5), Duchamp’s art seemed only to be about subversion, about getting outside the narrative of history, getting outside any chain of innovation, any teleology, and instead simply demoralizing and subverting the whole enterprise of art. So is early minimalism, like Malevich, trying to purify the spring of modern art? Or is it, like Duchamp, trying to defile it? Is early minimalism saying “yes!” in a hard, concrete, reductive, but affirming way? Or is it saying “no!” as a way to subvert and pull out the rug from under modern art? We find these goals constantly confused in the art of the early 1960s. Take, for example, Flavin’s “monument” for V. Tatlin from 1964 (see fig. 1.33). Flavin’s title links his work to the same Russian revolutionary strain represented by Malevich, to the same idea of high ­idealism and purity in art. On the other hand,

9 6   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

his ­ materials are bought from the hardware

have objected to being aligned with geometric

store; they are “found” objects, just like Duch-

abstraction as it had been practiced in the past.

amp’s urinal. Which is the operative side of the

They wanted nothing to do with Mondrian, for

work? Does Flavin mean this to be a contribu-

example, or with the idealization of the square,

tion to the history of art, or a demoralization

or with the traditional notion that the union of

and deconstruction of it? Is it anti-art or pro-

vertical and horizontal summed up something

art? Is it yes art or no art?

special about the universe. They wanted geom-

It was very hard for people in the early 1960s

etry for its graphic impact; they wanted it for

to find the answer to this question, to say wheth-

its visual power; they wanted it as a means to

er or not such art was a joke. It was easier to

reduce the sense of human gesture and to get a

­define the new art by what it was not. (Indeed,

clean anonymous edge to their work. Geo­metry

that is always the easiest way to deal with chal-

itself was ultimately meaningless for them, and

lenging new ideas. We often characterize what is

they wanted to draw attention to its meaning-

new by its abandonment of the things that we

lessness. Therefore, they rejected their place

know. That is why we have the horseless carriage

within a geometric tradition of art history.

and the wireless phone.) The surprising thing

Andre would also have claimed, and Judd

about this new art is that the few positive terms

would have claimed on his behalf, that their

we might give to it, such as “geometric,” “ab-

art was not abstract, and this takes a little more

stract,” or “rational,” were rejected by the artists

explaining. Phil Leider makes it wonderfully

who made it.

clear in an early article in Artforum, where he

Kenneth Noland’s chevron piece of 1965 and

opposes the terms “abstract” and “literal,” using

a Carl Andre sculpture called Redan of 1964

“abstract” for Noland and many other artists

share a common hard-edge vocabulary (figs. 3.6,

like him, and reserving “literal” for Andre, Judd,

3.7). Like a lot of other art of the time, they have

and others of their group.5 This differentiation

geometric compositions. Yet each artist would

involves two different readings of Pollock.

minimalism  97

3.6 Kenneth Noland, Drive, 1965. Acrylic on canvas, 176.5 × 151.1 cm. Saint Louis Art Museum, museum purchase

9 8   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

Noland, Morris Louis, Helen ­Frankenthaler,

that they continued to abstract in the way that

Jules Olitski, and many other painters of the

Pollock had, continued to pull away from repre-

early 1960s were supported and nourished

sentation. In the eyes of Greenberg, Fried,6 and

by a nexus of critics, beginning with Clement

Rubin, modern art had an innate tendency to

Greenberg and then including Michael Fried

pull away from any literary reference to things

and William Rubin, who read their art as de-

outside itself and to refer only to the essential

scending legitimately from Pollock, in the sense

properties of painting per se: flatness, line, and

color. By staining their paint directly into raw

its immediacy and physicality. It had a specific,

3.7

canvas, Noland, Louis, and Frankenthaler had

material quality, without reference or meta-

Carl Andre, Redan, 1964.

eliminated any residual sense of space, becom-

phor. Pollock reinforced this material quality by

ing even more abstract than Pollock. In these

stepping on the canvas where it lay on the floor,

work comprised of 27 units).

critics’ view, the artists had taken the next step

by stubbing out his cigarettes on it, by pushing

Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto,

in a grand tradition.

his hand against the surface of it. He affirmed

But others looking at the same paintings by

that the painting was an object in the world, an

Pollock saw something different. Judd, for ex-

extension of the physicality of the world, not a

ample, wrote, “The dripped paint in most of

window onto anything else.

Pollock’s paintings is dripped paint. It’s that

The swing vote in the debate over Pollock

sensation, completely immediate and specific,

was the reading of Stella’s work. As I mentioned

and nothing modifies it.”7 When Judd or Andre

earlier, Andre had been Stella’s classmate at

looked at Pollock, they did not see pure optical-

­Andover; he, Judd, and the other literalist art-

ity; they saw house paint poured out of a can,

ists were all closely involved with Stella’s work.

with no mediation. What was thrilling and ex-

The literalists, as Leider dubbed them, argued

citing to them in Pollock’s paintings were the

that Stella’s stripe paintings, such as Empress of

properties of paint as a material: its relation-

India of 1965 (fig. 3.8), were not merely abstrac-

ship to gravity, the way that it hit the canvas;

tions distilling some essence of the painterly

Twenty-seven fir timbers, 30.5 × 30.5 × 91.4 cm (each unit;

purchased with assistance from the Women’s Committee Fund, 1971. Art © Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

minimalism  99

3.8

­tradition. Rather, by conforming the stretchers

making new work. On the other hand, he was

Frank Stella, Empress of

of his shaped canvases to the internal order of

being beckoned in a powerful career sense by

his lines, and by making the stretchers of ex-

the critics and curators who supported Noland,

canvas, 195.6 × 569 cm. The

traordinary thickness, Stella was producing

Louis, and others.

Museum of Modern Art, New

objects that generated space outside of them-

An art not geometric, not abstract, not

York, gift of S. I. Newhouse Jr.

selves and that activated the space around them.

­rational. What, then, is this new literalism or

A huge tug-of-war over Stella ensued between

minimalism, opposed to the mainstream tra-

the Greenberg-Fried-Rubin school, who wanted

dition of abstract art? It is easier to say what it

Stella for the history of abstract painting, and

is not than what it is. Judd, for instance, argues

the Andre-Judd group, who wanted him to be

that the chief difference between his work and

a progenitor of minimalism. This same battle

traditional abstraction is that his work is not

was fought, I think, within Stella’s soul. He was

“rational.” Rationality, as part of the European

ambivalent about whether to bond with the

philosophical tradition, is something that Judd

powerful critics and institutions of the estab-

wants to reject. He associates rationality with

lished art world or with the radical new edge of

what he and Stella in a 1964 interview call the

a younger generation. By youth and character,

“relational” character of European geometric

he was inclined to be with the artists who were­

abstraction. As Stella puts it: “Their whole idea

India, 1965. Metallic powder in polymer emulsion paint on

1 0 0   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

is balance. You do something in one corner and you balance it with something in the other ­corner.”8 In the United States, this kind of “relational” composition was still being utilized by David Smith, the great sculptor of the abstract expressionist generation. Smith reached a new peak with his geometric work of the early 1960s, which Judd greatly admired. Nonetheless, he felt that a 1964 work like Cubi XIX was still too

Pragmatism is uncomfortable away from facts. Rationalism is comfortable only in the ­presence of abstractions. . . . The pragmatist clings to facts and concreteness, observes truth at work in particular cases, and generalizes. Truth, for him, becomes a class name for all sorts of ­ definite working-values in experience. For the rationalist, it remains a pure abstraction. . . . Your typical ultra-abstractionist fairly ­shudders at concreteness: other things equal, he ­ positively prefers the pale and spectral. If the two universes were offered, he would always choose the skinny outline rather than the rich thicket of reality. It is so much purer, cleaner, and ­nobler.10

close to its European sources (fig. 3.9). Smith, he

Rose argues persuasively, I think, in the ­article

argued, retained a cubist sense of composition,

I cited earlier, that Judd and Andre—in their

with a large mass balanced against a small mass,

literalness, in seeing dripped paint as dripped

with things in the upper corner matching things

paint, in seeing painting as an object that

in the lower corner. In addition, he noted the

pushes out toward literal space rather than as a

residual anthropomorphism of Smith’s work,

window onto something else—are involved in

the way that the verticality of his sculpture sug-

an empirical, pragmatic, American insistence

gested the presence of a body, with legs and a

on concreteness and fact. Furthermore, she

head. In contrast, Judd, Stella, and contempo-

claims that Judd’s famous statements about get-

raries like Andre were exploring a new “nonre-

ting rid of European thought and getting away

lational” kind of composition, characterized by

from the European model have to do with his

symmetry and repetition.9

aversion to the rational and his preference for

The literalist sensibility that we find in Judd

the pragmatic, literal, and concrete.11

and Andre seems to derive from the American

It goes without saying that Andre took a

philosophy of pragmatism. William James, one

radical step in translating the way that ­ Pollock

of its founders, wrote that:

worked up his paintings on the floor into a ­literal,

minimalism  101

gravitation-bound sculpture. Andre’s “carpets” of metal plates laid in a grid on the floor are just as literal and symmetrical as Judd’s stacks (see figs. 1.13, 3.10). In their wholeness, their allover sameness, and above all their flatness, they translate Pollock’s drip paintings into sculpture without a base, sculpture that hugs the floor in an assertion of its absolute gravity. It is this move—the translation from Pollock’s pictorial values into sculptural values—that becomes increasingly imperative for the generation of Judd, Andre, and Morris. In order to produce in three dimensions an art of literalism—of concreteness and immediacy—they needed to get away from painting, from the rectangle that hung on the wall like a 3.9

window, and also from traditional sculpture,

David Smith, Cubi XIX, 1964.

perched on a pedestal that isolated it from the

Stainless steel, 286.4 × 148 × 101.6 cm. Tate Gallery, London.

real space around it. Instead, they wanted to get to

Art © Estate of David Smith/

something that engaged with its ­surroundings—

Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

that “activated” it, as the artists said.12 This notion of the activation of the immediate space around the work was anathema to

1 0 2   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

3.10 Donald Judd, Untitled (Stack), 1968. Stainless steel and Plexiglas, 22.9 × 101.6 × 78.8 cm, 9 units; each unit total height with intervals of 22.9 cm × 480 cm. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roger Davidson, 1970, donated by the Ontario Heritage Foundation. Art © Donald Judd Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

minimalism  103

Greenberg and Fried. Fried’s famous article “Art

by the act of perceiving. For Merleau-Ponty

and Objecthood,” published in 1967, was in re-

there was no such thing as pure opticality, be-

sponse to the sculptures and writings of Judd,

cause the act of looking always depended on

Morris, and their contemporaries. Responding

the engagement of the body. In contrast to this,

to works such as Robert Morris’s installation at

you can see Fried as standing for the Kantian

the Green Gallery in December 1964 (fig. 3.11),

tradition of pre-established, fixed categories

Fried agreed with supporters of minimalism

of perception. Fried argued from a residual es-

that the suppression of internal relationships

sentialism: he believed that formal reduction

and the abandonment of composition forced

was a way of getting to the essence of paint-

the viewer’s attention away from the work and

ing, that the more you reduce a work of art, the

out into the space around it, thereby drawing

more it becomes pure and true to its own in-

the viewer into the “theater” of the object. But

ternal self. In contrast, for the minimalists, the

whereas the supporters of minimalism liked this

process of reduction rebounds in a completely

activation of the space around the work, Fried

different direction: by squeezing the work here

hated it. It seemed to him to be a residue of the

and reducing there, you end up expanding and

Dada tradition, turning art into a joke, negating

activating the space around it. Against Fried’s

the work of art by turning it into a performance,

essentialist emphasis on the work and noth-

so that the work itself hardly mattered. Fried

ing but the work, the minimalists propose a

condemned the activation of real space as a

pragmatic insistence that the work is part of

mere theatrical effect, contrary to the “modes of

the world around it, and that the world is part

seriousness” found in the art of Pollock, ­Louis,

of the work.

and Noland.13

1 0 4   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

Minimalism presented the art world with

Many sculptors of the time were interested

a cruel choice. Make no bones about it! Imag-

in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of phenomenol-

ine going back to the early 1960s and trying to

ogy, which described experience as constituted

choose between the painters championed by

3.11 Robert Morris, installation of the exhibition at the Green Gallery, December 1964

Fried, on the one hand, and the minimalists

Yet the right choice, I think, was to go for

on the other; between Morris Louis’s fabulous

Morris, Andre, and Judd because, in the long

Tet and Robert Morris’s dumb gray forms (see

run, their work is the source from which some-

figs. 2.3, 3.11). The Louis is noble, serene, and

thing new is going to spring. Still, you cannot

ethereal, a lushly beautiful statement of humane

avoid the art world equivalent of the question

values, the triumphant culmination of a tradi-

the kid in the backseat keeps asking: “Are we

tion of modern painting. You are being asked

there yet?” Or, in our case, “Is it art yet?” Let’s

to choose between this and a work that is in-

face it, this is a hard question. Minimalism was

tentionally dumb and banal, whose only virtue

an evolving art and, especially in the early 1960s,

is its quiddity, its insistent “thereness”—and in

you could not always tell when it was serious and

the case of Andre’s lead rugs, the kind of art you

when it wasn’t. Were you looking at a Dada stunt,

can step on. It was a hard choice.

or at the beginning of some new kind of art?

minimalism  105

1 0 6   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

The most sophisticated critics of the time felt a

of the individual artists. Morris, for example,

sense of deprivation and unease. This sense of

seems to me in retrospect to have been radical

disquiet was precisely what Judd wanted in his

in a more academic sense than Judd. Along with

art. He said this about the objects that he was

his gray forms, he made baroque works with

making and about some other painters that he

dangling ropes and felt, and after the 1960s he

liked: “Ordinarily these things look pretty plain

began making wild, painterly renditions of the

and not important. I think a lot of people want

Holocaust. Morris’s work seems to have evolved

instant importance. They want the importance

as a dialogue between a devotion to Johns and

of several decades instantly, when what you

a devotion to pure abstraction. As time passes,

really want to do is get rid of this notion.”14

Morris’s gray-painted plywood forms take on

The idea of producing something that was

a didactic sameness. They are rarely seen first-

religiously and intransigently unimportant,

hand, in part because they were designed to be

with no redeeming value, was shared by many

constructed for exhibitions and then discarded.

of the artists that we call minimalists. In that

A bunch of them were remade for Morris’s 1994

sense, they were doing something very similar.

retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, and

And yet, with the passage of time, it has become

I have to say that they seemed to me to be com-

clear that there is a world of difference between

pletely inert, no more than demonstrations of a

the temperament of the different ­minimalists—

certain aesthetic position.

between the boxes made by Morris and those

Judd’s objects, with the passage of time,

made by Judd, for instance (figs. 3.11, 3.12).

seem increasingly quirky, and not at all didac-

Behind the seemingly blank, machine-made

tic. They have a wonderful peculiarity that is

look that they have in common, these works

related to his temperament, and they seem to

are very different. What makes them art, and

transgress the limits he set for himself, for ex-

what makes them different from each other, is

ample, by being more beautiful than he would

the temperament, intelligence, and creativity

allow. Judd was nearly thirty-two by the time he

3.12 Donald Judd, Iron Floor Box, 1965. Brown enamel on hot-rolled steel, 142.24 × 322.58 × 238.76 cm. Judd Foundation. Art © Donald Judd Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

had his first important show in the 1960s. He

Judd is a curmudgeonly critic: you feel a kind

had already tried out several careers: studying

of frustrated impatience (rather than a young

painting at the Art Students League in the late

man’s eagerness) seeping out of everything he

1940s, philosophy at Columbia night school in

says about the art of his time. He rejects phi-

the early 1950s, and art history at Columbia in

losophy and high ideals with the impatience of

the late 1950s; signing on as a critic for Artnews

someone who has been there and tried that and

in 1959; and finally deciding to concentrate

does not want any more of it. He knows what it

on making art in the early 1960s. Like Warhol,

is he wants to reject.

Lichtenstein, and many of the young turks of the

What differentiates Judd’s works from those

early 1960s, Judd emerges suddenly as a mature

of his contemporaries are the small quirks that

artist after enduring long years of anonymity.

reveal themselves as you spend time with the

minimalism  107

3.13 Donald Judd, Untitled, 1966. Amber Plexiglas and stainless steel, 50.8 × 122 × 86.4 cm. Froehlich Collection, Stuttgart. Art © Donald Judd Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

work: for instance, the odd edge at the top of

sides give a view to the interior of the work.

his Iron Floor Box (see fig. 3.12). Why did he

One is constantly aware of Judd’s rigor and pre-

put this little edge here? Because he loves the

cision, of his skeletal sense of structure. He is

idea of thinness. (He spoke of it often.) Judd’s

against mass and volume, but he is for a picto-

work is not about mass or weight or volume. He

rial kind of sculpture. Despite Judd’s rhetoric

wants to sink that top precisely because it de-

about ­directness and immediacy—his claim to a ­­

clares right away that the object is not solid but

“you can kick it” toughness—he constantly

is made out of sheet metal. He does not want to

pitches an illusionism, as, for example, where

make an inert object. He is drawn to sheet metal

the metal edge of a sculpture might seem to

because it imparts a greater rigor or sharpness.

extend right through the bottom and into the

He likes the precision of that edge.

floor. There is also a kind of slick illusionism

If there ever were a clear declaration of Judd’s resistance to volume and mass, it would

1 0 8   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

about Judd’s materials, which redeems and lightens his work.

be the Plexiglas floor box of 1966 (fig. 3.13),

The material power of these objects sepa-

and the many others like it in which Plexiglas

rates Judd not only from Morris but also from

3.14 Carl Andre, 8001 and 8002 ­ Mönchengladbach, 1968. Hot-rolled steel, 0.8 × 50 × 50 cm each, 0.8 × 300 × 300 cm overall. Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach. Art © Carl Andre/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

­Andre, to whom he is very close, ­ emotionally

and is weighty. His floor piece in steel is true to

and ­ intellectually. While Andre, as we have

an ideology that counters what we saw in David

shown, translates Pollock’s interest in grav-­

Smith, which is the figure raised up, head above

ity and flatness into sculpture with his carpets

the ground. There is a “we don’t need any more

of metal squares (fig. 3.14), he is nonetheless

heroes” kind of anti-­idealism to Andre’s big steel

concerned with the problems of sculpture, not

plates on the ground, and unlike Judd, Andre’s

painting. For Andre weight—the gravity of

ideology is very much related to sculpture.

­Pollock ­ translated—was honesty itself. Sculp-­

Judd’s classic form, exemplified by his un-­

ture weighs. Let’s not have any base; let’s not

titled stack of 1968 (see fig. 3.10), shares a com-­

have any mediation between us and the work;

mon internal order with Andre’s work. It is

let’s just declare that the thing hugs the floor

not a balancing act like Smith’s sculpture, but

minimalism  109

1 1 0   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

a composition based on simple contiguity, on

Judd and the minimalists want to get rid of

the repetition of one thing after another. But

the hands-on ethic of abstract expressionism;

Judd does not share Andre’s interest in weight.

they want to get rid of the idea that the char-

For Judd, weight, mass, and solidity in sculpture

acter of art resides in the touch of the artist.

are part of the whole European tradition that

Think about the way Judds are made, for exam-

he dislikes so much. Judd wants his work to be

ple. In his untitled plywood floor box of 1976

light and about light in every way. One of his

(fig. 3.15), the plywood is chosen for its thinness

favorite artists, curiously enough, is Matisse. He

and fineness, but also because he wants a rela-

constantly talks about Matisse’s light and light-

tively humble material, one not associated with

ness, the thinness and fineness of his edges and

the patina of fine art. Yet I would disagree with

15

materials, the transparency of his volumes.

those who claim that minimalism in general and

There is no place for light and color in the stern

Judd in particular have a fetishistic involvement

rhetoric of much of Judd’s writing, but it is an

with industry and with industrial materials.16

essential part of his work, making it very dif-

It is true that Judd was happy to have his work

ferent from the work of Andre, for instance,

made by fabricators. But the Bernstein Brothers,

although these two artists are constantly and

who made a lot of Judd’s work, were not exactly

commonly lumped together. The rhetoric of

industrial. They were more of a mom-and-pop

minimalism makes it sound like a simple, sane,

operation in Long Island City specializing in

organized aesthetic that dictates “a way” to all of

galvanized metalwork. Judd did use industrial

its followers. In fact, the minimalists are a group

paints, but they were the kind of lacquers used

of very different artists, with very different tem-

on cars and motorcycles, and he selected them

peraments, bound together by a common desire

with a connoisseur’s eye.17

to make something new. Temperament, more

This body-shop aesthetic is a defining fea-

than theory, defines the quality of their work

ture of Judd’s work. Unlike Andre, who insisted

and gives it its resonance in history.

on the elemental quality of magnesium or lead,

3.15 Donald Judd, Untitled, 1976. Plywood, 121.9 × 304.8 × 254 cm. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, gift of Leo Castelli. Art © Donald Judd Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Judd was interested in finish and slickness. His

(fig. 3.16). Despite Judd’s glossy materials, his

use of lacquer and Plexiglas brought him closer

box is simple and straightforward. In contrast,

to California artists like McCracken (see fig. 3.3)

Bell’s vacuum-sprayed cube is full of subtle-

and Larry Bell. Indeed, art-world lore has it that

ties: the vacuum-sprayed mists of gray change

Sol LeWitt, visiting a Judd show in the mid-

the reflective properties of the glass, dissolving

1960s, turned to a friend and remarked, “Well,

the geometry, creating something veiled and

this establishes Judd as our leading West Coast

­beautiful.

artist.” The fact is that Judd is an exception: on

Bell’s sprayed glass cubes and McCracken’s

the whole, New York produces rustic, rough-

sprayed lacquers are examples of a “finish ­fetish”

and-ready art (like Andre’s metal carpets); for

that comes directly out of the L.A. culture of

high, gleaming, sophisticated work you have

customized cars and choppers (or, as they are

to go to Los Angeles. You can get a sense of the

called on the East Coast, motorcycles). It is an

difference by comparing Judd’s Plexiglas box

aesthetic of high color, without the grim insis-

(see fig. 3.13) with one of Bell’s glass cubes

tence of the East Coast version of minimalism.

minimalism  111

3.16 Larry Bell, Untitled, 1968. Coated glass, metal, 50.8 × 50.8 × 50.8 cm. Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, gift of Edwin Janss Jr.

1 1 2   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

“Finish fetish” means that an immense amount

culture to things like Robert Irwin’s projecting

of labor, multiple coats of lacquer, and a high

disk of 1967 (fig. 3.17). This is an aluminum

degree of control are expended in order to get

disk, slightly convex. Multiple spray lacquers

something approaching virginity: that is, an

produce a beautiful, pristine surface. Sur-

absolute, pure, scratchless surface. On the West

rounded by light projectors, the disk casts shad-

Coast this degree of perfection is called “cherry.”

ows that seem more substantial than the disk

It makes for a kind of minimalism very different

itself. In this work the disk appears to lose its

from what you find on the East Coast.

solid form, to dissolve into a hole in the middle

West Coast minimalism starts from a dif-

of the world; in other works from this series, it

ferent point: from Rothko and Olitski rather

seems to oscillate between convex and concave.

than Pollock and Stella. And it leads from car

Irwin has controlled and composed the act of

3.17 Robert Irwin, Untitled (Disc), 1967. Sprayed acrylic lacquer on shaped aluminum, 121.9 cm diameter. George H. Waterman II, New York City

­perception itself. The finish fetishism that starts

of ­opticality described by Greenberg and Fried,

with McCracken’s luscious, custom car colors

but it goes way beyond that, because it is not

has now been ascetically reduced to a virginal

an optical style of painting, it is an actual opti-

state of ultimate whiteness, where the only thing

cal experience. It points toward uncertainty, as

to look at is optical experience itself.

opposed to anything essential or concrete. One

In the Los Angeles aesthetic, reduction does

does not know what is concave or convex, pres-

not lead toward pragmatic concreteness, as

ent or absent, tangible or intangible. In Irwin,

it does in East Coast minimalism. Instead, it

and in a lot of Los Angeles work, purification

pushes toward a dissolution and disembodi-

and reduction lead to a loss of certainty, a kind

ment of experience. West Coast minimalism be-

of ambiguity and disorientation that is exactly

comes purely retinal. This sounds like the kind

the opposite of Andre’s assertive engagement

minimalism  113

3.18 (opposite) Robert Irwin, scrim installation, 1971. Synthetic fabric, wood, fluorescent lights, floodlights, 243.8 × 1,432.6 cm. Collection of Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, gift of the artist, 1971

1 1 4   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

with weight and physicality, with a standard

simple gesture of installing the veil points to

foot-on-the-ground experience.

what is happening at the end of the room.

West Coast minimalism is all about ambigu-

The version of the minimal aesthetic that you

ity. Another way to look at this is to see what

find in Irwin and some other Los ­Angeles ­artists

Irwin does with that sense of place, that the-

concentrates on the empirical act of ­ looking,

atrical activation of the space around a work

on seeing what is actually there. In the Renais-

that we saw in the Morris installation or in the

sance, the Florentines concentrated on the

Andre metal rug. In Irwin’s installation at the

tougher, more sculptural aspects of art, while

Walker Art Center in 1971, he takes note of an

the ­Venetians concentrated on ­color, on captur-

existing large skylight at one end of the gallery

ing the look of light dancing on ­water. Similarly,

and stretches a large scrim of fine white fabric

if minimalism in New York is ­Tuscan—angular

from the ceiling to the floor in order to make

and hard-edged—Los Angeles posits a softer

a volume of what had been a diffuse input of

Venetian minimalism. Los ­ Angeles artists are

light. Irwin’s work at this point intervenes in

interested in time and movement. Instead of

found spaces and makes things visible by veiling

skyscrapers descending into cold water, you get

them, creating something out of nothing, forc-

long Pacific horizons, dissolving cloud ­patterns,

ing people to attend to the thing they did not

slow changes in the long-term weather. The

see was there (fig. 3.18). He orchestrates the act

coasts offer two different kinds of reduction-

of perception, producing extremely rich effects

ism, both typically American: on one coast, we

with economical gestures and simple acts of

get the pragmatist’s insistence on the ­concrete;

intervention. From one position in the gallery,

on the other, we get the transcendental,

you can almost see the structure of the ceiling

Emersonian search for the absolute and the

overhead (fig. 3.19); but as you move up to the

­sublime.

scrim, the ceiling becomes lost in a fog and the

Irwin has a considerably younger partner in

end of the room dissolves into pure light. The

crime: James Turrell, who is in the late 1960s a

minimalism  115

3.19 (opposite) View of fig. 3.18 from a different angle

1 1 6   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

student of perceptual psychology. Where ­Irwin

up and down, right and left. These are spaces

uses light to dissolve solid objects, ­Turrell uses

where one is forced to attend to the limits of

projected light to create what looks like a ­solid

perception.18

object. For example, the “cube” in ­ Turrell’s

Turrell and Irwin break off their collabora-

Afrum-Proto of 1966 does not exist (see fig.

tion after a year, but it has a profound effect on

1.15). It is simply a patch of light projected

both of them. Turrell moves into a studio at the

into the corner of a room. Turrell’s inter-

Mendota Hotel and turns it into a kind of labo-

est in perception and optical illusion is re-

ratory for studying perception. He puts curved

lated to ­ Irwin’s, and in 1968 the two artists

coving where the walls meet the floor and the

come ­together and begin researching a project

ceiling, so that there are no sharp corners, no

­sponsored by the Art and Technology Program

discernable edges to the space. The studio as a

at the Los ­Angeles County Museum of Art. They

whole becomes a Ganz field of utter pristine-

collaborate with an engineer named Edward

ness. Turrell then cuts slots into the studio walls

Wortz, who is working for the American space

that can be opened and closed, orchestrating the

program, trying to figure out what will happen

intrusion of exterior light and sound into this

to the astronauts in outer space—or, to put it

pure white space (fig. 3.20).

another way: what is human experience like in a

Turrell has often said that one of his major

vacuum, with no atmosphere to diffuse light or

influences is the music of John Cage. Most of

transmit sound? Wortz introduces Turrell and

you may know Cage by his composition 4’33”,

Irwin to a new world of sensory deprivation.

which is essentially four minutes and thirty-

He is working with anechoic chambers, rooms

three seconds of silence: the musician comes

constructed so that no sound can get in, or even

onto the stage, lifts the cover on the piano key-

resonate within them. He is also working with

board, sits for four minutes and thirty-three

Ganz fields, spaces filled with a perfectly even

seconds, and closes the top of the piano. All that

light, so that there is no differentiation between

is heard is ambient noise: people’s programs

minimalism  117

bridge from Duchamp into the reductive art of the early 1960s. The difference between them is that Duchamp’s anti-art utilized the arbitrary as a demoralizing device, whereas Cage uses chance and the arbitrary as a device of revelation and the marvelous. Cage’s 4’33” transforms negation into acceptance. The openings in Turrell’s studio walls bring in a kind of music of streetlights and passing cars. The particular character of this music depends upon the time of day it is performed, but also on larger phenomena: celestial movements, the phases of the moon, or the timing of the summer and winter solstices. The studio is part John Cage and part Temple of Karnak: it deals with both the quotidian and the cosmological, one’s place in the mundane world and one’s contemplation of higher order. For Turrell and Irwin, the emptiness of the box, the mute3.20

rustling, the wind in the leaves, or rain on the

ness of the slab, is not simply negation or dep-

James Turrell, Mendota Stop-

roof. This is Cage’s way of forcing you to attend,

rivation but an invitation to contemplate, an

to take in what is otherwise on the margins, to

invitation to look harder, to think harder. They

of stages 5 and 6, 20.32 × 25.4 cm.

hear things not usually heard, in the same way

are drawn to the same contemplative power of

Private collection

that Irwin’s scrim installation forces you to see

the void that attracts Cage and so many artists

things not before seen. Cage is very much the

of this generation.

pages, 1969–74. Black and white photograph, multiple exposures

1 1 8   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

3.21 James Turrell, Laar, 1976. During the exhibition James Turrell: Light and Space (October 22, 1980–January 1, 1981) at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Perhaps the best way to evoke the power of

very subtle, extremely luscious in some ways.

Turrell’s later work is to describe my own expe-

You start walking toward it. As you do, your eye,

rience of his 1976 work Laar, which is perhaps

like the auto-focus mechanism on a camera,

the ultimate Los Angeles painting. It occupied

continually tries to get hold of the surface of the

the first gallery in Turrell’s 1980 retrospective

piece, but somehow it can’t. Finally, you arrive

at the Whitney Museum (fig. 3.21). Here’s what

at the painting and discover that you can’t get

it felt like: You get off the elevator. Directly in

a fix on the surface because there is no surface.

front of you, on the far wall of the gallery, is a

You are looking at a razor-sharp edge framing

huge gray painting. You cannot quite discern

a second room beyond you. There is no light

what the surface is, but it is quite thick, it has

source visible in this second room, but some-

a visible texture. You are looking at it, and it is

thing is filling it with this eerie gray light so that

minimalism  119

1 2 0   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

the empty space looks, from a distance, like a

Panza’s villa, I was admitted into a dark ante-

solid surface. What you have perceived as a gray

chamber, which led into an utterly dark room. I

painting turns out to be empty space. Suddenly,

sat and sat and sat, watching absolute darkness,

in a stomach-turning way, you are forced to

trying to figure out what was going on. I had no

change substance for void, reality for illusion.

idea of the dimensions of the room. After three

Think of Judd’s distrust of illusion, of his

or four minutes, when my eyes had adjusted to

almost ethical rejection of anything that was

the darkness, I became aware of a wall at the far

not concrete. Then think how the Los Angeles

end of the room. Now that I understood the

minimalists embrace illusion. For them, the way

parameters of my situation, I felt more com-

to truth is to understand the power of illusion,

fortable. But when I walked toward the wall, it

to instruct us that what we see is not what we

completely dissolved. I suddenly realized that

see. By pointing out these deceptions, they make

what I had taken to be a wall was nothing more

us aware of the confluence between the internal

than a thin sliver of light introduced through a

and the external. They too defeat the mind / body

slot in the side wall, daylight falling across the

split of the European tradition, but in a very dif-

side of the room and hitting the dust motes sus-

ferent way from Judd.

pended in the air. Once this “wall” dissolved, I

Turrell comes out of a larger group of artists

could see into the far end of a room, which was

doing similar experiments, collectively known

much deeper than it had appeared a few sec-

as the California light and space movement.

onds earlier. As with the Turrell at the Whitney,

One of these is Maria Nordman, whose Varese

what seemed like a solid plane turned out to be

Room, installed in the villa of Count Giuseppe

empty space.

Panza di Biumo, near Milan, offers a similarly

Turrell’s Wedgework pieces produce a similar

mind-bending experience. No still image can

disorientation when the diagonal wall dividing

convey the effect of this work; again, I can only

the space in front of you suddenly dissolves,

describe my experience of it: From the stable of

and you realize that there is nothing tangible

­blocking you off from the far end of the room,

sophistication of the art that minimalism killed

only a spillage of light from behind the wall at

off? What compels me to choose Turrell and­

the side. The beauty of a piece like Wedgework IV

Andre over Louis is that minimalism revives and

(fig. 3.22) lies in the way that the reddened air

renovates what it seems to kill. On one hand, it

takes on a palpable thickness, so that you feel

is a radically new kind of art, not a sophisticated

you are looking at your own blood. Turrell pow-

variation on traditional modernism. It is satisfy-

erfully orchestrates the relationship between the

ing, in part, because it provides the feeling that

space you are in and the internal awareness of

we are attending to the present, not the past. It

your body as a receptive mechanism.

is our art. And yet it does not simply jettison the

Turrell’s art, like Nordman’s and many

past; it brings it back to life. The minimalists

­others’, is an art of time as well as space. Some

give us a new vocabulary for everything that we

of his most characteristic pieces are observing

formerly admired about high modernism: com-

rooms, where the razor-sharp edge no longer

position, order, and even painterly values. All of

frames an empty room but the open sky. The

these qualities come back, in new forms. A really

viewer sits below and watches the orchestration

attentive observer might have seen already that

of light as time changes and the light within

Flavin’s “fluorescent light” installation at the

the room radically alters. What you experience

Green Gallery, in November 1964, was not sim-

over a span of perhaps four or five hours is the

ply low-budget constructivism, assembled from

­palpability of space, the thickness of color, the

Canal Street cast-offs, but a push toward a new

sky as it becomes alternately deep space or a flat

kind of luscious beauty made from everyday

roof over you.

stuff—something sublime from the five-and-

When we come to a moment like this in re-

dime (fig. 3.23). People think of minimalism

ductive art, do we still regret Rothko? Do we

as reticent and dumb. But Flavin’s later instal-

still regret Morris Louis? What have we gained

lations at Count Panza’s villa in Varese are loud

in return for giving up the painterly beauty and

and extravagant (fig. 3.24). They are hungry for

minimalism  121

3.22 James Turrell, Wedgework IV, 1974. Fluorescent light, in James Turrell, an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, 1993. Lannan Foundation Collection, Santa Fe, New Mexico

1 2 2   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

space, indeed imperious in their demand for it. You cannot hang these things next to anything else. They take over; they eat the world around them. Far from being mute and huddled into themselves, they are lavish and operatic. How was one to know at the beginning that this was where Flavin’s career would lead? There is a similar transformation in the career of Flavin’s contemporary, the composer Philip Glass. His music starts out as something very simplified, reduced to a basic vocabulary of repeated sounds: di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di. But with the

in a piece called Cage II of 1965 (fig. 3.25), a

3.23

passage of years, this simplification leads to lav-

restrictive little environment referring to John

Dan Flavin, installation view, dan

ish operas on big, heroic themes: Gandhi, Nero,

Cage and perhaps also to a 1931 sculpture by

Akhnaten.

Giacometti, and LeWitt in his lattice piece of

What I am getting at here is that implicit in

1966 (fig. 3.26). At this moment in time these

the reduction that we have been talking about

artists’ works look pretty similar, but they then

with regard to minimalism is an idea of expan-

go in very different directions.

flavin: fluorescent light, Green Gallery, New York, November 18–December 12, 1964 3.24 (overleaf) Dan Flavin, Ultraviolet fluorescent light room (Kas-

sion. We should think of minimalism’s order not

LeWitt’s work is all about logic, module, and

just as “stripped down” but as “pent up.” It has

repetition. It starts simple but becomes more

from the beginning displayed an urge ­ toward

complex as it proliferates (fig. 3.27). The planes

compression that wants back out, that has in

and cubes of the modular structures overlap

Foundation, New York, the

itself the opposite desire, for expansion. Let me

until they get lost in a kind of fog; it feels like

Panza Collection (Panza Gift)

try to make this clear by looking at two very dif-

the analytic cubism of 1911. There is a sense of

ferent temperaments again: Walter De Maria

fugue-like composition; it is like the music of

sel, Documenta IV), 1968. Installation: Villa Menafoglio Litta Panza, Varese Collection, the Solomon R. Guggenheim

minimalism  123

3.25 Walter De Maria, Cage II, 1965. Stainless steel, 214.0 × 31.1 × 36.2 cm, edition 2/2. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of Agnes Gund and Lily Auchincloss 3.26 Sol LeWitt, Open Modular Cube, 1966. Painted aluminum, 152.4 × 152.4 × 152.4 cm. Art Gallery of Ontario, purchase 1969

minimalism  125

Glass, where the repetition of equal notes keeps building until it becomes mesmerizing, operatic, and sublime. LeWitt has a dry, light touch that produces profusion without losing its sense of precision. There is a teeming, musical delight to his big wall decorations, even though they are built up from simple arcs like the decorations of the Alhambra (fig. 3.28). LeWitt’s work ­ expresses the optimism of mathematics, the clarity and beauty of pure logic. Starting with a very stripped-down vocabulary, he gets complex and then simple again, arriving at the big heraldic decorations of his recent work (fig. 3.29), which revive the high humanism of the Renaissance. 3.27 Sol LeWitt, Incomplete Open Cubes,

De Maria is doing something quite different.

1974. Installation, 30.5 × 304.8 × 548.6

Compare LeWitt’s Incomplete Open Cubes and

cm. San Francisco Museum of Modern

All Combinations . . . Lines (see figs. 3.27, 3.28)

Art, ­Accessions Committee Fund: gift of

with De Maria’s Bed of Spikes of 1969 (fig. 3.30).

Emily L. Carroll and Thomas Weisel, Jean and James E. Douglas Jr., Susan and

Now we are dealing not with the abstract music

Robert Green, Evelyn Haas, Mimi and

of logic, but with the idea of weight, as in “what

Peter Haas, Eve and ­Harvey Masonek,

happens if your body falls on that spike?” Bed

Elaine McKeon, the Modern Art Council, Phyllis and Stuart G. Moldaw, Chris-

of Spikes is a mean piece in a double sense: in

tine and Michael Murray, Danielle and

its reductiveness but also in its hostility. Where

Brooks Walker Jr., and Phyllis Wattis

the LeWitt proliferates, the De Maria bristles.

1 2 6   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

3.28 Sol LeWitt, All Combinations of Arcs from Corners and Sides; Straight, Not-Straight, and Broken Lines, 1975. White chalk on black wall; wall ­drawings (one room), 487.6 × 1,188.7 × 426.7 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York

minimalism  127

physicality. The work ends up seeming transcendent and ascetic in a new way. De Maria’s The Broken Kilometer of 1979 (fig. 3.31), a kilometer’s worth of brass rods cut into pieces and put into a gallery on West Broadway in Manhattan, once again starts with a simple idea and then both extends and ­compresses it. There is a clash between the conceptual and the physical, between our idea of a distance, based on the notion of measurement as a ­mental activity, and the collapse of that idea, confronted with the fragility and instability of what is in front of us. De Maria’s choice of pristine brass rods gives Broken Kilometer a hold-yourbreath kind of preciousness. (For all the weight, clarity, and logic of minimal art, much of it is in fact precious.) The sense of ­orchestration of the body, the sense of fragility, of noli me tangere, around the De Maria, is counteracted by the fact 3.29

It goes from the isolated spindle spike rising from

that the copper rods constitute a veritable Fort

Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #601:

the first plate in the series to a forest of spikes at

Knox—or at least the space around them does.

the far end. What begins as a single unit of naked

If you know anything about real estate values in

ink wash, overall 789.9 × 753.1

aggression ends up suggesting a yogi sleeping on

New York, then you understand the lavishness

cm. Des Moines Art Center,

a bed of spikes: the contemplative renunciation

of the gesture of devoting a huge, ground-floor

purchased with funds from the

of physical sensation, ­ transcendence beyond

loft space to a single work of art. The fact that

Forms Derived from a Cube (25 Variations), 1989. Color

Coffin Fine Arts Trust; Nathan Emory Coffin Collection of the Des Moines Art Center

1 2 8   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

3.30 Walter De Maria, Bed of Spikes (photo view: installation Kunstverein St. Gallen, Switzerland, 1981), 1968–1969. Five solid, stainless steel works in the series, each base: height 6.5 × width 199.6 × depth 105.6 cm; individual spike: height 26.6 × width 2.5 × depth 2.5 cm. Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland 3.31 Walter De Maria, The Broken Kilometer, 1979. Five hundred polished, round, solid brass rods, each measuring 2 m in length and 5 cm in diameter. Long-term installation at Dia Center for the Arts, New York

minimalism  129

3.32 Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field (with lightning), 1977. Four hundred polished steel poles, grid array: 1 mi × 1 km. Quemado, New Mexico

1 3 0   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

the installation opened in 1979, and that the Dia

This is also true of De Maria’s The Lightning

Art Foundation maintains it to this day, adds

Field, which the Dia Art Foundation sponsored

another layer of meaning to the notion of exten-

in 1977 in Quemado, New Mexico (fig. 3.32).

sion. There is a powerful contrast between the

Here is the Bed of Spikes extrapolated into a

roundness of the brass rods, which look ready

field one mile deep by one kilometer wide. In-

to roll off somewhere, and the protracted still-

stead of spikes, it is filled with rods that all reach

ness of the work. So too is there a contrast be-

the same height but are shorter or longer de-

tween the mute reductiveness of the work and

pending on the slightly rolling terrain around

the expansiveness of maintaining it, between

­Quemado. The title Lightning Field is a canard,

the work’s logical clarity and the complex social

in that lightning almost never strikes the piece.

framework that surrounds it.

Many people know the work from a so to speak

3.33 Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field (with moon), 1977. Four hundred polished steel poles, grid array: 1 mi × 1 km. Quemado, New Mexico

electrifying photo that shows a bolt of light-

and of the way the field of rods changes as the

ning hitting a rod, but in fact lightning more

light around it changes. You don’t simply gaze

often falls in the fields and hills surrounding

at De Maria’s work; you allow Lightning Field to

De Maria’s work.

make you aware of everything around it—the

The real experience of the Lightning Field is

desert, the sky, the changes orchestrated by time

about something else. People are taken by car in

and light. The rods are stainless steel, and they

small groups to a cabin at the edge of the field

vibrate with incredible oranges and pinks at

of rods and left there to view it for twenty-four

sunset and at dawn. They stand out in the des-

hours. This is a long time to stare at a single work

ert like the pixels on a computer screen or the

of art. As the hours pass, you become aware of

dots in a Seurat painting. At other moments—

the broad, flat land around the Lightning Field,

at high noon, or at night when the moon rises

minimalism  131

overhead—they virtually disappear, and you

ing alone in a desert like this, where you can see

can almost convince yourself that they are not

for miles, and not spot a single set of lights. The

there (fig. 3.33). The transition from one state

only way to get this kind of absolute command

to the other occurs in tiny, incremental steps.

of the landscape is to own it: the Dia Art Foun-

The experience is mesmerizing.

dation owns not just the Lightning Field but

It is like the effect of Irwin’s scrim in the gallery space, only tremendously aggrandized. De

1 3 2   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

everything around it. This is not an example of institutional patronage on the normal order.

Maria forces you to pay attention to what is. He

I noted before that Flavin’s light sculptures

does not simply orchestrate an order within the

require a room to themselves, but what is that

piece, he orchestrates an order outside it. This

compared to the megalomaniacal reach of De

is the activation of real space that Fried saw as

Maria’s reductive art, which requires a perma-

the negative virtue of minimalism; here it seems

nent gallery on West Broadway and a private

like a positive. Other things become clear as you

desert in New Mexico (so that lights don’t in-

sit and watch. You sense that the sharp spike is

terfere with it). Oddly enough, it tends to be

a military form—a lance or a javelin. You no-

Europeans who make this all-American art

tice that birds have learned to light on the top

possible. Count Panza’s villa in Varese was the

of those sharp spikes in order to pursue ro-

great shrine of minimalism in the 1970s. It was a

dents below; from a Darwinian point of view,

German art dealer, Heiner Friedrich, along with

you intuit that the birds that did not learn to

the De Menil family, who provided the first im-

light there just haven’t survived. You realize that

portant patronage to Judd, Turrell, De Maria,

putting up pointed stainless steel spikes is not

and others. It is the Dia Art Foundation, created

a neutral way of organizing a landscape. You

by Dominique de Menil and her children, that

can’t help reflecting that, like the loft on West

maintains De Maria’s work and makes it acces-

Broadway that houses the Broken Kilometer, this

sible to viewers. So when you hear that min-

place cost someone a lot of money! Imagine be-

imalism reflects the values of corporate America

or the military-industrial complex, think again.

are dedicated to viewing certain positions of

This art is more courtly than corporate: the

Venus. Turrell is producing his own personal

scale is public, but the vision and the support

Stonehenge here: what he describes as a kind of

are individual—and without that support, one

ruin for the future. Despite the elaborate tech-

doubts that art on this scale would ever have

nology that it has taken to build it, Turrell wants

been made.

it to work on its own—to be independent, for

Let us look at two more large projects,

example, of electricity. What began in Irwin’s

­Turrell’s Roden Crater Project (figs. 3.34, 3.35)

and Turrell’s experiments of the late 1960s as a

and Judd’s installation at Marfa, Texas (figs. 3.36,

concentration on the virginal empty field and

3.37). Having begun by making rooms with

the individual minute vibration of the retinal

­little windows on the sky, Turrell has been work-

nerve, has now become a whopping monument

ing since the mid-1970s to make a really huge

that does not just shape the space in a room but

window on the sky, which is the Roden ­Crater

orchestrates an alignment between the viewer

in the ­Arizona desert. Turrell has reshaped the

and the theater of the cosmos.

dish of the crater so that it functions as a ­giant

We find a similar change of scale in our

oculus, in which you lie down and watch the

first protagonist of minimalism, Donald Judd,

dome of the sky as it shifts from twilight into

who in 1973 purchased an abandoned army

dark. The internal plan for Roden Crater depicts

barracks and camp in Marfa, Texas. Before he

long, complicated channels and tunnels cutting

died in 1994 he had transformed the industrial

through the mountain, with a central viewing

spaces of the former army camp into a beauti-

room here, a smaller viewing room there, the

ful set of installations of his own work, and of

tunnel leading to the viewpoint for one solstice

work by other artists he admired. His alumi-

on one side of the rock colliding with the tunnel

num pieces are shown in two former artillery

leading to the viewpoint for the other solstice,

sheds, while his concrete pieces are arranged

on the other side of the mountain. Some rooms

in the ­landscape outside them. It is an amazing

minimalism  133

1 3 4   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

3.34 (opposite)

­proliferation of minimalist work in an unex­

whether it is an army barrack, a volcano, or a

pected ­environment.

big empty field. These expanses are also places

­Project, 1972–present. The

Judd thus adds his own Fort Apache to

where the artist is free to exercise power and­

Painted Desert, Arizona

­Turrell’s primordial volcano and De Maria’s

control. I have been talking about the am­

virginal desert. They all come to the open space

bivalences of minimalism—its combination of­

3.35 (above)

of the West, whether from Los Angeles or New

power and authority versus its preciousness and

James Turrell, Roden Crater

York, because it is the great American ­palette, a

fragility, its need for a sympathetic context, its

­Project, 1972–present. The

zone of freedom or emptiness, where it is still

quest for immediacy, and its ambitions for con­

possible to become the owner of a vast area,

templative duration. All of these things come

James Turrell, Roden Crater

(aerial view, 1989)

Painted Desert, Arizona (view of sky from crater dish with rim, dusk, 1981)

minimalism  135

3.36 Donald Judd, North Artillery Shed (side view), with permanent installation of 52 mill aluminum works, 1982–86. Permanent collection of the Chinati Foun­ dation, Marfa, Texas. Art © Donald Judd Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY 3.37 Donald Judd, North Artillery Shed (interior view) with permanent installation of 52 mill aluminum works, 1982–86. Permanent collection of the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas. Art © Donald Judd Foun­ dation, by VAGA, New York, NY

1 3 6   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

3.38 I. M. Pei and Partners, architects, East Building, National Gallery of Art, Washington, opened 1978

together at Marfa, at the Lightning Field, at the Roden Crater. The result is a series of spacious shrines to which a lucky few can make pilgrimages. Yet the impact of minimalism is not only felt in these private spaces for the elite; it has entered every part of our life. The very building in which we are sitting—I. M. Pei’s East Building of the National Gallery, completed in 1978 (fig. 3.38)—is certainly unthinkable without the broad, flat, un‑ articulated, unfenestrated form that is emphasized in the aesthetic of vastly reductive art of the early and mid-1960s. In the purification and simplification of this art, Pei finds a ­vocabulary of authority that can hold its own with the grandeur and pom-

deliberately ambiguous primal sign. It is not

posity of the classicism of the Capitol and the

just that reductive, minimal forms—such as the

other buildings in Washington. Maya Lin’s Viet-

pyramids—are consonant with an architecture of

nam War Memorial, nearby on the Mall, is even

death or memory; it is also that the mute purity

more indebted to the aesthetic of minimalist

of Lin’s two triangles, together with the literal-

sculpture. What Lin finds in minimalism’s whole-

ness of the names of the dead soldiers inscribed

ness and in its purity is not a vocabulary of author-

on them, provides both a way of speaking while

ity but a vocabulary of ambiguity (fig. 3.39). Here

maintaining a Delphic silence. This was instantly

we are back to the monolith, to its imposing

seen as the only appropriate, and possibly unify-

authority but also to its enigmatic aura of

ing or consensus-building, vehicle for a war about

uncertainty. Lin’s monument functions as a

which there is still strong disagreement. The

minimalism  137

radical values of minimalism—the avoidance of hierarchy, the reduction of verticality, the elimination of internal composition in favor of an external wholeness—here moves out of the cult world of the gallery and into a civic arena of the highest importance. Similarly, if you look at Peter Eisenman’s proposal for a Holocaust memorial for Berlin (fig. 3.40), you can see how he has made use of Andre’s sense of repetition, weight, and modularity, his lack of hierarchy and differentiation, to create a monument about the bureaucracy of evil. Looking at these large blocklike forms, you ask yourself: are these loading cars, are they grave3.39

stones, are they barracks in concentration camps?

Maya Lin, Vietnam War

The forms yield no answers, they are anonymous.

Memorial, 1982. Black granite, 12.5 × 3.1 m. National Park Service, Washington, D.C.

They remind us how repetition and classification, the tools of twentieth-century rationality, also provide a symbolic vocabulary for expressing

3.40 Peter Eisenman, Proposal for

the moral ambiguity of rationality, the ambigu-

Holocaust Memorial, Berlin,

ity of order itself: on the one hand the virtues of

2000. U.S. Embassy, Gehry Bank,

control, on the other hand the extremely negative

Ungers. © Foundation Memo-

consequences. What we are left with in this pared-

rial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Peter Eisenman, 2000

down vocabulary of Maya Lin and Peter Eisenman is immediate sensory perception, which in

1 3 8   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

3.41 Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Paperbacks), 1997. Plaster and steel, 450 × 480 × 632 cm. Gift of Agnes Gund and Committee on Painting and Sculpture Funds, The Museum of Modern Art, New York

turn forces one to attend to the relationship with

image of and an antithesis to the monolith of

the body. At the millennium, it is this vocabulary

2001 with which we began (see fig. 3.1). Where

that is the preferred style of memory and con-

the monolith is a massive, mute, but deeply im-

templation; it is our contemporary and almost

posing presence, Whiteread’s sculpture consists

inescapable language of solemn monumentality.

of a series of voids, plaster casts of the nega-

Rachel Whiteread’s Memorial to the Victims of

tive spaces above books in a library. The voids

the Holocaust, in Vienna, also uses a ­vocabulary

are where the books were; the jagged edges are

of repeated forms, only in this case the re-

the tops of the books. If the monolith seems to

peated forms are books. Whiteread’s Untitled

sum up all knowledge, to condense into a single

(Paperbacks) of 1997 (fig. 3.41), one of her ­studies

block everything that is superior and ­beyond us,

for this memorial, is simultaneously a mirror

the White­read expresses absence and loss. What

minimalism  139

3.42 Andreas Gursky, Times Square, NY, 1997, 1997. C-print, 185.4 × 248.9 cm. Courtesy Monika Sprueth Gallery/ Philomene Magers

1 4 0   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

is absent, in the first instance, is the knowledge

Andreas Gursky, in his Times Square, NY,

embodied in books—earthly knowledge, not

1997, uses a nearly identical vocabulary of

knowledge from Mars. At the same time, the ab-

minimalism—the Judd stacks, the modularity,

sent books function as symbols for the millions

the repetition—to suggest the anomie and the

of lives that were lost in the Holocaust. It seems

sterility in a computer-organized vision of the

safe to insist that Whiteread would not have ar-

soaring atrium of a modern hotel (fig. 3.42).

rived at this metaphor without the examples of

Gursky’s vision is about all that we have lost in a

Judd’s stacks and Andre’s modularity, or without

different sense: the inhumanity of logic, the in-

their insistence that blankness, literalness, and

humanity of repetition. The two sides are never

dumbness could provide a powerful expressive

going to be resolved. One thing is for certain,

language for modern sculpture.

however. No, this was not a joke.

minimalism  141

N ot e s

1. Donald Judd, “Local History,” Arts Yearbook (1964); reprinted in Donald Judd: ­Complete Writings, 1959–1975 (Halifax: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design; and New York: New York University Press, 1975), 151. 2. Richard Wollheim, “Minimal Art,” Arts Magazine (January 1965); reprinted in Gregory Battcock, ed., Minimal Art: A Critical ­ Anthology (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968), 387–399. 3. “I must admit,” Clark says, “that bourgeois ­sentiment and realism can produce a vulgar trivial art, and the determinist historian . . . might say that this was what the Dutch were bound to get. Well,” Clark adds, “they also got Rembrandt.” Kenneth Clark, Civilization: A Personal View (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), 201. 4. Stella’s painting provided a kind of role model for the new minimalist sculpture, so Rose was well placed to observe what was happening. Barbara Rose, “ABC Art,” Art in America ­(October–November 1965); reprinted in Battcock, Minimal Art, 274–277. 5. Philip Leider, “Literalism and Abstraction: Frank Stella’s Retrospective at the Modern,” Artforum 8:8 (April 1970), 44–51. 6. Michael Fried argued that “Line, in Pollock’s all-over drip paintings of 1947–50, has been freed at last from the job of describing contours and ­bounding shapes. It has been purged of its figurative character.  .  .  .  Pollock’s line bounds and delimits ­nothing—­except, in a sense, eyesight.  .  .  .  There is only a pictorial field so homogenous, overall and devoid of both ­ recognizable objects and of abstract

1 4 2   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

shapes that I want to call it ‘optical.’” Fried, “Jackson ­Pollock,” Artforum (September 1965); reprinted in Pepe ­Karmel, ed., Jackson Pollock: Interviews, Articles and Reviews (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1999), 98–99. Fried’s argument here is a brilliant extension of a passage in Clement Greenberg’s 1958 revision of his essay, “The New Sculpture” (see lecture 1, n. 3, Art and Culture, 1961). 7. Donald Judd, “Jackson Pollock,” Arts Magazine (April 1967); reprinted in Judd: Complete Writings, 195. 8. Bruce Glaser, “Questions to Stella and Judd,” 1964 interview published in ARTnews (September 1966); reprinted in Battcock, Minimal Art, 149–151. 9. Donald Judd, “David Smith,” Arts Magazine (December 1964); reprinted in Judd: Complete Writings, 144–145. In Judd’s stack pieces (see fig. 3.10, for instance), there is no balance between top and ­bottom; there is just a series of identical units—“one damn thing after another,” as people used to say in the 1960s. 10. William James, “Pragmatism” (1907), in James, Pragmatism and Other Writings (New York: Penguin, 2000), 34–35. 11. It is difficult to find an exact source for the statement that Judd’s desire to get away from the European model had to do with his aversion to the ­rational and his preference for the pragmatic, literal, and concrete. In Glaser, “Questions to Stella and Judd” (151), Judd denounces rationalism as “a certain type of thinking and logic that is pretty well discredited now.” His preference for concrete rather than

metaphorical qualities is evident in his unpublished December 18, 1967, interview with Barbara Rose (transcript in the Barbara Rose Papers, Special Collections, The Getty Center), where he explains his decision to use stainless steel in a particular piece by saying, “You’re choosing materials because they produce a certain quality . . . you’re using a quality that it [the material] has. I like the quality better than anything I could do to it anyway” (pp. 10–11 of the unpaginated transcript, quoted by permission of ­Barbara Rose and The Getty Center). Judd’s comments here recall Stella’s remark in “Questions to Stella and Judd”: “I tried to keep the paint as good as it was in the can” (157). 12. Robert Morris, in his 1966 “Notes on Sculpture,” argues for the elimination of “internal relationships” in sculpture because they “tend to eliminate the viewer” insofar as they “pull him into an intimate relation with the work and out of the space in which the object exists.” In contrast, Morris argues, “the better new work”—his own, but also Judd’s and ­Andre’s— “takes relationships out of the work and makes them a function of space, light, and the ­viewer’s field of vision. Robert Morris, “Notes on Sculpture,” parts 1 and 2, Artforum (February and October 1966); reprinted in Battcock, Minimal Art, 232–233. 13. Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood,” Art­ forum (June 1967); reprinted in Battcock, Minimal Art, 125–128.

14. A thorough search of the Judd literature, including interviews with him, did not produce the source for this quotation. 15. In his December 18, 1967, interview with ­Barbara Rose, Judd says: “I like Matisse, I’ve always liked Matisse” (p. 33 of the unpaginated transcript). However, it is not clear where Varnedoe found that Judd expresses his interest in Matisse’s “light and lightness, the thinness and fineness of his edges and materials, the transparency of his volumes.” 16. Anna Chave, “Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power,” Arts Magazine (January 1990). 17. Judd’s working notes show him looking through dozens of different car colors, until he settles on a few favorites, such as “Harley-Davidson Hi-Fi Red” and “1958 Chevrolet Regal Turquoise.” See David Batchelor, “Everything as Color,” in Nicholas Serota, ed., Donald Judd, exh. cat. (London: Tate Publishing; and New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 2004), 65; and William Agee, “Donald Judd and the Endless Possibilities of Color,” in Dietmar Elger, ed., Donald Judd: Colorist, exh. cat. (Hanover: Sprengel Museum, 2000), cited in Batchelor, 74. 18. Jane Livingston, “Robert Irwin and James ­Turrell,” in Maurice Tuchman and Jane Livingston, A Report on the Art and Technology Program of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1967–1971 (Los ­Angeles County Museum of Art, 1971), 139–143.

minimalism  143

4

af ter minimalism

We have been talking about art of the early 1960s

understanding. Minimalism ­succeeded, in fact,

that came to be called minimalism—sculpture

in confounding categories and leaving people in

such as Morris’s installation at the Dwan ­Gallery

honest doubt as to whether its guiding spirit was

in 1966 or Flavin’s “monument” for V. Tatlin I

Malevich, affirming and idealistic, or ­Duchamp,

of 1964 (figs. 4.1, 1.33). Work like this did not

ironic and nihilistic.

­simply seek to escape cognitive definition; that

Now I want to turn from the early 1960s to

is, it did not want to look like a dog, and it did

the later 1960s, the period roughly from the

not want to look like a landscape. More ambi-

Warren Commission to Watergate, when it

tiously, it ­ wanted to resist classification alto-

became all the more difficult for artists to es-

gether, simple niches like painting or sculpture.

cape categories because minimalism had itself

Judd’s now famous essay on this new work of

become a ­category. It was no longer possible to

the early 1960s was called “Specific Objects,” and

produce a cube that was just a cube; instead, a

in it he argued for a body of work that ­escaped

cube looked like a reference to Judd. The in-

the standard genres of art, that was “neither

stallation of a minimalist tradition coalesced

painting nor sculpture.” The idea was that this

extraordinarily fast, like everything else in the

work could only be seen exactly for what it was

1960s. Society went through spasmodic, vio-

and not be put into some ready-made bin of

lent mood swings. Just a few months intervened

1

­between ­Woodstock in the summer of 1969 and

This rapid pace of change was felt in the art

Altamont in December of 1969, but those few

world as well. My wife, Elyn Zimmerman, was

months made all the difference in the world.

an artist emerging in Los Angeles at ­ precisely

Those of us growing up then expected a new

this time, and I owe a lot of my thinking about

Beatles album every few months that would

the late 1960s to her experience as a gradu-­

change our lives completely: Rubber Soul, Re-

ate student. She remembers the overload of

volver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,

information coming to art students through

Magical Mystery Tour, and the White Album

magazines such as Artforum, the sudden aware-­

Robert Morris Installation,

were like several different universes one had

ness that ­ every twitch on the art network sent

Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, 1966

lived through in swift succession.

­repercussions to its outermost perimeters,

4.1

so that everyone was aware of the latest show at Castelli or the Dwan Gallery and felt pres-­ sured by an overheated ­ market to develop the next “new” thing. More information, increasing demand for novelty, and faster social change meant that almost before minimalism was born, it had become a tradition, something that had to be addressed. This pressure in the late 1960s leads to a ­paradox in the art world. The anti-­institutional aesthetic and ethic that affects so many people in this period—a rejection of power and the standard social conventions—turns artists away from not only specific objects in Judd’s sense, but any kind of object. They want to make things that are too big, too ephemeral, or too

1 4 6   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

unmanageable to be collected or exchanged on

qualities banished from the “specific objects” of

the ­ market. The odd thing about this move-

the early 1960s.2

ment away from the collectible object is that it

This new generation of artists absorbs the

gives the ­upper hand to sculpture. In the con-

­formal terms of minimalism in the mid-1960s

test ­ between Greenberg’s painterly tradition

but then immediately challenges the ­ basic

(Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons) and

­premises of minimalism in the form of an

the minimal ­ object (Robert Morris, Donald

­implied critique of minimalism’s claim to blank

Judd, Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre), the object wins.

neutrality. This critique takes hold nearly as

Sculpture in the late 1960s turns out to be the

fast as minimalism itself had crystallized in the

ultimate “none of the above” category. That is,

mid-1960s. (The critique is then catalyzed,

even in the sense that painting is only paint-

­powerfully, in a wave of social changes and

ing, it cannot compete with the literalism of,

­attitudes that emerges during and after the

say, the three-dimensional appropriation of real

revolutionary events of spring 1968.) The most

materials in the world. As a category, sculpture

obvious challenge is once again the return of

is flexible and expandable in a way that paint-

recognizable imagery, the very thing that artists

ing is not. “Sculpture” can include video instal-

such as Morris and Judd had fought to exclude.

lation, earthworks, and performance; it turns

Young sculptors of the mid-1960s and early

out to be a labile term—just as “art” has been a

1970s found that with just a slight tweaking of

labile term in the twentieth century—a subject

Morris’s forms, for example, they could be rein-

that c­onstantly transforms itself by incorporat-

stalled within familiar categories like purpose-

ing new things. Sculpture, then, is the ­dominant

built architecture and design. For example Joel

work medium of the ­ period we are about to

Shapiro, in his untitled work of 1975, simply

examine because it can take into ­ account the

places the triangular piece in the background of

literalism of minimalist sculpture—its weight,

Morris’s 1966 installation at the Dwan Gallery

gravity, and “kick-it” specificity—at the same

(see fig. 4.1) on top of one of Morris’s blocks

time that it can reintroduce the pictorial

in the foreground and comes up with a kind of

after minimalism  147

Monopoly house (fig. 4.2). Shapiro’s form has a symbolic resonance with things outside it; 4.2 Joel Shapiro, Untitled (House), 1975. Cast iron, 19.1 × 27.3 ×

it is not merely its own height and width but a form of shelter. At the same time he is also

21.6 cm. The Museum of

rethinking the specificity of height and width

Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,

in ­ minimalism, and for this reason the small

the Barry Lowen Collection

scale of this piece is very important. Comparing

4.3

Shapiro’s 1976 installation at the Museum of

Installation view of David

Contemporary Art, Chicago (fig. 4.3), with the

­Gilhooly, Will Insley, Joel

Morris 1964 installation at Green, you can see

Shapiro, Museum of ­Contemporary Art, Chicago, September 11–November 7, 1976

the point exactly (see fig. 3.11). The idea of corporeal scale is itself being ­recast so that it generates a new set of associations. Morris’s gray boxes are at the same scale as the viewer’s body: we confront them in the present tense. In contrast, Shapiro’s little ­ pieces function metaphorically rather than literally. They are like decoys or models that refer to the imaginative reconstruction of shelter and ­ domesticity, of bins and storage, of things that simultaneously make us feel enormous and send us off into distant spaces. Now the activation of the gallery space begins to be associated with memory and metaphor; instead of a kinesthetic stimulus, works such as

1 4 8   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

Shapiro’s provide a stimulus to memory and

in fact is less about logic than about memory,

imagination.

­fantasy, and dream worlds.

Along with Shapiro’s little houses, there is a

At the other pole is the work of Scott ­Burton

whole raft of architectural sculpture in the early

(fig. 4.5) and others, who use the forms of

1970s that rewrites the meaning of ­minimalism.

­minimalism to revisit the history of design

When Alice Aycock builds a ramp structure in

and its ­interchange with the history of ­abstract

1978 (fig. 4.4), for instance, we then see the wedge

form. For instance, Burton, who comes out of

in the background of Morris’s 1966 ­installation

performance art, reinvests pure shape with a

as a kind of ramp and this raises questions as to

social dimension. One of Burton’s great heroes

what that circle in the background of the ­Morris

is the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi,

4.4 Alice Aycock, Ramp Structure, 1978. Wood, 243.8 × 243.8 × 243.8 cm. Collection unknown

might mean (see fig. 4.1). Instead of seeing space as neutral, or as something we respond to simply in terms of bodily experience, artists like Aycock and Shapiro see space as a realm of poetic metaphors, often based on associations with architecture. Many artists of this generation are influenced by a book called The Poetics of Space, by the French scholar Gaston Bachelard.3 For Bachelard, terms like “space,” “enclosure,” “up,” and “down” are not neutral designations but are often suggestive of attics, cellars, facades, doors, entryways, and so forth. This idea inspires a whole body of art that utilizes the modular wooden construction of a LeWitt and the geometric forms of a Judd or a Morris, but that

after minimalism  149

4.5 Scott Burton, Pair of Rock Chairs, 1980. Gneiss, two pieces: 125.1 × 110.5 × 101.6 cm; 111.8 × 167.6 × 108 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired through the Philip Johnson, Mr. and Joseph Pulitzer Jr., and Robert Rosenblum Funds

1 5 0   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

who made his career in Paris. ­ Burton looks

purpose-built, as the minimalists tried to do,

at ­ Brancusi’s studio and studies the relation-

Burton pushes the forms back into the realm

ship between the symbolic forms of ­Brancusi’s

of utilitarian objects, tweaking them in order

­sculpture, the bases he made to put them

to assert that the symbolic, the abstract, and the

on, and the furniture he made for ­ himself

functional are not isolated from but integrated

to sit on. Instead of decategorizing forms,

with one another. This ­assertion ties Burton to

instead of ­moving away from the functional or

the Russian constructivist tradition of Malevich

and Rodchenko, who insisted on an intimate

abstract art that is on its way to becoming rep-

link between so-called pure abstraction and the

resentational in a much broader and imageless

transformation of the man-made world.

sense. It is more diffuse, and ultimately more

In the work of artists like Shapiro, Aycock, and Burton the blank forms of minimalism are

powerful, I think, than a ­pediment or a chair or one image or function assigned to a shape.

reinscribed and tinted with associations. But

Like the minimalists, Heizer, Smithson, and

instead of exploring the return of imagery and

their peers found in Pollock’s drip paintings

function within the language of minimalism, I

the model for an art of simplicity and whole-

want to follow the story of imageless abstrac-

ness with no hierarchies and no detachable

tion as it unfolds in the earthworks of artists like

parts, but instead an allover web of creativity.

Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson. I want

Its composition was determined in large part by

to stay with the life of abstraction, imageless

the unmediated literalness of its processes and

­abstraction. For some of the same issues we have

materials. Simplicity, wholeness, order, process,

just visited—of the psyche, the body, and social

and materials—these become the watchwords

order—are invested in the reductive vocabulary

for a new generation of artists who were about

of Judd, LeWitt, and Morris by a new generation

to transform minimalism.

that is in thrall to the powers and permissions

In 1972–74 Heizer created Complex One / City

of minimalism’s new abstract vocabulary, yet

(fig. 4.6), the first of an extensive series of struc-

pressed at the same time by the world in which

tures in the Nevada desert which he continues

they live to speak that vocabulary in another

working on to this day. Their parentage in the

voice, to charge it with unexpected meanings. We

work of Morris is clear: simple ­geometric forms,

find their work of the early 1970s an art that is a

no internal parts, a unified wholeness. But instead

thoroughly abstract, self-declared descendent of

of opening onto an unfamiliar neutrality, as in

minimalism, but an art that is also at odds with

Morris’s work, Heizer’s complex evokes a differ-

its parent movement. Their art is a transformed

ent sense of the primal. The ­reductive ­simplicity

after minimalism  151

1 5 2   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

of Heizer and his peers has a specifically archaic

to the material of the earth itself, and to forms

quality. Heizer’s devotion to Malevich and the

simplified by time: things that have ­ eroded,

Russian abstractionists fuses with an interest in

things that have lost all excrescences, ­ruins that

pre-Columbian architecture, such as the Mayan

are stumped down, as are the ball courts, to their

ball courts at Chichen-Itza and Uxmal in the

basic ­underlying form.

­Yucatan. In the catalogue for a 1984 retrospective

As the son of an archaeologist, Heizer grew

of Heizer’s work, he came right out and provided

up surrounded by pre-Columbian work and by

photographs of sources for his work: on the one

other kinds of archaeological forms. Therefore

hand, the architectons of Malevich, and on the

his attraction to simplicity is partly a matter

other, Chichen-Itza, the step pyramid of Zoser,

of personal experience and taste. But it is also

the heads on ­Easter ­Island, the horse carved into

symptomatic of the mid-to-late 1960s, and then

the ground at ­Wessex, the rock-cut sanctuaries

the early 1970s, when Heizer matured as an

of Ajanta, the temples carved in living stone at

­artist. People of my generation probably all have

Mamallapuram in India, and so forth.4

buried somewhere a library of paperbacks that

In an interview with Julia Brown, Heizer spells

includes Stonehenge Decoded, The Tao of Physics,

out the distinction between what he calls “mega-

The Dancing Wu Li Masters, and, of course, Erich

lithic” and “piecemeal” societies, that is, societies

Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods—books that

that express themselves in single, whole forms,

underscore the popular belief of the time that

like the carvings in Ajanta or ­ Mamallapuram,

the most advanced and the oldest forms of un-

versus societies that express themselves by con-

derstanding were the same thing; that advanced

5

structing things from little bits and fragments.

quantum physics and Taoist thought, for exam-

He specifically includes modern society, with its

ple, were one and the same; that Stonehenge was

assemblages of steel modules, in the latter cate-

in fact a giant computer, and so on. Accordingly,

gory, in contrast to the grand ­solidarity of the old

the future, as we imagined it, was linked to the

stone cultures. ­Heizer is drawn to forms linked

deep past in a way that sidestepped any idea of

progress. In that context, the timeless forms of

else, makes his book into a minimalist version

4.6

minimalism, that is, the forms that Morris and

of art history. Historians of modern art tend to

Michael Heizer, Complex One /

others had thought made no reference outside

identify formalism with Clement Greenberg,

themselves and had only a present-tense exis-

but Kubler’s theory is, if anything, the ­antithesis

tence in the gallery, became timeless in another

of Greenberg’s. For Greenberg, the ­ emphasis

sense, insofar as they equated the present and

on form is a way to purify the medium of

the future with the deep past, collapsing alpha

­painting—to get down to its essence. For Kubler,

and omega. This is what happens in a work like

on the other hand, formalism is a way of ignor-

Heizer’s Complex One.

ing the differences between arts, and between

A seminal text for understanding works like

the fine and applied arts. Formalism is a leveling

this is George Kubler’s The Shape of Time, pub-

device that allows him to treat everything the

lished in 1961.6 Kubler offers a purely formalist

same way: potsherds, chairs, spears—anything

theory of the development of art and design,

that human beings produce.

eliminating individual artists and their biog-

Just as Kubler wants to eliminate the barriers

raphies, the symbolic dimension of art, indeed

between the fine and applied arts, he would also

any kind of subjectivity. He is interested only in

eliminate any biological metaphors of growth.

the way that forms emerge, develop, and vanish

In contrast, Greenberg’s theory of form and for-

in the course of history. Kubler’s focus on the

mal development is Hegelian and leads toward

forms of things, to the exclusion of everything

increasing perfection or realization. Kubler’s

City, 1972–74, Nevada. Earthwork, 71.6 × 335.3 × 426.7 m

after minimalism  153

theory is based in anthropology and ­linguistics.

1960s. “Part of my art is based on an awareness

He gives a great, magisterial overview, trac-

that we live in a nuclear era,” Heizer says in an

ing the development of form in fifth-century

interview in 1984. “We’re probably living at the

Greece, in China, and in Mayan civilization,

end of civilization.” His project in the Nevada

noting constantly recurring patterns that have

desert, a great monumental series of abstract

to do with what he sees as the eventual exhaus-

forms, equates the erosive force of ­centuries—

tion of choices. While Greenberg’s formalism

the blunting of ruins and grand residues of

leads toward a kind of perfectionism, Kubler’s

past societies—with the explosive force of the

formalism suggests there is a degenerative or

present. He makes clear that Complex One is

­exhausting aspect, a limited prospect, in the

situated close to a nuclear blast site, and that its

possibilities of form. He has a pessimistic belief

angled front wall is designed to serve as a blast

that the invention of form is a zero-sum game,

shield, deflecting the power of a nuclear bomb.7

that what has been made before reduces the

Heizer’s elemental forms collapse time into a

possibilities of what can be made now. Kubler

view colored by a millennial, almost apocalyp-

speculates—in a way that I think many people in

tic sense of the present. He uses reduction as

the late 1960s may have found appealing—that

a way of hunkering down against the forces of

instead of the modernist notion that we have in

history. Heizer’s expanded concept of time—of

front of us an endless series of options, we may

vast eons that will stretch after us and that have

in fact be approaching the end of a set of possi-

stretched before us—is linked to the idea of

bilities, that there may be much more invention

scale, of making things big and making things

behind us than there is in front of us.

in open space. Simplicity, then, becomes associ-

Kubler’s ideas are in sync not only with the formalism of the minimalist and postminimal-

1 5 4   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

ated with monumentality in Heizer’s work in a very specific way.

ist generations but also with the pessimism that

In much of the art of the late 1960s, the

becomes increasingly apparent at the end of the

­theatrics of space that Michael Fried so disliked

about early minimalism becomes vastly extrap-

markings—and it still survives—is Heizer’s

4.7

olated beyond the gallery space. Heizer is one

Double Negative of 1969–70, on the Virgin River

Michael Heizer, Double Negative

of the key exponents of moving literally out of

Mesa in Nevada. As you can see from an aerial

the gallery and into a much broader “canvas.”

view (fig. 4.7), it consists of two trenches incised

Nevada. 240,000-ton displace-

He begins by making vast marks in the ­desert,

on either side of an eroded canyon and lined up

ment of rhyolite and sandstone,

­often drawing huge circles (like something out

so that, standing in one trench and looking across

of ­ Malevich) with his motorcycle, and also

at the other, one joins them as if they made up a

spreading dye to make paintings that are only

single slash. It is as if the hand of God had come

readable from thousands of meters in the air.

down from above and cut straight through the

The most impressive and best known of these

canyon, or as if something that was formerly

(aerial view), 1969–70, Mormon Mesa (Virgin River Mesa),

457.2 × 15.2 × 9.14 m. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, gift of Virginia Dwan

after minimalism  155

unified had been disrupted by forces of ­erosion

they are often lumped together, and we can see

or ­ incursion, ­ creating a huge mark on a vast

why, looking at Long’s Line in the Himalayas

space. The idea of a great, simple geometric

of 1975 (fig. 4.8). Like Heizer, Long worked in

gesture in conflict with the erosive structure

­nature, making elaborate stone arrangements or

around it takes Pollock’s expansion of scale, and

other kinds of circles with ­connections ­reaching

the idea of moving beyond the borders of the

back to ancient stone cairns, stone ­circles, men-

canvas, into an entirely different dimension.

hirs, and dolmens around the world. This is

Heizer’s work is not to the taste of everyone.

very much Long’s personal ­vocabulary; ­inspired

In the mid-1980s, when I included him in an

by forms of the deep past, he projects the

exhibition with the British artist Richard Long,

­geometry of minimalism out into ­ nature. Per-

81 × 121 cm. Courtesy of the

I discovered that Long vehemently disliked the

sonal ­ experience in the form of long ­ solitary

artist and Haunch of Venison

kind of work that Heizer was doing. ­Nonetheless

(and well-documented) walks in the British

4.8 Richard Long, Line in the Himalayas, 1975. Photograph,

­countryside—a kind of Lake Country picturesque tradition merged with an ecologically correct pursuit—was also integral to his work. What Long hated about the earthworks of Heizer and Smithson and others was that they seemed to carry out, on a cosmically destructive scale, the vast American ego and power mania built into minimalism in the first place. Theirs was the cowboy recklessness of Pollock realized in an egregious and destructive fashion. But I think something more complex is ­going on in the Heizer, and I would like to stand up for it and for work like it. In earthworks like

1 5 6   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

4.9 Michael Heizer, Double Negative (ground view), 1969–70, Mormon Mesa (Virgin River Mesa), Nevada. 240,000-ton displacement of rhyolite and sandstone, 472.2 × 15.4 × 9.14 m. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los ­Angeles, gift of Virginia Dwan

Heizer’s it is the play between the close up and

with a brute, unerring simplicity, something

the faraway, between the view with one’s feet on

that stands out as a man-made absolute against

the ground and the aerial view, that is impor-

the geological forces of erosion of the canyon.

tant. The ground view of Double Negative aimed

The idea of simplicity with which we started,

down into one of the trenches is interesting in

then, could be said to depend in these works on

this regard (fig. 4.9). The ground view is about

just how far back you stand. And that sounds

embedded layers of structure, embedded layers

an odd echo of a late-nineteenth-century theory

of geology; in archaeological terms, it represents

of sculpture proposed by Adolf von Hildebrand.

layers of human development, stratified time,

Hildebrand contrasted the experience of view-

time that is accreted, time that is textured, time

ing sculpture from close up as opposed to from

that is the cumulative buildup of minute inci-

a ­distance, the fragmented uncertainty and the

dents. The aerial view, on the other hand, shows

piecemeal, subjective disarray of viewing sculp-

Double Negative as something globally unified,

ture at close range as opposed to the decisive

after minimalism  157

1 5 8   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

certainty and clarity of viewing sculpture at a

Spiral Jetty one of the most well-known and

distance.8 For Hildebrand the proper role of

least-seen works of art ever made. Smithson also

classicizing art was to clarify things as if they

made a film about the making of Spiral Jetty,

were seen from a distance, to invest all sculpture

which is in a sense almost part of the artwork

with a kind of fernsicht vision, that is, a kind of

(fig. 4.11). In fact originally he had thought of

far, distant vision. This distinction is brought

having a small theater next to the Spiral Jetty,

into relationship, it seems to me, by works

where the film would be constantly projected.

such as Heizer’s, where the grand aura of clar-

The film promotes both the micro and ­macro

ity and simplicity is the privilege of the aerial

aspects of the earthwork. On the micro side is

view, whereas on the ground one sees only the

the crystallization of the Great Salt Lake: the salt

brutality and fragmentation of the cut through

crystals forming on rocks, a kind of incrustation

many thousands of layers and the crumbling

in which the salt of the lake will, like rust, engulf

­variety and diversity of the earth around it. This

the Spiral Jetty, forming a piecemeal blanket over

contrast presents, I think, not merely a formal

the form that he has made. On the macro level,

problem but one that has social implications as

from overhead, we see a primal form in the spiral

well, these having to do with the ­ relationship

of ambiguous growth and decay: the helical pat-

between individual experience and that of

tern of a nautilus shell on the one hand, and of

­collective ­society.

water going down the drain on the other. What

Another work that has both macro and ­micro

we do not see in these views of Smithson’s jetty is

aspects is Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, which most

that it constantly makes intercuts between bull-

people know from Gianfranco Gorgoni’s now

dozers pushing rocks and dinosaurs. Again the

canonical photograph of the earthwork when it

relationship between a deep lost and destroyed

was first made in the Great Salt Lake in Utah in

past and the violence and force of contemporary

1970 (fig. 4.10). This photograph, certainly one

society—so apparent in Heizer’s Complex One—

of the great images of art of its time, has made

is replayed by Smithson in another way. Close up

the Spiral Jetty is power, jumble, violence, and

twentieth century, involves a kind of ­optimism,

4.10

slow, fragmentary accretion; from above it is only

the shock of a new, nonhuman objectivity.

Robert Smithson, Spiral

a great, blank, desolate, cosmic implacability.

Here was something that evaded the pathos of

Jetty, April 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah. Black rock, salt

I have written elsewhere about the overhead

­perspective, where things get smaller as they get

crystals, earth, and red water

view in modernity and what it means. In László

farther from you, and laid out the world in front

(algae), 1.06 × 4.57 × 457.2 m.

Moholy-Nagy’s 1928 photograph from a radio

of you as if it were from a God’s-eye viewpoint.

tower in Berlin (fig. 4.12), this earlier idea of the

The idea of the overhead view, of detachment

direct overhead view, which is very specific to the

from the earth, of ­impersonality and ­objectivity,

9

­Collection Dia Art ­Foundation. Art © Estate of Robert Smithson/ Licensed by VAGA, New York

after minimalism  159

4.11 Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970. Film stills, Great Salt Lake, Utah. Black rock, salt crystals, earth, and red water (algae), 1.06 × 4.57 × 457.2 m. Art © Estate of Robert Smithson/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

1 6 0   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

became the emblem of the shock of fresh de-

Spiral Jetty re-emerging from the Great Salt

familiarization that would lead to a detached

Lake, the overhead view of things unintelligible

and superior knowledge of the world. Instead

from the earth speaks to enigma and to mystery

of the muddled near-view perspective, where

(fig. 4.13).

things were blocked off from one another, from

One cannot have this discussion without

­overhead one saw the schematic truth of the

bringing in Isamu Noguchi’s 1947 sculpture

world exactly as it was.

made to be seen from Mars (fig. 4.14). A little

Today, in an age when artists have been shaped

corny perhaps in its orchestration of pyramids

by the first photographs from space of the earth

and mounds—I mean, there is Heizer’s Com-

as a lonely blue marble in the middle of a great

plex One at the top, and an Egyptian pyramid

black expanse, there is less of a shock in the loss

at the bottom for the nose; it depends on image

of the human viewpoint. Objectivity at a dis-

­recognition—but how interesting that it is made

tance and overhead becomes not about the new

just after the atomic bomb is dropped for the first

man but about things primordial, that is, lost

time. Remember the 1960s saying, that we were

­civilizations like those who made the Nazca lines

either going to get “stoned into the bomb age

in Peru. It becomes not so much about ­schematic

or bombed into the Stone Age”—that the two

truth in its freshness as about an aged sense of

things were related and that we were living in an

mystery and distance. ­ Whether it is the Nazca

age of imminent extinction? Heizer’s ­interest in

lines or the snake mounds in Ohio or ­Smithson’s

the nuclear blast, for example—linked us back

4.12 László Moholy-Nagy, Berlin Radio Tower, c. 1928. Gelatin silver print, 36 × 25.5 cm. Art Institute of Chicago, Julien Levy Collection, Special Photography

the nuclear age. In the Vietnam War it all comes

Acquisition Fund, 1979.84

back, and with a new fearsomeness. Let me just briefly recap. I began with the idea of simplicity, or wholeness, as something

4.13 Nazca People, Nazca Spiral, 200 BC–600 BCE, Nazca Desert, Peru

that the minimalists derived from an interpretation of Pollock’s canvases. I pointed out that the scale and the idea of objectivity were also important to these artists, and that for all minimalists these were purely formal properties, that indeed the early 1960s minimalists claimed to be ­pragmatic, neutral, and involved in a present-tense experience. But by the late to a stone age. That is all that was going to be

1960s, under a different set of societal pressures,

left of us after the bomb devastated the earth.

the anti-individual, antisubjective premises of

It is interesting that Noguchi in 1947 prefigures

geometry—simplicity, wholeness—which the

the Smithson in the late 1960s and early 1970s, because there are odd echoes of early abstract expressionism in Heizer’s body of work from the late 1960s, in its combined interest in and dread of science and in the collision between microbiology on the one hand and ruins and symbols on the other. We see this in the Spiral Jetty. In some senses the late 1960s re-evoked the world of Rothko, Gottlieb, and Newman in the late 1940s under the threat of the first advent of

after minimalism  161

1 6 2   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

minimalists were at pains to claim were not

about the order of his canvases, “What you see is

ideal, did not have any of the kind of utopian

what you see,” it is important to remember that

flavor of Mondrian, for example, and of former

his ­ bugbear was Vasarely. He and Judd battled

geometric idealism. Now the problem in the late

against Vasarely’s idea partly because what they

1960s is that, far from being ideal, these forms

disliked about the European nature of ­Vasarely’s

are no longer merely positivist or ­ pragmatic

order and geometry was that it seemed to have a

but are tied to a millennial pessimism, with a

social agenda attached. Stella and Judd insisted

nostalgia for simplicity, and the power of mam-

that there was no social agenda in their use of

moth illiberal societies of the deep past in thrall

­geometry, in what they were making. This is part

to monolithic order. Present-tense experience

of what becomes problematic for artists in the

of simple form is replaced by a kind of melan-

late 1960s, and the most evident shift against

choly of duration. It is as if Claude Monet’s Gare

the early 1960s geometry—post-1968, say—is

Saint-Lazare and its empiricist, present-tense

the simple rejection of geometry in favor of an

modernity is replaced by Giorgio De Chirico’s

organicism. Another contributing factor was

train stations. There is a reduction here of a

the Pollock retrospective of 1967 at the Mu‑

­different kind, a reduction not pragmatic but

seum of Modern Art; when the pictures are seen

having to do with the catastrophic and the epic.

again, their liquidity becomes much more inter-

I used the word “order”—monolithic ­

esting. Early or mid-1960s pieces that had, on the

order—about the megalithic societies, for exam-

basis of John Cage, involved dispersal and ran-

ple, that Heizer talked about. And I want to turn

dom ­ order—such as Carl Andre’s Spill (Scatter

now to the idea of order proposed by the mini-

Piece) of 1966 (fig. 4.15), or many works by Barry

malists, an order taken out of, again, ­ Pollock’s

Le Va also—give way in the late 1960s to works

webs of painting, an order that was nonrela-

like Morris’s thread-waste piece, which is owned

tional, unconstructed, unbalanced, noncompo-

by the Museum of Modern Art, gift of Philip

sitional, decidedly not ideal. When Stella said

­Johnson; it is a bag of thread waste, and you pour

4.14 Isamu Noguchi, Sculpture to Be Seen from Mars, 1947. Model in sand, unrealized. Courtesy of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation, Inc.

it out on the floor in whatever order (see fig. 1.40).

no edges, being more liquid, more dispersed on

This falls into place with an ­article that Morris

the floor.10

wrote precisely in 1968 called “Anti Form,” in

This simple substitution, organicism for

which he argued that the best new work was go-

­geometry, is perhaps too easy, in the way that

ing to forsake the geometric ­rigidity of the early

turning a cube into a Monopoly house is a

1960s and be floppy, ­scrappy, and chaotic, ­having

little too easy. But more interesting and widely

after minimalism  163

4.15

­evident in the art of the late 1960s and early

seen to fail.” It is not enough for order to be

Carl Andre, Spill (Scatter Piece),

1970s is the staged collision between order and

­abandoned; it must be dumped on. As a result,

disorder, ­ between geometric rule structures

order in the work of the late 1960s is something

Powers. Art © Carl Andre/

and ­recalcitrant irregularity and shapelessness.

that ­cannot simply be; it must be shown to be

Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

This was not simply a change from one thing

something that is ­ imposed, contrasted, and

to ­ another, but involved an aggressive hostil-

­contested.

1966. Plastic, canvas bag, dimensions variable. Collection of John

1 6 4   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

ity against the precedent. You know the saying,

One expression of this idea in the art of this

“It’s not enough to succeed; others must be­

time is the widespread interest in mapping

4.16 Robert Smithson, A Non-Site, Franklin, New Jersey, 1968. Wood, limestone, aerial photographs, 41.9 × 20 × 279.4 cm. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Art © Estate of Robert Smithson/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

and in the dualities maps present: the collision

gritty, nonorderly facts of life found ­ literally

­between abstract order on the one hand and

on the ground. Smithson’s is a diagrammatic

factual information on the other, between grid

or didactic collision, which again involves the

structure on the one hand and fact on the other,

clarity of the overhead view versus the chaos

between mind on the one hand and nature on

of ground-level reality, in which minimalism’s

the other. A prime example of this new interest

rigidity is made evident by piling it against the

is a series of Smithson works called “Non-Sites,”

rough chaos that it contains and cuts through.

which involved photo-maps with realizations in

As a generic comparison to Smithson’s

the gallery of minimalist-like boxes containing

“Non-Sites,” we might bring in Richard Long’s

rocks and earth from the various points in the

Whitechapel Slate Circle (fig. 4.17), in the

“non-site” (fig. 4.16). The sites are meant to be

­National Gallery of Art collection, or a work

utterly banal—Franklin, New Jersey, is one, for

by Tony Smith (fig. 4.18). The geometry of

example—and the idea is to map out a collision

­minimalism seems to emerge in the way that

between order imposed by a map and the actual

a beaver dam or a honeycomb is made, in

after minimalism  165

4.17 Richard Long, Whitechapel Slate Circle, 1981. Slate, diameter 457.2 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, gift of the Collectors Committee

1 6 6   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

­harmony with the ­order of nature. With Long,

linear city, a ­honeycomb or ­crystalline ­structure

there is a rough justice about the balance

of 1953–55, harkens back to his training with

­between the ­diversity and ­irregularity of nature

Frank Lloyd Wright and ­ others. It suggests

and the ­beautiful harmony of the thing ­created

­optimistically that ­microscopic physicality and

from it that goes back to the tribal notion of

biology can be used as a happy precedent for the

stone cairns or circles. Smith’s drawing for a

strong social ­organization of humankind.

ideas that the universe is constantly losing heat

4.18

and ­ organization and that the stasis or sim-

Tony Smith, Untitled (Plan for

plicity at the end of it all is moribund death: that is, the end of information, a kind of heat

Linear City), 1953–55. Ink on paper, 27.9 × 35.2 cm. Collection of Chiara Smith, New York

death toward which the universe is inexorably By contrast, Smithson’s work is much less

moving. Arguably Smithson’s best essay is one

optimistic. In fact, it has a dystopian unity, an

he wrote in 1966 called “Entropy and the New

unruliness, a chaotic nature, and a fatally rigid

Monuments,” in which he talks about the life

man-made order. One of the many illustrations

of artists in the late 1960s, spending their time

that he used for his essays shows a tank farm,

watching B movies in bad movie theaters on

repetitive rows of oil storage tanks, blighting a

Times Square.11 There’s a William Burroughs-

landscape (fig. 4.19). Smithson’s idea of crystal-

like, downbeat experience of seedy urbanism in

4.19 Lester Lefkowitz, Oil Storage

lization (on which he spent a great deal of time) was that it was an inorganic stasis, that simplicity in crystallization involved the end of life. Repetition for Smithson did not represent the happy uniformity of Smith’s honeycomb but was more like the repetition in Warhol’s Soup Cans—that is, a repetition that spoke of conformity and stultification. So Smithson’s minimalist order, the order of geometry, the order of repetition, is consistent not with growth and optimism but with ­entropy, the state attained in heat death. He wrote a great deal about this concept in ­physics,

after minimalism  167

Smithson that he wants to summon and link to

gory Crucifixions and ­Descents from the Cross,

the idea of a cosmic vision of where the world

for example. (He wrote an article on Judd—

is headed.

which must have mystified Judd ­ entirely—in

I am reminded of a Woody Allen film,

which crystallization was linked to the idea

­Annie Hall, in which Woody as a small child is

of a ­ series of Depositions from the Cross.12)

brought to the doctor by his mother because

Heizer’s ­ personal interest, it seems to me, led

he is ­ obsessed with black holes. He is sure

to work of a much more general and broader

that the world will disappear momentarily, so

­interest, whereas Smithson is more ­interestingly

what’s the point of living? Smithson’s work con­

read as a personal case. Judd himself said that

veys ­ something of this idea that the bleakness

­Smithson’s science was incredibly ­ sophomoric

of ­ contemporary urban existence is in fact

and that one of his major talents was as a

linked inexorably to the truth of macrophysics.

­didactic ­promoter of certain ideas in which his

He put together the urban and the galactic—the

works become ­illustrative. Smithson is the kind

­experience on the ground and the experience

of artist who, if he didn’t exist, would have to

from the sky—in a way that was uniformly bleak

be invented by graduate students: he’s too per­

in its suggestion that art, society, and ­ nature

fect and ­emblematic a demonstration of every­

were all winding down together. Smithson’s

thing that is involved with the Eliotic or pessi­

modernism shares a certain kinship with T. S.

mistic tenor of late 1960s and early 1970s art.

Eliot’s The Waste Land.

1 6 8   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

What I find richer is the work that ­Richard

It is interesting to compare Smithson to Hei­

Serra is doing at about the same time, for

zer in terms of what informs their work. ­Heizer’s

­example his 1969 piece called Cutting Device:

experience as the child of an archaeologist is a

Base Plate Measure [seen here in a 2004–05

critical factor, whereas what informs Smithson

installation at MoMA] (fig. 4.20). The piece is

is a kind of lapsed ­Catholicism. Smithson’s early

roughly five-and-a-half meters long at its larg­

work is full of ­ aggressively ­ expressionist and

est dimension. What is apparently a series of

rolls of lead, big pieces of timber, a piece of

piece was truly formed. That is, Serra obviously

4.20

stone, and several sheets of lead are stacked

had to do a great deal of individual work cutting

Richard Serra, installation view

one upon the other, and then, as if two huge

these ­ elements. But the imagery is not unlike

cutting boards, or chopping blocks, had come

Smithson’s in its collision of order and disorder,

Museum of Modern Art, New York,

down on either side—whack!—everything is

in its staged, violent theater about the meaning

November 20, 2004–July 11, 2005

reduced to the base plate, hence the work’s title.

of reduction, measuring, and simplification,

­Everything in procrustean fashion is cut to a

about the meaning of all those minimalist ideas

managed core, and the chaos of the thing flies

put into action. Serra’s piece, however, seems to

out to the side. Of course, this is not how the

me less illustrative and more performative than

of the exhibition Contemporary: Inaugural Installation,

after minimalism  169

1 7 0   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

Smithson’s; without reference to nature, these

This idea of violence is perhaps more evident

ideas of collision, reduction, measure, and their

in Serra. In one of his most famous pieces, done

violence are realized in more absolutely sculp-

for a warehouse show in 1969, he had a tank of

tural and abstract terms.

hot lead and a big dipper, and with the dipper

Serra’s Cutting Device is more like ­ Heizer’s

he flung the hot lead against the corner of the

trench, a brutal cut through things. But it

warehouse. There it formed a cast, and when

has its roots in, it seems to me, and derives

it had cooled, he would pry the lead out of the

its title from, Jasper Johns’ Device of 1962,

corner with a crowbar and begin the process

wherein Johns has nailed rulers onto the sides

again. Each line formed by the lead casting itself

of the ­ picture, and then dragged the rulers in

in the corner was prized out and pulled away to

­circular pivots through the paint on the picture

become the sculpture (figs. 4.22, 4.23).

(fig. 4.21). Again, the Johns is probably not

Now this points to another obvious Pollock-

as simple as it looks, and like the Heizer was

like aspect of minimalist literalism, and that is the

staged to look this way. But the message that

evident declaration of process. In 1969, just after

both the Johns and the Serra deliver, it seems

MoMA’s Pollock show, the idea of liquidity and

to me, has a more complex meaning or impli-

the process, the dynamics of Pollock’s work, was

cation than the mere opposition of order and

used against the stasis of minimalism. We see a

disorder. It has to do not with the collision of

lot of work in the late 1960s where the prom-

measurement and chaos but with the fusion

ise of shaping by material, and by program and

of the two things. What the Johns says to me is

method, no longer means the geometric playing

that creating order creates disorder. That is, by

out of possibilities, as in LeWitt’s cube, but rather

imposing one order, you must efface another,

overtly liquid pourings and castings. But I raise

and that all acts of measure and regularity in-

Pollock in connection with this Serra piece only

volve destructive force. There is a kind of vio-

to contrast them, because what I want to point

lence to rationality itself.

out is the difference between the almost lyrical

4.21 Jasper Johns, Device, 1962. Oil on canvas with wood, 101.6 × 76.2 cm. The Baltimore Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by the Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Trustee Corporation Fund and by Edith Ferry Hooper, BMA 1976.1. Art © Jasper Johns/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

after minimalism  171

4.22 Gianfranco Gorgoni, Richard Serra throwing hot lead, Castelli Warehouse, New York, 1969. Courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery, New York

nature of Pollock’s choreography, of his dance,

others, “To hell with tinsmiths and custom body

and the imagery of manual labor in Serra’s piece.

shops. No more hands-off phoning in the plans

Giacometti once made a sculpture called

for anything.” Instead, they literally go to work

No More Play, and in a certain sense that is the

1 7 2   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

with an earnest, hands-on, blue-collar ethic.

subtitle of Serra’s work. It is all about hot metal,

There are two ways to look at this. One

toxic materials, dangerous work. And this is

of them is by way of a remote analogy with

personal to Serra—as archaeology is personal to

Jacques-Louis David and the stringency of

Heizer—in that he has experience in a steel mill,

his ­ classicism during the French Revolution. ­

and that his father worked in boatyards. But it

David’s ­classicism, exemplified in his Oath of the

is also, as with Heizer, symptomatic of the time.

Horatii, has a kind of cool, meticulous line qual-

Heizer and Smithson both work with bulldozers

ity and a certain austerity. But into his studio

and earth-movers to get what they want done,

come a group of young artists who call them-

and now Serra in this lead-flinging piece with

selves the Barbus (“bearded ones”), and they

its steel-mill overtones seems to say to Judd and

take this archaism all too seriously—wearing

togas, not bathing, not shaving, and so on— and they want art that has no color, only line. ­Compare with this the cool classicism, austerity, and sleek ­finish of early 1960s minimalism, which is suddenly interrupted in the late 1960s by a hairier, more archaic, primitive, and fundamental view of industry. In both cases the urbane cool of the predecessors is returned to a less refined state by the followers. The second way of seeing this change is ­perhaps in the long run more interesting and

in New York—Soho lofts such as the one Serra

4.23

less frivolous. Think about Serra and his blue-

worked in then and now—these Yale graduates

Richard Serra, Castings, 1969.

jeans-and-boots industrial imagery as the “new

have moved in with and assumed a blue-collar

left” of the late 1960s in its relation to the “old

ethic.

left” of the 1930s. Think Joan Baez singing

Still more complicated is the element of

“Joe Hill” at the Newport Folk Festival. Think

­excessiveness or peculiarity about Serra’s work

the Port Huron Statement of the Students for

in particular. In a work of 1913–14 called Three

a Democratic Society. Think Sartre support-

Standard Stoppages, Duchamp dropped three

ing Maoist militants at the Renault factory.

pieces of string from a given height to produce

Think Grateful Dead singing “Working Man’s

rulers that could be used for the creation of new

Dead.” The whole idea that the New Left would

works of art (fig. 4.24). His was a witty, hands-

­recuperate and ­ renew the ideals and ethos of

off, elegant parody of the idea of science. Serra

the 1930s—this idea of a kind of nostalgia for

in the same way, with his repeated casting and

­industry—has a strong political implication. By

throwing not of strings but of pots full of hot

inhabiting the spaces of an exhausted industry

lead, is involved in a kind of brutal and ironic

Lead, 121.9 × 762 × 457.2 cm. Installed at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1969

after minimalism  173

parody of production, in which the overtones

is nowhere more diagrammatically evident than

of futility, of pointless overworking, of beating

in some of Smithson’s pieces, like the one he did

your head against the wall, of dogged ­frustration

in Rome in 1969, where he filled a dump truck

to no particular end, are written into the idea of

full of ­ asphalt and poured it down a cliff (see

labor that it represents.

fig. 6.10). In numerous drawings Smithson’s

The nature of “industrial,” then, has changed a great deal since Pollock used house paint.

imagery of spillage, of wasted industrial materials, is one of destruction and erosion.

The materials of industry mean something

You have to remember that this is the period

new in work like Serra’s Scatter Piece of 1967

of the Report to the Club of Rome, in which

(fig. 4.25). This generation is so much against

­everyone seems to be living in a Malthusian

finish, against the tidy completeness of min-

world. It is a time in which people are beginning

imalism, and you can see this in some of their

to get a stereoscopic view of modern society’s

preferred materials: those of scrap and salvage,

vast power and its despoliation of the world.

4.24

as in the rubber, belted items that Serra uses

The soundtrack for this kind of work is maybe

Marcel Duchamp, Three Standard

for Scatter Piece. Living in Soho, they simply

Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush, the combined

Stoppages, 1913–14. Assemblage: three threads glued to three

pick up what is left in the streets—felt, rope,

painted canvas strips, 13.3 ×

leftover rubber. Their materials are the useless

120 cm; each mounted on a

end of the utilitarian world, materials with an

glass panel, 18.4 × 125.4 × 0.64

exhausted functionality, materials that speak

cm; three wood slates, 6.4 × 109.5, 6.4 × 119.7, 6.4 × 109.9, each

the opposite of efficiency, that speak instead of

0.32 cm, shaped along one edge to

overflow, of a society producing too much, and

match the curves of the threads;

consequently of waste, detritus, and garbage.

the whole fitted into a wood box, 28.3 × 129.2 × 22.9 cm. The

These are not just neutral, unconventional art

Museum of Modern Art, New

materials; they imply a combination of overflow

York, Katherine S. Dreier Bequest

and excess with pollution and defilement. This

1 7 4   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

imagery of sitting in a burned-out basement and

in Ohio and simply piles enough dirt on the

imagining spaceships flying through a ­ yellow

woodshed until the beam cracks at the top. It is

haze. This combination of bleak ­ urbanism

about cumulative action: accumulation leads to

with sci-fi overtones is pure Smithson: “Look

collapse, leads to destruction.

at Mother Nature on the run in the nineteen

These same concerns with weight find a dif-

seventies.” This is downer art—let’s face it, it is

ferent and ultimately more complex place in

really downer art—and it is about going down,

Serra’s work. His Delineator of the mid-1970s

“all fall down.” The imagery of gravity in it is

is like an Andre below you and above you

important, and there’s gravity in Smithson,

(fig. 4.26). That is, there is one big plate of steel

again, obviously didactic. He takes a woodshed

on the floor and another huge plate of steel

4.25 Richard Serra, Scatter Piece, 1967. Rubber latex, 762 × 762 cm, variable. Judd Foundation

after minimalism  175

4.26

overhead. For Andre, gravity is a fact—“I’ve

between these two plates. I have done it a couple

Richard Serra, Delineator,

got no base. I’ve got nothing that elevates me.

of times, but I had to force myself. What is in-

I’m just going to sit on the floor.” Think about

teresting about the energy, and the potentially

the ­neutrality of Andre’s work and what it says

destructive energy, of gravity in Serra is that,

about gravity versus the utter terror and in-

unlike the Smithson, it is an implied rather than

timidation posed by the prospect of walking

enacted threat. Serra has managed to bring the

1974–76. Two steel plates. Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1 7 6   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

dynamics of gravity into a minimalist stasis. The pent-up energy that Fried talked about as a theater of space, the ­ dispersal that an Andre produces in the gallery, has now been realized in terms of a kinesthesia of fear and menace, which is particular to Serra’s work. The power of stasis, the implied power of things held in check, is something that has to be achieved, like order, in these pieces. Obvious examples are of course the prop pieces, such as Equal (Corner Prop Piece) of 1969 (fig. 4.27), part of a series in which Serra reintroduces the idea of com-

much of its silent power. The epitome of this

4.27

position in sculpture. Even the idea of balance

potent delicacy is Serra’s One Ton Prop (House of

Richard Serra, Equal (Corner

that had been anathema to Judd and others is

Cards) of 1969 (see fig. 1.17), which is obviously

brought into play here, albeit by the forces of

a critique of the ­ minimalist cube—a ­ critique

core, overall approximately 132 ×

physics rather than for mere aesthetic pleasure.

of Tony Smith’s Die, of Judd’s cube—that

214 × 234 cm. The ­Museum

Serra’s corner prop piece has ­ surprising

retains Judd’s ­ antipathy to the idea of massive

poise and delicacy. For all its overtones of

sculpture but still gets back the weight and power

­violence and industry, it has a silvery, almost

in a relationship to gravity that is more dynamic

rococo ­feathering of torn edges, and a delicacy

and evident. The title is not without interest.

and sheen to its light gray surface. There is a

“One Ton Prop” simply describes the amount of

refined side to Serra that I think is underesti-

weight that is put up by these four sheets of steel

mated. Here in this piece an almost ballerina-

balanced against one another to form the cube.

like grace is inextricably wedded to the sense

But “House of Cards” has a different ­implication

of precarious danger, and this gives the work

that might send us to look at Chardin’s House of

Prop Piece), 1969. Lead plate and lead tube rolled around steel

of Modern Art, New York, ­Gilman Foundation Fund

after minimalism  177

Cards of 1737 (fig. 4.28), a young man build-

­illusionism, for example. His truth was a

ing a house of cards as a metaphor of fragility,

­pragmatic, immediate, no-nonsense truth.

­transience, and ­impermanence.

But a different kind of truth, it seems to me,

The Serra cube, like other of his prop pieces

is ­ implicit in the quiet dynamics of the Serra;

Jean-Siméon Chardin, The House

and related works, insists that all ­human-made

this truth ­involves a sense of precariousness and

of Cards, 1737. Oil on canvas,

things work against and with the forces of

threat that is ­particular to the artist and to the

­nature or physics, that they exist in a ­precarious

­moment in which he is acting.

4.28

60.3 × 71.8 cm. The National Gallery, London, bequeathed by Mrs. Edith Cragg, as part of

­relationship, in equipoise with the pull of their

Look at the difference, if you will, between

the John Webb Bequest, 1925

destruction. Judd wanted from his cubes and

Serra’s 1969 One Ton Prop and Jackie Winsor’s

his objects a kind of truth; he worked against

Burnt Piece of the late 1970s (fig. 4.29). The Winsor too is a critique of Die and the minimalist cube. It seeks a different truth. It was created by a destructive process that leaves scars. Made of cast concrete, it was fired in a wooden cradle, the burning evaporate and remains of which appear as scars. Form is created through a process of loss and is the residue of violent forces and energies. Serra’s lead is also a casting, but Winsor turns on its head Serra’s insistence on an open transparency of construction. By putting large black holes on all four sides of the cube, she brings an insistence on interiority to her geometry. Burnt Piece is about concealment, inwardness, and mystery rather than transparency and immediacy.

1 7 8   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

Similarly, in Winsor’s Plywood Square of 1973 (fig. 4.30), she covers over geometry, burying it, making it obscure. Whereas Serra’s gestures can be spontaneous and sometimes violent, as in his flinging of lead into a corner, Winsor’s process is a slow, diligent, patient ­ aggression against order, an aggression that uses order itself—discipline, routine, repetition—as a means. The labor, like Serra’s, is repetitive but with a difference. A work such as Four Corners by Winsor is egregiously overdone and impractical, like Serra, but now methodical in a way that is incantatory, ritual, obsessive, and patient

see different personalities certainly, different

4.29

(fig. 4.31).

temperaments and psychologies, but I think as

Jackie Winsor, Burnt Piece, 1977–78. Concrete, burnt wood,

Winsor’s methods are not about cutting,

well that two different ideas of labor arise from

throwing, and breaking, but about binding and

the comparison. Serra’s labor is industrial and

86.4 cm. The ­Museum of Modern

joining. As in Smithson or Serra, the imagery of

demonstrative. Winsor’s labor is personal and

Art, New York, gift of Agnes Gund

her Bound Square is of a collision or disparity

private, concealing and muffling. Winsor’s is the

between a recalcitrant roughness and the will to

world of John Ruskin and William ­Morris and

order, the will to regularity, the will to geometry

the redemptive value of handwork and craft,

(fig. 4.32). But in Winsor’s case it seems to have

whereas Serra’s is the world of Walter Reuther,

a built-in pathos of shortfall, which is explicitly

the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO. I refer to a built-in

preindustrial and involves an illogical, almost

ambivalence on the part of the Left of the 1960s,

tribal, pragmatics of making. When we compare

two parts of its ideal expressed metaphorically

Winsor’s work with Serra’s or Heizer’s, we can

in the abstract forms of materials, programs,

and wire mesh, 86 × 86.4 ×

after minimalism  179

4.30 Jackie Winsor, Plywood Square, 1973. Plywood and hemp, 56 × 135 × 132 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 4.31 (opposite) Jackie Winsor, Four Corners, 1972. Wood and hemp, 72.2 × 128.3 × 131.4 cm. Allen Memorial Art Gallery, Oberlin, Ohio, gift of Donald Droll in memory of Eva Hesse, 1973 4.32 (opposite) Jackie Winsor, Bound Square, 1972. Wood and twine, 184.2 × 193 × 36.8 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Joseph G. Mayer Foundation, Inc., in honor of James Thrall Soby, and Grace M. Mayer Fund in honor of Alfred H. Barr Jr.

1 8 0   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

attitudes toward work, and ideas of order. When

vatism in this work: in the monastic palette that

you think back about these works of the late

runs to grays and leads, to felt, to scrap, to dirt,

1960s and early 1970s, and about earthworks, it

to tar; in the earnestness it has, even in its

is easy, and it was easy then, to see this as radical

absurdities; in the fin-du-monde nostalgias for

art. But are we not also seeing a kind of conser-

collective order? There is a romanticism, in other

words, about this work that at its worst amounts to a sentimental nihilism of blank despair. It is not just that meaning attaches itself to minimalism in the late 1960s but also that the simple certainties of abstraction that are ­proposed in the early 1960s become almost ­instantly, within years, charged with ­ complex ambiguities. The bad news is clearly that ­despite almost utopian ambitions and despite ­programs, abstraction cannot remain pure. It cannot remain empty and void of categories. But the good news is that it can revitalize our ability to embody new ideas in the most complex fashion: new ideas of ourselves, of our personalities, of our time. I want to conclude this lecture with Eva Hesse in order to stress the liberating or empowering nature of what to many artists appears exceedingly constraining—that is, the minimalist box, the minimalist order. Hesse is a clear example of what minimalism can do for an artist, positively. Hesse was flailing around in the mid-1960s, trying to find a body of imagery, trying to invent something that was quirky enough, peculiar enough, to contain her odd humor, funkiness,

after minimalism  181

4.33 (opposite)

sexuality, and standing. What she produced was

­Winsor falls this odd piece in which thousands

Eva Hesse, An Ear in a Pond,

almost consistently klutzy and usually unorigi-

of holes have been threaded with long rubber

nal. It was only when she gave up this search and

tubes, which are then cut off on the inside. So

pound, papier-câché, masonite,

accepted the rigidity of a simple program of,

what you get on the inside of this cube is ­neither

wood, 105.7 × 45.1 × 19.7 cm.

for example, drawing circles (fig. 4.33)—when

­neutrality nor mystery, but ­ relatedness. The

she extracted that odd organic form out of the

­outside and the inside of the cube are ­related—

­middle of An Ear in a Pond and said, “That’s

the outside seeming uniform and ­ nubbly,

not a head; that’s just a circle, just a circle with

and the inside evoking fur or cilia, something

a string coming out of it”; when she said, “I’m

like a soft rug. The repetition of a simple act

just going to make things, I’m just going to be

produces a work that is more than the sum

disciplined, in fact, make the same thing again

of its parts. If one were a feminist critic, for

and again”—then and only then blossomed the

example—or even not—one might find that

very personality, the very intense intimacy and

there was a ­vaginal reference here, the interior

complexity, that she had sought in her work.

being soft and ­ friction-free as opposed to the

All this was released by being pushed through

severity of its exterior.

1965. Varnish, tempera, enamel, cord, unknown modeling com-

Collection of Norah and Norman Stone. Courtesy Thea ­Westreich Art Advisory Services

the filter of minimalist work.

1 8 2   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

What saves this piece from being merely an

You can see her obvious dedication to mini-

indulgent reference or evocation of early mini-

malism, and her critique, in works such as

malism is Hesse’s use of industrial ­ materials.

­Accession II (see fig. 1.18). Accession II ­ belongs

­Accession II has a hard sterility that works

with Serra’s One Ton Prop (see fig. 1.17) and the

against its sensuality and gives it life in both

Burnt Piece by Jackie Winsor (see fig. 4.29) in

worlds at once. So too the untitled rope piece

terms of a critique of the idea of the geometric

(fig. 4.34) certainly relates to Morris’s rope

enclosure of Judd, Smith, and others. But what

piece of 1965 and also to his felt pieces (see fig.

a difference! Somewhere between the indus-

1.40) and to Oldenburg’s soft sculpture. But by

trial hardness of Serra and the ­ organicism of

virtue of its static repetition, à la a Judd wall

piece, it has a different connotation—of hair, of accumulation, of things that the tectonic Morris seems to avoid. Similarly, repetition in the form of the round knobs on Hesse’s rope piece—and in its realization in an Andre-like, if you want, piece called Sequel of 1967 (fig. 4.35)—presses the metaphor of these simple things (cast off of tennis balls in latex) as being in the first example breasts, and in the case of Sequel, frankly, turds. The objects in Sequel have a fecal quality—their gravity and surface speak to a different set of metaphors. Hesse’s material is specifically humble ­industrial material, not chest-thumping industrial material. It is certainly not rustic and organic like logs and twine. Hesse is about latex. And her discovery of latex is not simply a way for her to get from point a to point b in the ­casting process, but an expressive means, her equivalent of Johns’ encaustic. Latex imparts a fleshiness to the object, and in Hesse’s case, a creepy sense of nubbly skin. She likes the idea of covering over and layering, as Winsor does; however, the long-range implications of Hesse’s painted latex works turn out to be fecal, ­epidermal—in other words, bodily.

after minimalism  183

4.34 Eva Hesse, Untitled (Rope Piece), 1967. Latex filler over rope and string with metal hooks, dimensions variable. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, purchase, with funds from Eli and Edythe L. Broad, the Mrs. Percy Uris Purchase Fund, and the Painting and Sculpture Committee

1 8 4   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

This bodily message permeates a lot of

references are to things not merely flaccid but

Hesse’s work, such as Untitled of 1966, which,

repellent—yielding to gravity in an unpleasant

depending on how one wants to read it, involves

way. Few artists of this period use the vocabu-

either Diana of Ephesus or a collection of scrota

lary that Hesse’s work requires: sag, distend,

(fig. 4.36). As a work about bodily gravity, it is

pucker, crease, flap. But it is the minimalist in-

very different from, say, the hearty, pot-bellied

flection, the repetition, the industrial materials

sag of Oldenburg’s sculpture. Hesse’s uncertain

of Hesse’s work that save this bodily reference,

4.35 Eva Hesse, Sequel, 1967. Latex, pigment, and cheesecloth, 76.2 × 81.3 cm, 92 spheres, each 6.7 cm. Art Institute of Chicago, gift of the Lannan Foundation

this organicism, from being a merely corny,

Look, finally, at one of the last pieces

merely sloppy expressionism. Intriguingly, the

that Hesse made before she died: Right After

ultimate macho lineage—from Pollock flinging

(fig. 4.37), dated 1969. These pieces bring us

paint through Serra flinging lead—gave Hesse

back to where we started, that is, with Pollock’s

exactly what she needed to produce a sharply

drip paintings. Hesse revisits Pollock’s chal-

personal vocabulary that has empowered count-

lenge through the minimalist interpretation,

less feminist artists since.

which stresses the wholeness and simplicity of

after minimalism  185

­Pollock, its nonrelational order, and its ­emphasis on materials and process. Yet she manages to come closer to certain things in Pollock’s work than the minimalists could. She restores Pollock’s lyricism and aeration to pieces about the literal weight of gravity, just as Pollock took gravity—by painting on the floor—and turned it vertical so that in his paintings weightless clouds are created from the weightiness of falling things. She has restored this kind of lyricism to the ­literalism of gravity. In a piece like Right After, elegance and delicacy, a grace of hanging, are combined with a real humility and­ funkiness—these things covered in latex are strangled, clumsy, knotted, choked. There is on the one hand the catenary perfection, the simple pull of gravity, and on the other hand the disorderly and unexpected web of tied things. All that is complex and interesting about 4.36

Hesse’s work goes into this piece: her antics, her­

Eva Hesse, Untitled, 1966.

insistence on bodily associations, her linking of

Pencil and ink on paper, 29.9 × 22.9 cm. Private

minimalist thinking with viscera and sinew and

­collection, courtesy Hauser

the interior of the body. Here the ­ minimalist

and Wirth, Zürich, London

reinterpretation of Pollock is extrapolated as ­something deeply personal. Hesse’s rope piece

1 8 6   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

4.37 Eva Hesse, Right After, 1969. Fiberglass, 152.4 × 548.6 × 121.9 cm. Milwaukee Art Museum, gift of Friends of Art

after minimalism  187

1 8 8   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

has a kind of double pathos to go with its ­antic

given her, its powerful model lives with her, that

nature: not only the pathos of our knowing

she exists within the framework of an ­emulation

that Hesse died before she could complete this

of something so strong. The combined constraint

piece, but also that for all the permissions and

and power of Pollock’s gift and ­ minimalism’s

­possibilities that the tradition of abstraction has

­reinterpretation of it is realized in this work.

N ot e s 1. Donald Judd, “Specific Objects,” Arts Yearbook 8 (1965), 74–82; reprinted in Donald Judd: Complete Writings, 1959–1975 (Halifax: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design; and New York: New York University Press, 1975), 181. 2. Ibid., 183–184. Judd says, “Oil paint and ­canvas aren’t as strong as commercial paints and as the ­colors and surfaces of materials, especially if the ­materials are used in three dimensions. . . . Actual space is ­intrinsically more powerful and specific than paint on a flat surface.” It should be noted that in this passage, Judd is actually proclaiming the superiority of specific objects to both painting and sculpture, as traditionally understood. 3. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. ­Maria Jolas (New York: Orion Press, 1964); originally ­published as La poétique de l’espace (Paris: Presses Universitaires du Paris, 1958; first paperback edition, Boston: Beacon Press, 1969). 4. Julia Brown and Barbara Heizer, Michael Heizer: Sculpture in Reverse, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984), 34, 35, 67, 68, 69. 5. Ibid., 34.

6. George Kubler, The Shape of Time (New ­Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1961). Kubler looks at the history of art and craft without assuming that it has any goal or hidden, determining logic. For him, new forms emerge in a crude state, get perfected, and then become exhausted. 7. “Interview with Julia Brown,” in Julia Brown, ed., Michael Heizer Sculpture in Reverse (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984), 16. 8. Adolf von Hildebrand, The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture, trans. Max Meyer and ­Robert Morris Ogden (New York: G. E. Stechert and Co., 1907). 9. Kirk Varnedoe, A Fine Disregard, “Overview: Flight of the Mind” (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990), 216–277. 10. Robert Morris, “Anti Form,” Artforum 6:8 (April 1968), 33–35. 11. Robert Smithson, “Entropy and the New Monuments,” Artforum (June 1966), 26–31. 12. Robert Smithson, “Donald Judd,” in 7 Sculptors (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art, 1965).

after minimalism  189

5

s at i r e , i ro n y, a n d a b s t r ac t a rt

The question of good faith / bad faith is the

“very like” that I want to start with, because

subtext of today’s lecture on satire and irony

the whole ­ question of abstraction’s likeness to

in abstract art. We expect of abstraction, per-

something—­although it tries to be a picture

haps more so than of other art forms, that its

of nothing, it constantly could be a picture of

intentions be whole, that it be meant earnestly.

something—is abstraction’s steadily attacked

­Traditionally we think of abstraction as pure and

Achilles’ heel.

unmitigated, a set of black-and-white principles

Let’s begin with a wonderful old cartoon

that will not admit of grays. In other words, we

from the New Yorker that aptly names art as a

associate abstraction with a kind of idealism.

two-way street, as in, there was no fog in ­London

The question arises, If we are suspicious of ide-

before Whistler painted it (fig. 5.1). ­Indeed art

alism, are we then suspicious of abstraction? Is

makes us see the world differently, and having

it necessary that abstraction be ideal and that it

seen the world in that way, we go back and see

be in good faith?

the art differently. Rothko may make us think

These questions take us back to the sub-

anew about the evening sky, but having once

title of my lectures and to the lines I quoted

thought about the evening sky, we think about

at the outset from Hazlitt’s essay on Turner:

Rothko differently. Hence, the ­extreme ­difficulty

“Pictures of nothing . . . and very like.” It is the

of ever coming up with a pure abstraction that

5.1 James Stevenson, © The New Yorker Collection 1964 James Stevenson from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved

remains resistant to association and ­ reference.

Man, subtitled Grief Is Mute. And on the visual

In its ­ alleged resistance to ­ association and ref-

side, in 1883, under the name of the celebrated

erence, abstraction was destroyed or at least

humorist Alphonse Allais, they ­ exhibited a

strongly subverted even before it was ­invented.

pure white sheet of Bristol paper ­entitled First

Already in the 1880s a group of artists in Paris

­Communion of Anemic Young Girls in Snowy

who called themselves the Société des inco-

Weather. Subsequently, the same M. Allais in

hérents, the Incohérents, held a series of exhi-

1884, using a piece of red fabric, ­ exhibited

bitions that produced remarkably premonitory

a small masterwork known as A Harvest of

work. On the music side, for example, the In-

­Tomatoes on the Edge of the Red Sea Harvested

cohérents published a blank set of musical bars

by Apoplectic Cardinals. And finally, in 1889,

without notations called Funeral Mass for a Deaf

Allais exhibited his ­ pre-Malevich ­ masterpiece and the end of abstract painting before it began: a dark blue piece of fabric entitled Total Eclipse of the Sun in Darkest Africa. These little bits of satire and irony before the fact are then picked up almost as soon as abstraction is fostered by artists of greater historical stature and consequence. For example, Matisse posited in 1911 in his Interior with Eggplants (fig. 5.2)—a wonderful large work inspired by Persian miniatures and the multiplication of pattern across their surfaces—that abstract pattern could have an independent life. In Matisse’s view of his studio, which includes a still life with eggplants on the table, everything becomes fabric and the flowers independently

1 9 2   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

5.2 Henri Matisse, Intérieur aux aubergines (Interior with ­Eggplants), 1911. Oil on canvas, 212 × 246 cm.

commercial, and mass-produced artifacts. This

Musée de Grenoble

same little joke that we see happening early on becomes a staple of pop art, specifically in the hands of Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein’s Ball of

5.3 Pablo Picasso, Guitar and Wine Glass, 1912. Collage and

Twine from 1962 (see fig. 1.20), a sort of cheap

charcoal, 62.5 × 47 cm. The

tabloid advertisement whose subtext is its close

Marion Koogler McNay Art

relationship to Stella’s black stripe paintings rid themselves of any association and begin to

of 1959, is meant to thumb its nose at Stella’s

pattern the entire surface, as if in fact it were a

pretensions by showing how the simple codes

decorative textile. The whole question of deco-

of cheap advertising look much like the high

ration is advanced by Matisse as an important

­order that Stella is imposing (see fig. 1.21). Even

Museum, bequest of Marion Koogler McNay, 1950.112

form of art that moves one with its rhythms and colors, independently of what it represents. A year later, when Picasso was making ­collages, as Jack Flam pointed out,1 he deliberately used a piece of flowered wallpaper with a suspicious resemblance to the patterns of ­Matisse (fig. 5.3). It was as if he were saying, “You want decoration? I’ll give you decoration. How about cheap wallpaper?” And thus begins a series of thrusts and parries between abstract and nonabstract artists in the twentieth century in which the supposedly high, unique, invented forms of abstraction are constantly subverted or demolished by other artists who see them as being perilously close to cheap, commonplace,

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   1 9 3

5.4 Roy Lichtenstein, Composition II, 1964. Oil on canvas, 137 × 120 cm. Courtesy Sonnabend, New York

and Factum II (figs. 5.5, 5.6). Here all the rhetoric that was so important to the epiphanic uniqueness of the moment in ­ abstract ­expressionist painting—the apparently spontaneous and casual slathering of strokes, the idea of ­ spatter and drip—is in fact nearly ­duplicated, side by side, in the two pictures, putting a deep chill on the idea of the unique moment of ­ spontaneity in the handling of ­material. ­ Lichtenstein pursued this idea even more ­aggressively in works such as Big ­Painting No. 6 (the title itself has a satirical ring to it) of 1965 (fig. 5.7). He takes the lavish, heated,

1 9 4   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

more notorious is Lichtenstein’s Composition II

­inimitable, signature brush stroke of painters

(fig. 5.4), which mocks the idea of composition

like de ­ Kooning, for example, and shows that

and is certainly an amalgam of abstract painting

it can be codified—freeze-dried, if you will—

relating partly to Jack Youngerman but mostly

as if in comics, undermining as insincere the

to Pollock’s black-and-white works after 1950.

­rhetoric and scale of these painters. Everything

This snarky and snide relationship to abstrac-

that is supposed to be ethereal, ineffable, ambig-

tion plays an important role in pop art and its

uous, or soulful about abstract expressionism

predecessors. It comes to form an attack art

is ­ rendered as die-cut, stamped form, reduced

whose target is the pretensions of the abstrac-

­literally to comic formulae in these hard-won

tion that immediately precedes it.

brush strokes by ­Lichtenstein. He was ­interested

Rauschenberg had already entered this ­arena

in the way these comic ­ conventions for brush

in the 1950s by making two paintings, Factum I

strokes also looked like slabs of bacon—how you

5.5 Robert Rauschenberg, Factum I, 1957. Combine painting, 156.2 × 90.8 cm. The ­Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Panza Collection. Art © Robert Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY 5.6 Robert Rauschenberg, Factum II, 1957. Combine painting: oil, ink, pencil, crayon, paper, fabric, newspaper, printed reproductions, and printed paper on canvas, 155.9 × 90.2 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, purchase and an anonymous gift and Louise Reinhardt Smith Bequest (both by exchange). Art © Robert Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

took something that was formless and shapeless

and rhythmic repetitions of his ­ entablature

and codified it in comics. He hated comics for

­series, for example, are a send-up, ­certainly, of

their trashiness at the same time that he appre-

Gene Davis, Kenneth Noland, and a lot of ­hard-

ciated their ­economy and force of ­conviction in

edge abstract painters in the 1960s; ­ perhaps

condensing form. He obviously had the same

the rhythmic structure at the top of his 1974

kind of love / hate for the big ambition and rhet-

­painting from the series has a bit of ­Donald Judd

oric of abstract expressionism.

in it as well (fig. 5.8). Lichtenstein is ­engaged by

Lichtenstein’s satires and ironic comments on

the notion that you cannot get away from the

abstract art run all through his career, and they

history of style. That is, when an artist such as

have at least two different meanings. The stripes

Judd posits a man-made order of ­geometry, an

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   1 9 5

5.7 Roy Lichtenstein, Big Painting No. 6, 1965. Oil and magna on canvas, 233 × 328 cm. Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf 5.8 Roy Lichtenstein, Entablature, 1974. Oil and magna on canvas, 152.4 × 254 cm. Private collection

affinity with the history of man-made ­ orders of ­ geometry is ­ inevitably present—in the ­architectural vocabulary of frets, designs, eggand-dart patterns. So the entablature paintings are about the fine-tuned relationship between the ­ apparent neutral ­ emptiness of minimalist painting and architectural references keyed to an entire history of human invention. The second meaning manifests itself in ­Lichtenstein’s series of painted mirrors, like the one of 1971 (fig. 5.9). It seems to me that if the ­entablature series asserts that all ­abstraction is representational—that with just a tweak one can turn what looks like an abstraction into what looks like an advertisement for a ball of twine, a composition book, or a study in ­classical ­ architecture—Lichtenstein is saying the opposite with the mirror series. That is, with the mirror paintings Lichtenstein is claiming that all ­ representation is at base abstract, made up of coded distillations of, or removals from, the imitation of nature. Therefore he is ­particularly interested in Benday dots, for example, and economical codes of the kind that he finds in comic books or in ads in the yellow

1 9 6   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

pages. From small, mundane yellow pages ads

5.9

for ­mirrors, he draws a series of enormous ab-

Roy Lichtenstein, Mirror #1 (oval

stract paintings, often two or three meters in height. What ­ interests him is the tension be-

720 x 360), 1971. Oil and magna on canvas, 182.9 × 91.4 cm.­ Private collection

tween a ­completely ­abstract, ­reductive skein of dots, angles, and lines and its conjuration of something as ineffable and ­mercurial, as intan-

5.10 Roy Lichtenstein, Non­Objective I, 1964. Oil and

gible and insubstantial, as reflections on glass.

magna on canvas, 142.2 ×

See what energy arises when that insubstantial

122 cm. The Eli and Edythe L.

and mercurial reflection is made hard-edged

Broad Collection, Los Angeles

and ­reduced to a code. So Lichtenstein is engaged in both sides of the ­ argument, and he does not want to let go of ­ either representation or abstraction. As a result, in a painting such as his 1964 Non­Objective I (fig. 5.10) he pokes fun at the pretensions of ­ simplicity in early modernism, ­redoing ­ Mondrian in Benday dots as if the work of this highly idealized and unworldly artist were but comic relief. Lichtenstein’s is not a simple jab, however, because he recognizes the secret ­affinity between the condensed and economical ­ visual language in comic books and the drive to reductive simplicity and purity in ­ modernism. Mondrian’s idea of using only

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   1 9 7

5.11

­primary ­colors, for example, closely conforms to

simple idea of two ­variations—plus and ­minus,

Roy Lichtenstein, Plus and ­

the ­commercial printer’s use of four ink colors.

on and off, vertical and ­ horizontal—used in

With ­Lichtenstein there is both aggression and

­exactly the same ­module. Simply by varying the­

affection to ­ consider, and he sees the dialogue

degree of tint in the ­background he begins to pro-­

between these two things as having circularity.

duce something that is ­ atmospheric. In other­

Minus (Yellow), 1988. Oil and magna on canvas, 101.6 × 81.3 cm. Private collection 5.12

On the one hand, Lichtenstein ­ constantly

words, in Non-­Objective I, everything that is

1915. Charcoal, ink, and gouache,

seeks to demote Mondrian’s idealized sim-

textured, individual, ­atmospheric, or personal is

86.7 × 111.8 cm. The Museum

plicity to its lowest common denominator

reduced to the ­schematic and industrial. In Plus

of Modern Art, New York,

by ­ recouching it in mass media reproduction

and Minus (Yellow), what begins with the sche-

­techniques. On the ­ other hand, he is equally­

matic and ­ industrial reaches back up toward

Trust c/o HCR International,

fascinated later in his ­ career by how one takes

the ­atmospheric quality of Mondrian’s pier and

Warrentown, VA

the simple ­ reductive thing and builds back up

ocean series of 1915 (fig. 5.12). Here ­Mondrian

from it. For example, in his Plus and Minus

took the dazzle of light on open water, the

­(Yellow) of 1988 (fig. 5.11) he starts with the

vastness of the sea, and tried to ­ distill from

Piet Mondrian, Pier and Ocean 5,

Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund. © 2006 Mondrian/Holtzman

1 9 8   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

it a ­ language of essence. Lichtenstein ­ enjoys ­reversing the process: starting with something crude, anonymous, and predetermined, he tries to push back up toward the subtleties and complexities of a mirror’s sheen or the dazzle of fog and light on water. An implied social message is ­ embedded, I think, in the satires of abstraction that ­Lichtenstein undertakes, and it is not his alone. The quickest route to this message is in a ­picture such as Keds of 1961 (fig. 5.13), which ­Lichtenstein has said in interviews was specifically ­ intended as a jab at Vasarely, who as you remember is the bête noire of Stella and ­others. Stella and Judd disliked Vasarely’s idealized ­ geometry and its pretensions of social

5.13 Roy Lichtenstein, Keds, 1961. Oil on canvas, 123.2 × 88.3 cm. Private collection

order—his claim to defeat elitism and make a ­broadly and radically democratic art by means of a ­ geometric abstraction that operated on the ­optical nerve. A good example of Vasarely’s

5.14 Victor Vasarely, Grid, 1959. Oil on canvas, 27.9 × 24.8 cm. Courtesy Michéle Vasarely

­optical abstraction is Grid of 1959, in which an intersection of hidden bars disrupts the ­pattern along its axis and diagonally (fig. 5.14). By pointing out the potential Vasarely in the sneaker tread, Lichtenstein may be trying to argue that what he wants is not a brotherhood

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   1 9 9

5.15

of hard-wired neurology but a brotherhood of

The same thing might be said of Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg, Proposed

what is shared and exchanged, a brotherhood

in his proposal in 1969 for an inverted Chicago

of democracy that is associated at ground level

fire hydrant posing as a colossal skyscraper;

Fireplug (Model), 1969.

with something as common as a pair of Keds.

you can see the little boats sailing underneath

­Cardboard, wood, plaster with

Lichtenstein looks not to the clinic but to the

it (fig. 5.15). The Oldenburg is a direct quota-

souk as the shared meeting ground. What we

tion of Brancusi’s Male Torso of 1917 (fig. 5.16).

have in common, argues Lichtenstein in this

The Oldenburg seems to be thumbing its nose

5.16

­debate, is the commonplace of negotiation, of

at Brancusi, just as Picasso’s wallpaper scoffed

Constantin Brancusi, Male

the market, of the sale, of commerce; with all

at Matisse; that is, both are saying that what

of its terrible flaws and tawdriness, it beats the

­appears to be rarified and the product of highly

Museum of Art, Hinman

clinical clarity and totalitarianism posited in

individual thinking can often be found in the

B. Hurlbut Collection

Vasarely’s idealized geometry. The found geom-

marketplace or our daily environs. Yet even

etry, the wit, and the imagination of the anony-

more is going on in this satire. I think Olden-

mous artisan who designs the sneaker tread is of

burg wants to bring modernism out of its closet

more interest to Lichtenstein as a model for the

and into the public or civic realm, that is, to take

foundation of a society.

Brancusi’s advances—what Brancusi had done

­Colossal Monument for the End of Navy Pier, ­Chicago:

spray enamel and shellac, 30.5 × 68.6 × 59.7 cm. Private collection

Torso, 1917. Brass, 46.7 × 30.5 × 16.9 cm. The ­Cleveland

2 0 0   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

in getting rid of the sentimentality of Rodin, in getting rid of pathos, in taking sculpture off its pedestal and putting it directly on the floor— and re-realize them in the fire hydrant, which is of course a denunciation of the traditional civic monument of the man on a horse. It suggests, like the Lichtensteins, that a society should rally around what is most inclusive and commonplace, that we are ill served by idealism, by sym-

Now we come to the high prince of bad

bolism, and by separating ourselves from the

faith, not just in pop art but in the latter half

ordinary by means of pedestals. Instead, work

of the century: Andy Warhol, an original, who

like this encourages us to recognize a civic side,

you think might be a con artist, who you know

which is about the everyday, functional, mate-

found the nerve of the good faith / bad faith

rial things of life. A heroic irony is at work in the

problem and drilled right into its core over and

pop art of both Lichtenstein and Oldenburg, an

over like a malevolent dentist. Warhol is to the

irony that posits knowing skepticism as a posi-

emperor’s new clothes what Chanel is to the

tive ideal, an irony in which bad faith is a nec-

little black dress. He may not have invented

essary ingredient for a good society. And that

the concept, but he has become its spokesper-

is extremely hard on abstraction. Indeed these

son. For nose-thumbing on a bold scale, look at

puns come down very hard on the idealism

Warhol’s Crossword of 1961, which is certainly a

that seems to be embedded in the abstractions

send-up of Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie,

at which the pop artists aim their barbs. The

or at his Diamond matchbook of 1962, clearly a

­little jokes in pop are both less serious and more

Barnett Newman turned on its side, with its zips

­serious than they seem: admiring of abstraction

and hard edge (figs. 5.17, 5.18).

and at the same time deeply suspicious of it and looking hard at an alternative.

5.17 Andy Warhol, Crossword, 1961. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 112.6 × 160 cm. Private collection

Looking at Warhol’s 1963 painting Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times, which Philip Johnson

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 0 1

that repetition ostensibly to vitiate or deaden the impact of this photograph of someone in a car crash. One cannot help but feel that the staccato beat of the repetition, while perhaps numbing, also has an emotional effect on us that surpasses the impact of showing it just once. The stuttering repetition, like a flickering film or a television screen, strikes this image into us and gives the picture its power. Likewise, the emptiness on the right-hand side reinforces and makes the image on the left more isolated. The imperson5.18

gave the Museum of Modern Art, it is easy to be

ality and deadpan aspect of this picture are in

Andy Warhol, Blue Close Cover

cynical (fig. 5.19). In fact, Warhol told its former

a tug-of-war with its nagging insistence on its

owner David Whitney that he had just added

subject. The huge red emptiness on the right

linen, 40.6 × 50.8 cm. The Andy

the big red side panels to make the picture larger

is not only utterly vacuous but reinforces and

Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh,

and more expensive, and that if Whitney did not

makes more powerful—by the incursion of that

have room in his apartment, it was okay to show

central notch of red, for example—the message

just the left side of the picture with the car crash.

on the left-hand side of the picture. Without the

Warhol frequently undercut his own work this

red emptiness, the picture loses half its power.

way. And yet, having lived with this painting at

So Warhol is using and understands to some

the Modern, I’m fascinated by its minimalism

extent the language of abstraction. For all that

and the extent to which Warhol effectively uses

he is represented as the arch-appropriator and

the forms of abstraction, just as he sniggered at

pop artist, Warhol, at least as much as Lichten-

the repetition and seriality of minimalism in the

stein, is involved in a dialogue with the idea of

Brillo boxes and soup cans, and just as he used

abstract art.

Before Striking, 1962. Acrylic, Letraset®, and sandpaper on

Founding Collection, Contribution the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc.

2 0 2   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

The model of abstract painting regularly

when acids come in contact with them. Warhol

tugs at Warhol; in fact, throughout his career

laid these canvases on the floor, and he and his

he is obsessed with abstraction at the same time

assistants urinated on them in an exaggerated

that he is denigrating it. His most direct insult,

replay of Pollock’s heralded drip paintings.

I would suppose, to abstract painting is repre-

The dry version of the wet Pollock is Warhol’s

sented by Oxidation Painting of 1978, part of a

series of yarn paintings of 1983, which are made

series of 1977–82 canvases in which he and his

up of skeins of yarn of various colors (fig. 5.21).

assistants literally piss on Pollock (fig. 5.20).

These are obviously willfully dumb pictures.

These are large canvases coated with reactive

They are also sort of smart. I think that, for ex-

copper sulfides that oxidize and change color

ample, if one were to think about Sigmar Polke’s

5.19 Andy Warhol, Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times, 1963. Synthetic polymer paint and silk screen on canvas, two panels, overall: 268.9 × 416.9 cm; a: 268.9 × 208.6 cm; b: 268.3 × 208.3 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of Philip Johnson

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 0 3

5.20 Andy Warhol, Oxidation Painting, 1978. Mixed media on copper metallic paint on canvas, 198 × 519.5 cm. Daros Collection, Switzerland 5.21 Andy Warhol, Yarn, 1983. Acrylic and silk screen ink on canvas, 101.6 × 101.6 × 3.8 cm. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Founding Collection, Contribution the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

alchemical abstractions of the 1980s, Warhol’s

sense of skill or effort. This is exactly where he

oxidation series would have a different place

wants to plant the knife and twist. His paint-

in the language of abstract art at mid-century.

ings seem to trivialize the idea of invention, of

Some of Stella’s complexity of the 1970s is in the

­individuality. And yet he found, as I suggested

yarn pictures. That is, Warhol is crazy like a fox.

in comparisons to Polke and Stella, sneaky ways

He wants to press on the nerve of abstraction

of getting a certain painterliness back into the

made easy, on the idea that what abstraction

extremely dry and reductive art he practiced. He

­requires in order for us to have faith in it is some

made an entire series of camouflage paintings in 1982 in which he found a backdoor route to the biomorphic surrealist language of Jean Arp and Joan Miró and Alexander Calder. His ­Rorschach pictures (fig. 5.22)—huge, four-meter-high paintings of 1984—resonate with the scale and bravado of something they are truly not, say a Franz Kline or a Robert Motherwell. The whole idea of doing something while appearing not to do it is perfectly likable to Warhol. There may be a pattern in his madness. If you look at the wet and dry versions of his ­Pollocks, you will see that whereas ­ Lichtenstein tends

2 0 4   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

5.22 Andy Warhol, Rorschach, 1984. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 416.6 × 292.1 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York

to be interested in economy and ­ reduction, ­Warhol is an artist of splish, splash, blot, ­excess. (There is an interesting edge to Warhol in that his ­spillage is often the residue of techniques that are ­ normally deployed for precision and a hard edge, such as photo silk screen or ­ stencils.) ­ Perhaps the ­ example one would put next to ­ Lichtenstein, in terms of rendering the ­ ineffable by ­ apparently mechanical means, would be ­ Warhol’s Shadows paintings of 1977–78 (fig. 5.23). This series would be a key chapter in the long history of the relation-

encoded, abstracted language of representation.

ship between ­ photography and modern art, it

They ­ become so much a part of our thinking

seems to me, that would belie the conventional

that we almost take them as natural, but they are

wisdom that photography gave birth to abstrac-

in fact abstractions induced by the process of

tion by ­usurping the task of representation from

photography. Warhol seems to be highly aware

the painters, starving them in a ­ certain sense

of them and of their potential. He is as interested

and encouraging the turn to abstraction. But

in the graininess of photography as Lichtenstein

­another way to look at the history of photog-

is in the even spread of Benday dots.

raphy is that the invention of photography fed

The grain becomes for Warhol what the

not only the language of representation but the

­aquatint was for Goya, and I do not use the

language of ­abstraction that is encoded within

work of Goya lightly. Warhol is the poet of

the representation of things: blur, halation, fog-

the ­morbidity of our time, as we saw in the car

ging, solarization, dazzle, grain. Think of all of

crash series. For all the glitz and glamour, he is

the abstract aspects of photography that feed an

an artist who is interested in death and disaster.

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 0 5

5.23 Andy Warhol, Shadows, 1978. Polymer paint and silk screen on canvas, 193 × 132.1 cm. The Andy Warhol Foundation, Inc. 5.24

emotionally powerful. But they are grave things

Haim Steinbach, Ultra Red #2,

about utter hollowness and insubstantiality, and

1986. Wood, plastic laminates,

they will not let go of either side. What is so in-

lava lamps, enamel pots, and digital clocks, 170.2 × 170.2 ×

teresting to me about Warhol’s relationship to

193 cm. Solomon R. ­Guggenheim

abstraction is his love / hate relationship with its

Museum, New York

powers and weaknesses. Pop art’s long-running joke, then, is that ­abstraction looks like something, and more ­often than not, that something is worldly, commercial, or gritty. This joke turns grim and ­ ideological in the 1980s. After a decade dominated by conceptual art and installations, And just as he is ever the pop artist, he is also

pop art returns iced down and unsmiling in

interested in the pure codes of representation.

the 1980s in work like Haim Steinbach’s shelf

These forces come to a head, it seems to me, in

­display of 1986 or in ­Allan McCollum’s ­Plaster

the large series of Shadows paintings. (An entire

Surrogates of 1989 (figs. 5.24, 5.25). Plaster

room of these paintings is installed at the Dia Art Foundation at Beacon.) The pictures are nearly two meters high, very big and very impressive. And again, they recall the indeterminacy and broad rhetoric of abstract expressionism at the same time that they undercut it. You know right away by their codes that they represent something, and yet they are clearly pictures of nothing. They are, in Warhol’s vein, grave things,

2 0 6   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

­Surrogates is a wall full of framed black ­plaster squares. Warhol painted Campbell’s soup cans in a way that played on the intuition that the sale of art and the sale of commodities were not very different from each other. But he gave them a snappy, cheeky, upbeat rhythm by injecting some of the bright colors and the crassness of commerce into the language of his painting. In contrast, it seems to me that what McCollum is doing is stealing a somnolent monotony from

There is a true downbeat feeling to this art.

abstract painting and injecting it into the idea

You would hardly guess that this is occurring

of commerce, so that the relationship between

in a boom period in the American economy. In

abstraction and commodity is drumbeat in

fact a secret rebellion is taking place here. For

­Collection Van Abbemuseum,

here in an entirely different way, which seems

example, Sherrie Levine’s paintings of the 1980s

­Eindhoven, The Netherlands

the difference between quip and dogma. The

are filled with the rhetoric of appropriation

series of display shelves by Steinbach played

(fig. 5.26). As with Steinbach and McCollum,

generally on wall pieces and minimalism, on

Levine is out to subvert bourgeois concepts of

the language of minimalism and the language

­originality. These artists stage a wholesale cri-

of display. This does not have to do with the

tique of commodity, sweeping up abstraction as

fraught relationship between the power of

an undifferentiated example of the investment

minimalism and the power of ­industry, as we

in the ideals of individual creativity. The secret

talked about ­before, but with the tawdry slick-

rebellion is that ­ after a decade of artists pro-

ness of minimalism and the consumer cul-

ducing unpurchasable, conceptual art—land

ture of such things as ­ toilet brushes and lava

art, installations, and so forth—these artists

lamps.

produce objects that are extremely salable, that

5.25 Allan McCollum, ­Plaster ­Surrogates, 1989. Paint and plaster, 175 × 675 cm.

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 0 7

5.26 Sherrie Levine, Untitled (Lead

­ambiguity of abstraction. He would like you to

Checks: 2), 1986/1987. Casein

know exactly. And in 1982 he wrote:

on lead, wood, 152.4 × 101.6 cm. Courtesy of the Paul Cooper Gallery, New York

want to be critiques but are at the same time

1). These are paintings of prisons, cells, and walls. 2). Here the idealist square becomes the prison. Geometry is revealed as confinement. 3). The cell is a reminder of the apartment house, the hospital bed, the school desk—the isolated endpoints of industrial structure. 4). The ­paintings are a critique of idealist ­modernism. In the color field is placed a jail. The misty space of Rothko is walled up. 5). Underground conduits connect the units. “Vital fluids” flow in and out. 6). The “stucco” texture is reminiscent of motel ceilings. 7). The Day-Glo paint is a signifier of “low-budget mysticism.” It is the afterglow of radiation.2

portable and collectible. They borrow many ideas of anti-institutionalism and put them into

Any questions? Absolute and clear, the meaning

objects that have a certain market status in the

being that all abstraction, and particularly the

early 1980s.

hard-edge abstraction of work by Newman, for

More specific to the critique of ­ abstraction

2 0 8   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

example, is coded representation of power.

would be two of Peter Halley’s paintings: Two

If one reads on further in Halley’s essays, one

Cells with Circulating Conduit, 1986 (see fig. 1.22)

sees repeated references to Michel Foucault and

and Prison with Conduit of 1981 (fig. 5.27). ­Halley

the idea of a world of incarceration in which one

is back on the argument that all ­ abstraction is

is constantly in prison. It is as if Halley trans-

in fact only coded ­ representation—not in the

lates Foucault into a kind of neon ­ Monopoly

sense that Lichtenstein saw it, but something

board, or reimagines Smithson in Day-Glo.

much more extensive and serious. I will in

There’s an odd split between the cheery posi-

fact read to you. Halley is not interested in the

tivism of Halley’s colors and shapes, and his

5.27

sense that all of life is imprisoned; that art, like

Peter Halley, Prison with ­

other things, is a series of conventions given to

Conduit, 1981. Acrylic, ­­

us, not something we do. That is, buildings, for

Day-Glo acrylic, and Roll-a-Tex

example, are built to house us, not structures

on canvas (two parts), 137.2 × 91.4 cm. Addison Gallery of

that we make to have a view onto the outside

American Art, Phillips Acad-

world. There is a deep sense of pessimism in all

emy, Andover, Massachusetts,

this bright and affirmative color. Halley’s work

gift of the artist (PA 1971)

of the 1980s, ­interestingly, is done before the fall

5.28

of the ­Berlin Wall, before the advent of cyber-

Peter Halley, Powder, 1995.

space. Yet in the 1990s Halley’s work continues

Acrylic, Day-Glo acrylic,

in somewhat the same vein, with somewhat the

­metallic acrylic, and Roll-a-Tex on canvas, 234.2 × 318.5 cm

same set of meanings, now much more complicated and overlaid in a work like Powder of 1995 (fig. 5.28). It seems that although Halley’s ­rhetoric is very much ­ involved with the world of, say, Morris, Smithson, Foucault, and Baudrillard, his visual rhetoric is directly from the world of, say, ­Gerald Murphy and Stuart Davis. And this clash or ­ tension, I think, makes the work much more interesting and appealing than some of the words and rhetoric that go with it. You could say about Halley the reverse of what Marx once said about ­history, referring to ­Louis Napoleon as a pale, farcical imitation of his predecessor and ­ relative, Napoleon I: History

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 0 9

5.29 Philip Taaffe, Madame Torso in Deep, 1985. Linoprint ­collage, acrylic on paper, 227.3 × 174 cm. Courtesy of ­Gagosian Gallery, New York

always ­ repeats itself. The first time it’s trag-

farce is continued, the farce against abstrac-

edy, the second time it’s farce. What you see

tion, but in a slightly snider and ad hominem

­happening in Lichtenstein and then Halley is

way. Taaffe’s Madame Torso in Deep of 1985

history repeating itself, the first time as farce,

is a pun on Hans Arp and his Dada relief of

the second time as tragedy.

1916 called Madame Torso in a Wavy Hat (figs.

3

2 1 0   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

One of Halley’s partners in crime, who was

5.29, 5.30). Madame Torso is now united with

­frequently talked about in the same breath in

a Playboy bunny. ­ Instead of a separate affinity

the 1980s, is Philip Taaffe. In Taaffe’s case the

between ­commercialized representation, in the

way that Lichtenstein makes the comics look

and reductiveness on the inventive and personal

like ­Mondrian, by ­putting together Arp and his

side is shared by Taaffe, but with an ambition

playfulness—and this is meant to be a kind of

now to produce from their sum a third ­quality,

lyrical automatic drawing that has a providen-

decorativeness, which is Taaffe’s hallmark. ­Taaffe

tial relationship to the sense of feminine fash-

is nothing if not forthright in his ­ accusations

ion of Madame Torso in a Wavy Hat—Taaffe

against abstract art. His 1985 painting We Are

wants to conflate this ­individual invention and

Not Afraid (fig. 5.31) is a direct réplique to New-

Dada serendipity with the die cut of the Playboy

man’s Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue II of

bunny. There’s one more shape of interest in here, which comes out of Taaffe’s painting itself, and it is a kind of double dumbbell, a vaguely biomorphic, double lima bean shape, and it goes with the Playboy bunny and Madame Torso. Taaffe’s idea of putting the Playboy bunny and Madame Torso together in this form is not simply to ­create a standoff but an orgy. That is, parts come together in a squirming, compacted way—a snarky reference, I think, to the masculinity of the Playboy bunny as opposed to ­ Madame ­Torso. The cartoonish serendipity of the Arp,

5.30

out of the tradition of modernism, is now made

Hans Arp, Madame Torso in a

to look the same as the calculated formal economy of the commercial logo. Lichtenstein’s dual interest in reductiveness on the commercial side

Wavy Hat, 1916. Wood, 40.6 × 24.5 cm. Kunstmuseum Bern, Hermann und Margrit Rupf-Stiftung

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 1 1

of ­ human nature, the one place in color-field painting that renders a human dimension to the flat field of the picture—and instead make it a kind of braid, which suggests not only that I am violating the flat space you are so proud of, Newman, but I’m going to say that this is a mechanical sense of what’s decorative.” Whereas Halley’s argument is that the power of abstraction like Newman’s is sinister, that his geometric idealism is imprisoning, Taaffe’s critique is that it is empty, at base simply decoration. Taaffe puts to work the idea of revisiting high decoration with an intent to make it low decoration. For example, he takes an Ellsworth Kelly of 1962 called Blue Green (fig. 5.32) and remakes it in his own Blue Green of 1987 (see fig. 1.24), sticking decals on it and drawing lines 5.31

1967 (see fig. 1.23). The response to Newman

over it, as if to exorcise its power. Taaffe’s is a

Phillip Taaffe, We Are Not

in a certain sense is, “Hey, lighten up.” By pro-

snide, graffiti-like disfigurement of what he dis-

ducing a work of the same size and scale, he is

likes here; he wants to be seen sticking a pin in

259.1 cm. Courtesy Gago-

saying, “That isn’t too hard, Newman. For all of

its balloon. Taaffe, it seems to me, is preparing

sian Gallery, New York

your arguments about the sublime, I’m going

the stage for something that is more personal to

to take this ‘zip,’ this idea of verticality, along

him, namely, highly optical decoration.

Afraid, 1985. Linoprint ­collage, acrylic on canvas, 304.8 ×

2 1 2   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

with its anthropomorphic associations—that

Another of Taaffe’s riffs in the 1980s is op

is, the vertical member representing the spirit

art and Bridget Riley. One might think of this

appropriation not as an act of vandalism, or as a simple act of quotation, but rather as an ­argument for one Matisse over another. Taaffe is looking at Kelly’s Blue Green and thinking of the simplicity of Matisse’s cutouts as part of Kelly’s legacy, the high organization of large, strong forms; he is not thinking about the ­Interior with Eggplants that we looked at earlier and ­Matisse’s interest in vibrant, allover ­ patterning (see fig. 5.2). Yet that is ultimately the direction ­Taaffe’s art is headed. Just as we saw Halley’s work ­getting more complicated in the 1990s, so too does ­Taaffe’s. His Kharraqan of 1998–99 is a grab bag of world ­decoration—Persian, parts of the Alhambra, Japanese sword guards, Bridget

I want to turn now to an older ­ generation

Riley at the top—a whole ­amalgam to produce

of artists and how they wrestled with the ­issues

an optical overload of sheer visual ­ pleasure, a

that plague Taaffe and Halley and other young

riot of decoration, which is Taaffe’s more direct

artists of the 1980s—the issues of an ironic

side (fig. 5.33). But he needs to get to it by

­relationship to abstraction, of a relationship

first slaying the dragon of abstraction, whose

to a ­powerful precedent. Taaffe and Halley, for

­idealism and pretensions stand in the way of its

­example, ­ inherited the world of pop art, of

role, as he sees it, as decoration; he empties out

­Lichtenstein and Oldenburg, of popular ­culture

the idealism in order to get at the empty rhythms

and its relationship to the real, made world.

and beautiful patterns that he so ­admires as the

These young artists looked back beyond pop

energy of abstract art.

to the ­ abstraction of the 1950s, to Kelly and

5.32 Ellsworth Kelly, Blue Green, 1962. Oil on canvas, 219.7 × 172.7 cm. Collection of the artist

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 1 3

5.33

­Newman, as pure outsiders looking across a wall

Phillip Taaffe, Kharraqan,

at something in which they did not take part.

1998–99. Mixed media on canvas, 293.4 × 125.7 cm. Gagosian Gallery, New York

What is more interesting to me are those few artists who return to abstraction having rejected it, who lived in the shadow of high abstract art. I am referring to the Pollock generation, about whom I talked at the beginning of these lectures, who renounced and then came back to abstraction through the experience of minimalism and other aspects of 1960s and 1970s art. I am thinking here particularly of three ­artists who are what you might call part-time abstractionists. (What a strange concept, really. Prior to World War II, abstraction was an endpoint. It was something you arrived at after you had tried everything else. It was the absolute.) The three painters I have in mind are Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, and Jasper Johns. Of these three, certainly Richter is the most programmatic in his gambits between ­abstraction and representation. He began ­doing ­social realism in the Eastern bloc, then, when he came to the West, was immediately taken up by the onslaught of pop art from ­America, but he ­ consistently throughout his

2 1 4   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

career painted ­ abstractions—of a very particular kind. ­ Consider Richter’s Un-Painting (Gray) of 1972, and his Gray Streaks of 1968 (figs. 5.34, 1.25). Imagine in your mind a ­comparison ­between Un-Painting and Lichtenstein’s Composition II (see fig. 5.4) or between Gray Streaks and ­ Lichtenstein’s Ball of Twine (see fig. 1.20). ­ Certainly Gray Streaks refers to ­Stella’s black stripe paintings of 1959. And just as ­certainly Un-Painting refers to gestural, allover ­ abstraction in the model of Pollock. But what a difference! Lichtenstein’s ironic relationship to abstraction impels him to make work that is more graphic and clarified, work that is reduced to clear, hard, crude black-and-white lines, simple commercial patterns devoid of mystery and ambiguity. Richter’s instinct is the ­opposite: you might say that he literally waters

but a painter of doubt, one who constantly

5.34

down Stella, that Stella becomes grayer, blurred,

lives with “yes, but.” Like Warhol, he is involved

Gerhard Richter, Un-Painting

more aqueous, and wobbly. The whole sense of

­simultaneously with representation and the

­order and strictness becomes tentative, shaky.

­nagging ghost of ­abstraction. But unlike Warhol,

And the ­ Pollock vocabulary of Un-Painting

he works into abstraction from the inside, as an

becomes messier, thicker, more congealed, and

absolute ­abstract painter, and shuttles between

clotted. Richter is not a painter of clarification

a form of photographic realism and a form of

(Gray), 1972. Oil on canvas, 200 × 200 cm. The Jung Collection

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 1 5

5.35 Gerhard Richter, Abstract Painting, 1985. Oil on ­ canvas, 175 × 250 cm. Unknown collection

2 1 6   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

abstraction. He comes to his abstraction from a

equally debasing of both. The titles themselves

climate of dead cynicism and irony.

suggest generic painting, and the pictures are, in

One does not look to Richter’s abstraction for

the tradition of Palermo and Polke in a certain

comfort or idealism. In fact two of his ­partners

sense, heartless about their mechanical nature.

in crime in the 1960s and 1970s are Sigmar ­Polke

These are very difficult pictures to love. There

and an artist friend who uses the ­ pseudonym

is something acidulous and chilling about the

Blinky Palermo, both of them also known for

­colors of Abstract Painting, and both works be-

their dry, heartless cynicism about the ­ choices

speak an extremely tough-minded ­ relationship

and ambiguities of high abstract painting.

to abstraction that is matched in intensity by

Richter’s Abstract Painting of 1985 and his 1024

Richter’s obvious interest in romantic landscape.

Colors of 1973 show him working both sides of

His Waterfall of 1997 (fig. 5.37) looks so close

the street—geometric abstraction and gestural,

to the real thing that one wants to believe it be-

painterly abstraction (figs. 5.35, 5.36). He is

longs in the tradition of Caspar David Friedrich.

5.36 Gerhard Richter, 1024 Colors, no. 350–3rd translation, 1973. Lacquer on canvas, 254 × 478 cm. Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

But the slight photographic blur, the uneven-

stant destabilization seems to be what so much

ness of the surface, the collapse of the space, and

of Richter’s knowing, calculating art is about.

the lack of definition betray a clearly modernist

One would think Richter’s work an ­extremely

interest in photographic codes ­(similar to War-

unpromising source of what has in fact become

hol) that distance, chill, and intermediate. By so

some of the most important history painting and

doing, Richter creates rich expectations and

equally some of the most important ­abstraction

casts seeds of doubt at the same time. This con-

of the last half of the century. Within one year

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 1 7

This amazing cycle of pictures, ruminations on the alleged suicide / death / police murder of the remaining gang members in prison in 1978, was acquired for MoMA by Robert Storr, curator of the wonderful Richter retrospective that showed during 2002 and 2003 at the Modern and the Hirschhorn among other museums. This was a great coup for both Storr and the Modern. Richter had wanted this important series shown outside of Germany so that it would not be seen in the black-and-white terms of political ­ polarization but rather, I think, in terms and on grounds that would allow its deep ambiguity to blossom. One has only to compare a work from this series with Warhol’s disaster pictures (see fig. 5.19) to see the full graphic power of ­Warhol’s 5.37

of each other, for example, two series of large

use of photographic grain and polarization

Gerhard Richter, Waterfall,

paintings by Richter demonstrate his power-

as contrasted with Richter’s operations in the

ful conflation of abstraction and representa-

gray zone, in the blur and smear that obfus-

Sculpture Garden, ­Smithsonian

tion. In 1988, from the found photographs in

cates rather than makes things graphically clear.

Institution, Joseph H. ­Hirshhorn

­police files and tabloids, Richter culled an ut-

The emotional range of one’s fears, repug-

terly ­ noncommittal—in

fact, maddeningly

nance, ­esteem, or empathy vis-à-vis the Baader-

­noncommittal—vision of a series of incidents

­Meinhof Gang is forever left in suspension by

in the life and demise of the Baader-Meinhof

the cool, ­deadpan, noncommittal nature of the

Gang, a left-wing guerrilla group active in West

engagement with the subject and the distance

­Germany between 1968 and 1977 (fig. 5.38).

from the subject.

1997. Oil on linen, 164.8 × 110.2 cm. Hirshhorn Museum and

Purchase Fund, 1998

2 1 8   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

The same thing, I think, might be said about Richter’s large landscape abstractions, and I think particularly about his so-called ­ squeegee abstractions, November (fig. 5.39), ­ December, and January, all of 1989. These huge ­pictures— they measure about three by four meters—were made by dragging a hard bar repeatedly across the surface. The whole idea of making a picture by means of accident, which was after all about Pollock, the idea of letting material ­ determine the image and form of the making, seems filtered in Richter’s case through Johns and something we talked about in the fourth lecture, which is the idea that ­destroying ­order is the same thing as producing it, that art has a kind of cruelty to it. The raked and ­ruined surface of a picture like November recalls Johns’ ­mordant acceptance of

For all of their impersonality, for the feeling

the idea of ruination in the scraping, pulling, and

that they exist only by a gesture of ­effacement,

messing. The other two canvases from this series

of defacement, or negation, I for one find

have a similar ­power. Richter is not the producer

­Richter infinitely satisfying and interesting! I

The Museum of Modern Art, New

of a clear cycle of completion; this is not a series

encourage you to think about his pictures next

York, the Sidney and Harriet Janis

of “Four ­ Seasons.” Only winter is represented

to something like Clyfford Still’s similarly scaled

in this world, with its different colors pepper-

untitled painting of 1957 from the Whitney

ing through like the glow of fire beneath a fro-

(fig. 5.40). Here, with Still, is one of abstract

Enid A. Haupt Fund; Nina and

zen surface. These are incredibly rich, complex,

expressionism’s paradigms of sincerity, good

Gordon Bunshaft Bequest Fund;

­layers of surface incident, deeply worked.

faith, and idealism. And here, on the same scale,

5.38 Gerhard Richter, Cell (Zelle) from October 18, 1977, 1988. Oil on canvas, 200.7 × 139.7 cm.

Collection, gift of Philip Johnson, and acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (all by exchange);

and gift of Emily Rauh Pulitzer

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 1 9

5.39 Gerhard Richter, November, 1989. Oil on canvas, 320 × 400 cm. Saint Louis Art Museum, funds given by Dr. and Mrs. Alvin R. Frank and the ­Pulitzer Publishing Foundation

2 2 0   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

5.40 Clyfford Still, Untitled, 1957. Oil on canvas, 284.5 × 391.2 cm. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art

is Richter, the man of doubt, the man of irony,

­expressionism, unlike Richter’s, comes ­ directly

and the man of negation. Tons to look at, deeply

out of the language of de Kooning and ­Pollock.

moving, powerful. I would sit and look at the

In a picture such as Untitled of 1956 (fig. 5.41),

Richter at least as long as I would look at Still’s

instead of the continuous liquid skein of ­Pollock,

picture. In fact, I would gladly trade fifty-two

or the big, juicy brushstrokes of de ­ Kooning,

yards of Still’s formulaic pony-hide surface for

Twombly produces a fragmented, broken, straw-

a square foot of Richter’s surface.

like scratching and scrawling. As Peter Schjel-

The second of this triad I want to consider

dahl once said, it is like what a dog does when

is Twombly, whose relationship to abstract

he’s getting ready to lie down.4 Twombly is

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 2 1

destroying the surface, scarring it, dragging pen-

tered through the public ­language of signs and

cils through it. His is an act of desecration, van-

writing. By the time he gets to a very juicy and

dalization, of bringing the language of abstract

liquid art, as in his ­ Untitled of 1962—by the

expressionism out of the realm of ­personal ex-

time the picture begins to spurt and leap and

pression and into the world of writing and lan-

splatter—it is through common signs for phal-

guage, of shared signs and pictograms. At any

luses, buttocks, and fecal material (fig. 5.42).

given moment, the piece seems about to break

Everything about its gushiness, its expression,

into a set of words, a set of pictograms, a set

is filtered again through the idea of deface-

of letters that is going to spell out a ­ message.

ment and negation. This is not the cool, beauti-

160 cm. Courtesy Sonna-

His forms no longer have an ­independent role

ful continuity of abstract expressionism, but a

bend Collection, New York

­outside the body; instead their physicality is fil-

rather jerky, hesitant, intermittent negotiation

5.41 Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1956. Oil and crayon on canvas, 122 ×

of a set of signs. This kind of work in the early 1960s puts Twombly deeply out of step, as one can ­imagine, with pop and minimalism. It is only in the mid-1960s, after he undergoes a crisis, that he returns for the only time in his career to pure abstraction. In a group of paintings known as the ­blackboard pictures, he turns away from the world of ­language, if not from the world of writing itself, and begins writing in a preliminary sense, much like the exercises promoted by the Palmer method of handwriting, where simple rolls are repeated in order to exercise the hand. This willful distraction of writing ­ precludes

2 2 2   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

5.42 Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1962. Oil, paint, wax crayon, lead pencil on canvas, 266.1 × 299.1 cm. Collection of Ealan J. Wingate

meaning and communication, and exists as a

but in a kind of white oil stick. ­Twombly uses this

purposely mindless run-on gesture that never

format to encounter in 1970 Henry Geldzahler’s

has any accumulation in letters or words and

great show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

has no pictographic component (fig. 5.43). The

Forty Years of New York School Painting, in which

creamy gushiness of Twombly’s early work is

he sees a room of ­Pollocks. He goes back to Rome

here stripped back to a minimal black and white,

after seeing this and ­ produces two ­ amazing

into something decidedly austere, even bleak, in

­pictures. Each of these is about five meters wide.

its repetitiveness and distillation. These black-

One is an amazing picture, now in the Menil

board pictures are not actually done in chalk,

Collection, that has a Wagnerian quality to it

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 2 3

5.43

and a great tumbleweed at the bottom (fig. 5.44).

Look at the difference between two 1970

Cy Twombly, Cold Stream, 1966.

Instead of the automatic roll, Twombly expands

works from the series, the untitled Menil ­picture

this repetitive gesture to the scale that Pollock

and the picture that the Museum of Modern

252.1 cm. Collection of Mar-

had, where you have to stride into the picture.

Art owns, which is utterly noncumulative and,

guerite and Robert Hoffman

He begins to produce what resembles a roll of

I think, more challenging as a ­result (fig. 5.45).

tangled barbed wire that has a series of breaks or

While the Menil is more ­ narrative—­moving

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1970

inflections; these rolls speak not just about the

from a ­ tentative distant thunder at the top to

[Rome]. Oil, house paint, and

wrist and repetition but about the elbow, about

a giant thundering roll at the bottom—the

oil / wax crayon on canvas,

the step, and this produces a characteristic awk-

­Modern is more abstract in its refusal to

wardness of Twombly’s work. Everything that

­narrate, to tell any story, even by implication.

seems to be easily repeated and reflexive—that

Purer in its ­ unendingness—who knows where

has a “my kid could do it” quality—also has a

it starts, where it will end, in the Pollock sense

slight clumsiness that saves the work from being

of ­ alloverness—and yet created not from an

merely virtuosic or facile.

­ambitious scrawl, but with that simple roll. Over

Oil-based house paint and wax crayon on canvas, overall: 199 ×

5.44

245.4 × 495.3 cm. Cy Twombly Gallery, the Menil Collection, Houston, gift of the artist

2 2 4   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

and over, again and again. How many times can

he could stand on the floor to do the ­ bottom.

5.45

I do this? And that is in fact an ­interesting ques-

Roll after roll after roll. Nothing but the ­simplest,

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1970.

tion: how do you make a painting like this that

most mindless gesture, until it built up, in skein

is nearly four meters tall? In the most ­artisanal

after skein, into these amazing, frenetic clouds.

The Museum of Modern Art,

fashion: Twombly sat on the shoulders of one

This is a picture—and I would never say this

New York, acquired through

of his friends and was carried, like a giant type-

­lightly—that I would look at in the ­company of

writer carriage, across the top of the ­picture and

Pollock’s ­Number 1, 1950 (see fig. 1.5). Everything

then returned to the next row and the next, until

that Twombly achieves, he achieves by the nega-

Oil-based house paint and crayon on canvas, 397.2 × 640.4 cm.

the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest and the Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection (both by exchange)

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 2 5

tion, by the ironic ­ distancing of ­ himself from

made his name by driving a spike through the

Pollock, by the ­exact inversion of what ­Pollock is.

heart of Pollock, the man who established him-­

Everything that is liquid is turned dry. Every-­

self as the antichrist of abstraction. In 1973 he

thing that is light is turned dark. Everything that

turns back, for seven full years, to painting noth-­

is simple and spontaneous and ­athletic is turned

ing but abstract pictures along the mindlessly

obsessive, ­repetitive, self-­conscious in ­Twombly.

simple model of Scent’s system of crosshatch

By means of this pressure and negation, he re-

marks. It is a system that finds its first realiza-­

­realizes, on a completely different scale and terms,

tion in a “manifesto” work, Untitled No. 1–4, of

the intense transmission of ­energy that Pollock

1972 (fig. 5.47), four panels where body parts—

conveyed to canvas. Twombly has ­ translated—

like the target with body parts—are found with

through ­ writing, through self-­consciousness,

a pattern of flagstones, something taken from

through ­irony—Pollock’s amazing present-tense

popular culture, and on the left, what appears to

literalness and immediacy into an entirely

be a purely invented thatch pattern. Johns has

­different kind of ­abstraction.

said he saw something like this painted on a car,

Jasper Johns is my final example today. Johns too, it seems to me, takes a sardonic swipe at

2 2 6   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

and that provided the original accent, the origi-­ nal inspiration for the picture.

Pollock in a picture such as Scent of 1973–74

What is clear about the picture is that it is a

(fig. 5.46). He is well aware of the overall appeal

systematization of the idea of gestural abstrac-­

of a large unstructured field, and yet he wants to

tion. Its complexity can be reduced to modu-­

structure it, and he does so in 1973 in the most

lar form. Just as Twombly’s repetition speaks of

radical break with his own career, even more

expressionism filtered through minimalism, so

radical than Twombly’s return to abstraction

Johns’ repetition is about gesturalism filtered

in the mid-1960s. Johns, you recall, is the art-­

through modularity. For all of its complexity of

ist of the flags and targets, the man who made

color, Scent is still extremely crisp in its order-­

his ­living debunking abstraction, the man who

ing, and it is clearly planned. If you look at the

scheme of Scent, you will see that it is structured

it is fragmented, not continuous, and that it is

5.46

as a series of panels that repeats itself; the edge

plotted. You feel it in the way that Johns, I think,

Jasper Johns, Scent, 1973–74. Oil

on the right is exactly the same as the edge on

must have had in mind when he titled it Scent,

the left; it is centered on one panel, which has

which is not only the title of one of Pollock’s last

Aachen. Art © Jasper Johns/

on either side of it repeats. You can see how

paintings, but shares a familiarity with Picasso’s

Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

the pattern A-B-C overlaps itself and moves to ­

statement that there was reality in cubism, but it

C-D-E, and then overlaps itself again and moves

was there like a perfume or odor in the picture.

to E-F before it comes back around to the circu-

There is an order in Scent, but it is something

larity. It is a calculated program, quite the oppo-

one intuits, or picks up as a trace.

site of Pollock’s sense of automatic release. You

The idea of Scent, by the way, and I don’t

do not need a roadmap to recognize that there

mean to subscribe to it, is important to the think-

is an order to this picture; you understand that

ing about Johns’ series of crosshatch pictures,

and encaustic on ­canvas, 182.9 × 320.6 cm. Collection Ludwig,

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 2 7

5.47

because dealing with their meaning has often

is so interesting in Johns, and we saw it in his

Jasper Johns, Panels from

involved a kind of title mania. There is noth-

Device (see fig. 4.21), is that he has to estab-

ing else to go on in these arrangements of hatch

lish a ­system in order to cancel or bury it. The

with objects (four panels),

marks. And while it seems to me extremely

­important thing about order for Johns is that it

183 × 490 cm overall. Museum

­important that they be meaningless marks,

be degradable. The order itself is hardly as im-

Ludwig, Ludwig Donation,

Johns gave these pictures provocative ­titles. For

portant as the demonstration of its vulnerability

example, art scholars have spent a good deal of

or fragility. The light and crisp gestural quality

time on titles such as Corpse and Mirror (fig.

in Scent becomes slightly more turgid in Corpse

5.48), with the idea of the exquisite corpse and

and Mirror. We note first of all an austerity—in

surrealism, and with what the mirror has to do

the reduction in color—and a meatiness, espe-

with doubling. It seems much more interesting

cially to the cancellation on the right. As Johns

to me to look at what becomes of this simple

works with this utterly meaningless, mindless

pattern of Scent, how it becomes a metaphor

gesture, as simple-minded as Twombly’s scroll,

for order and its collapse or annulment. What

it becomes extremely personal. So that by 1978

Untitled No. 1–4, 1972. Oil, encaustic, and collage on canvas

Cologne. Art © Jasper Johns/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

2 2 8   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

5.48 Jasper Johns, Corpse and Mirror, 1974. Oil, encaustic, and collage on canvas, 127 × 152.7 cm. The David Geffen ­Collection, Los Angeles. Art © Jasper Johns/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

one sees Johns remaking those five hatch marks

face and skin is of continual interest in Johns’

directly with his hand, the hand that had often

work.

been like a print in his work, a print of his own

The personal nature of the pattern is never

body in the work, now becoming the trace of

clearer than in the choice of Johns’ lithograph

his mark, like a series of caresses (fig. 5.49). For

of 1970–71 as the poster for his later retrospec-

all of its teeming, knotted, congestedness, it is

tive at the Whitney (fig. 5.50). This remark-

stroked, as one strokes repeatedly the surface

able image, Savarin, demonstrates three things

of the skin, for example. The notion of sur-

about Johns’ self-identification. The print of

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 2 9

5.49 Jasper Johns, Untitled, 1978. Acrylic on paper, 111.1 × 73.7 cm. Private collection. Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

the red arm at the bottom is certainly a direct take from ­ Edvard Munch’s self-portrait (fig. 5.51). Johns was interested in Munch as an expressionist, in the morbidity of his work, and in the way in which Munch represented his mortality with a skeletal arm at the bottom of his portrait. The Savarin coffee can in the center is Johns’ own sculpture, a remnant of his studio, the can he stuffed with brushes, which has become a self-emblem—other artists have used a palette—for his practice as an artist. And not least important is the cross-hatching in the background, reminiscent of Picasso’s using the diamond pattern of the harlequin’s costume in the background of the Girl Before the Mirror to project his own ­presence—the harlequin as Picasso’s avatar—as the ground on which his mistress exists. In Johns’ lithograph, then, we have the biological fact of his existence at the bottom, the tools of his trade in the middle, and his creations—the mindless pattern of his marks—behind him. Each one is an extremely important component of his personality, integral, not to a complete and whole soul in the way that expressionist painting works, but to

2 3 0   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

the levels of existence that Johns uses to create a composite self-portrait. Further on in the 1970s, as he continues to do nothing but abstract paintings of this pattern, is a series of pictures called Usuyuki (Japanese for a light snow, for something that vanishes or melts in a hurry; a metaphor in Japan for fleeting life or beauty). One from the Cleveland museum is a tall collage and painting in which there is a steady murmur of potential meaning in the newspaper clippings beneath the strokes (fig. 5.52). This thatch of babbling, cut-up meaning is suppressed and supplanted—again, the idea of burying or cancelling. Here the crisp and aerated order in Scent has turned thick, gooey,

5.50 Jasper Johns, Savarin, 1981. Lithograph printed in color, comp.: 101.3 × 75.1 cm;

and molten. Title mania aside, one clearly sees

sheet: 127.6 × 97.3 cm. The Museum of

that as this work has become personal for Johns,

Modern Art, New York, gift of Celeste

it has gotten thicker and denser. It has gone from

Barbos. Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed

the relatively light feeling of surface and flatness

by VAGA, New York, NY

in Scent to a realm of greater density where the

5.51

order is not simply cancelled on one side, as it

Edvard Munch, Self-Portrait, 1895.

was in Corpse and Mirror, but cancelled in the

Lithograph, comp.: 46 × 32.4 cm; sheet: 85.4 × 42.4 cm. Publisher: the artist, Berlin;

process of being made! The gesture itself is the

printer: Lassally, Berlin; edition: approxi-

gesture of both making and burying. This comes

mately 200. The Museum of Modern Art,

through even more strongly, I think, toward the

New York, gift of James L. Goodwin in memory of Philip L. Goodwin, 1959

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 3 1

5.52 Jasper Johns, Usuyuki, 1977–78. Encaustic and collage on canvas (three panels), each: 86.4 × 45.7 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

2 3 2   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

end of the series, just before Johns gives up the crosshatch pictures in 1980, with Dancers on a Plane I (fig. 5.53). Compared to Scent, Dancers has a compact bristling nature. The central spine of this picture divides it into registers, and along each one of these spines the patterns now begin to duplicate, and you get weird things like birds’ faces, for example, with screaming eyes and pointed beaks. And then if you look harder, you think you see jigging arms and legs, as if in some contorted exercise. One gets the feeling that this pattern has been packed in, that it is so pregnant, it is about to crack open and yield up something. Perhaps the great picture of this series, and the one I will end with, is Johns’ Weeping ­ Women of 1975 (fig. 5.54). Let’s deal with the title first. It is certainly based on the idea of ­Picasso’s ­ weeping women, a series of pictures that led up to Guernica, of which the most ­famous is a 1937 picture of pure anguish and distortion (fig. 5.55). There was a showing of ­Picasso’s ­ series around the time that Johns

5.53 Jasper Johns, Dancers on a Plane I, 1979. Oil on canvas with objects, 197.5 × 162.6 cm,

made this picture,5 and while I don’t believe that

with frame. Collection of the artist. Art ©

in any sense the title for the Johns precedes the

Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 3 3

5.54 Jasper Johns, Weeping Women, 1975. Encaustic and collage on canvas, 127 × 259.7 cm. The ­ David Geffen ­Collection, Los Angeles. Art © Jasper Johns/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

2 3 4   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

from his studio: not the Savarin can as before, but the iron that he uses to heat the encaustic wax. This tool brands the picture in four places. You can see that there are two irons on a string in the center panel, and then two irons beneath them. As David Sylvester has said, in some senses picture, the idea for the picture may have been

all of Johns’ art is a continual crucifixion.6 And

“baptized” in the river of anguish that pervades

planted into the central panel of this triptych is

Picasso’s ­ series. Is it an homage to Picasso, an

this anthropomorphic symbol—the irons—as if

artist ­ always hugely meaningful to Johns, not

arms are stretched across and things fall down.

only for the ­Weeping Woman but for cubism, for

But more than that symbol, what strikes us is

the systematic ­organization of cubism, that constantly haunts Johns? In fact, in Johns’ markings

5.55 Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman, 1937. Oil on canvas, 60.8 × 50 cm. The Tate Museum, accepted by H. M. Government in lieu of tax

and cross-hatching, there is a definite evocation

with additional payment (Grant-

of the Africanizing relationship between scarifi-

in-Aid) made with assistance

cation and systematic cubic order that you get

from the National Heritage

in ­pictures like Picasso’s Woman in Bed of 1907 (fig. 5.56), right after the Demoiselles.

Memorial Fund, the National Art Collections Fund and the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1987

But forget Picasso, forget the title. Just look at the picture. Look at the violation of the picture

5.56 Pablo Picasso, Woman in Bed,

in the one note of external reality that comes

1907. Oil on panel, 36.5 × 38 cm.

into it, the inclusion of a merely pragmatic item

Private collection, New York

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 3 5

2 3 6   P I C T U R E s o f n ot h i n g

the actuality of what happens when that iron

One could spend an endless amount of time

hits the surface of the picture, creating a pres-

looking at the sheer complexity of layering on

sure against it and a destruction of the order.

the surface, an enormous investment of energy.

Think Richter. Think the idea of scraping that

Think about the feeling from that Twombly.

initially, I think, emerged from Johns’ desire to

Start with a mindless program. Just draw

create an order out of destruction. Look at the

scrawls and see what it gives you. Think about

incredible richness of the drip when the encaus-

Johns starting with the idea of just hatching,

tic gives way and runs over the scrape and the

just drawing five bars at a time, then drawing

scratch it creates beneath it. Johns obsessively

them again in oil, drawing them again in en-

worked the surface with his personal marks: the

caustic, then scraping them down, then trying

circles impressed all over the picture are the bot-

again, then coming back again with blood, with

toms of the ale cans that were Johns’ signature

night, with white, again and again.

sculpture, and this was his way of covertly, al-

Is this abstract art? Is the Twombly abstract

most fetishistically, imprinting personal mean-

art? Are Richter’s big pictures abstract art?

ing into this unyielding system of abstract lines.

Are they art about abstract art? Certainly on

And then the lines themselves! Look at the scale

one level of meaning, they are art about art.

of this picture—and the rhetoric—how it has

Their relationship to the tradition of Pollock

changed from Scent. Next to this, Scent seems

is ­ tantamount to what they are. One level of

like a placid landscape. The scale of the marks

their meaning is their knowing relationship to

in relation to the picture—and the picture itself

that tradition, and that relationship is ironic.

is 2.5 meters wide—is still in proportion to the

It is a relationship of negation: of providing

body, but now built up; the marks can no longer

­structure to the unstructured, drying out the

be hand marks; they have an enormity in their

liquid, ­ making dark the light. It is a relation-

scale and in their collapse.

ship to ­ tradition that involves chastisement,

that involves the ­acceptance of tradition’s con-

placed by knowing, of dreams dispelled by real-

straints at the same time that it subverts and

ity. Here, however, in Twombly, in Johns, and in

reacts against them. And yet this is, it seems to

Richter, you have an abstraction saturated with

me, extremely powerful abstract art. The stan-

skepticism, saturated with knowing, an abstrac-

dard history of abstraction, and the one that the

tion that proves that abstraction can be know-

satirists and ironists of the 1980s would write,

ing and still have meaning. And that meaning is

smugly and in self-congratulation, is a history

something that adds to, not just draws on, what

of faith and its loss, a history of illusions re-

we know.

N ot e s 1. Jack Flam, Matise and Picasso: The Story of Their Rivalry and Friendship (Cambridge, MA: Westview Press, 2003), 92. 2. Peter Halley, Collected Essays 1981–1987 (Zurich: Bruno Bischofberger, 2000), 23. 3. Karl Marx, paraphrase of the opening sentences of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852). The actual words were “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” 4. Peter Schjeldahl, “Size Down,” Artforum 33:1 (September 1994), 73. “His work is as much a form of behavior as a product of craft. It is restless, with the discontent of a dog that turns and turns, unable to feel just right about the place it has chosen to lie down.”

5. Johns may not have seen Picasso’s Weeping Woman for the first time at a museum exhibition but rather in a private home or gallery. See Roberta Bernstein, “Seeing a Thing Can Sometimes Trigger the Mind to Make Another Thing,” in Kirk Varnedoe, Jasper Johns: A Retrospective (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1996), 49; Riva Castleman, Jasper Johns: A Print Retrospective (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1986), 45. 6. David Sylvester, “Shots at a Moving Target,” Art in America, 85:4 (April 1997), 96. “The message for me after a dozen visits was that in the pantheon of painters of the second half of the century it could be Johns who sitteth on the right hand of Newman the Father Almighty. If he does, the iconography is rather apt: Newman’s art is immaculate and in charge; John’s bears the scars of recurrent self-crucifixion.”

s at i r e , i r o n y, a n d a b s t r a c t a r t   2 3 7

2 3 8   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

6

A B S T R AC T A RT N OW

We have come to the last installment, the sixth

While I do not have anything nearly as ­exotic

of six Mellon Lectures. I am so painfully aware

left in my holster, I do have so many stories that

of how much has gone unsaid, and how much

I have not told! I would like to refer briefly to

I would still like to say. It reminds me of Ridley

those stories, because they reinforce some of

Scott’s wonderful film Blade Runner, in which

the points I have been making. When I talked

Roy Batty, the blond leader of the androids­—

about art in the 1980s and abstraction, I regret

who, you remember, are trying desperately to

not having had time to include de Kooning, es-

extend their shelf life, to get some reprieve on

pecially his wonderful late work. These beauti-

their expiration date—whomps Harrison Ford

ful, aerated, ribbonlike pictures strongly bolster

in a rather epic fight, and then slumps down on

the history that I have been constructing here.

a rain-soaked balcony. He realizes, as his warn-

The unbroken line between, say, de Kooning’s

ing light is flashing, that his time is coming to an

­Excavation in 1950 and his 1984 Untitled IV

end. And he says, “I’ve seen things you people

(figs. 6.1, 6.2)—the direct link between a set of

wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the

forms that evolved in the 1940s and those spelled

shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the

out in the 1980s—belies any notion that history

dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments

can be constructed neatly in packages, or that

will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

abstraction is a sequence of innovations passed

pictures, pictures that are, for all we know, ­beyond intention, because when he made them he had lost the ability to communicate in any other fashion. He was incapable of carrying on a strong conversation or of sustained recall; by many definitions, he was non–compos mentis. And yet the pictorial intelligence, the sustained memory of the abstractions he had made over the years, is palpably strong. De Kooning’s work in the 1980s also belies the dichotomy between abstraction and representation. The constant slip-sliding of bodily references that we see in 6.1

like a baton from one artist to the next. Instead

this work—the bellies and breasts and curves

Willem de Kooning, ­Excavation,

it reinforces the idea that abstraction can be a

and tongues that lubriciously slide in and out of

lifetime pursuit, that it can be deeply sustaining

each other—insists that the division of abstrac-

Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Frank

into old age. Moreover, in de Kooning, abstrac-

tion and representation is a question of artistic

G. Logan Purchase Prize; gift of

tion gives rise to a late-in-life style characterized

practice and pragmatics.

1950. Oil on canvas, 206.2 × 257.3 cm. The Art Institute of

Mr. and Mrs. Noah Goldowsky and Edgar Kaufmann Jr.

2 4 0   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

not by density and failure but by a fresh sense of

It is pragmatic praxis that defends the bor-

aeration, a new kind of life that is amazing and

ders between abstraction and representation,

wonderful to those who knew him and under-

not some theoretical purity of odd lines that can

stood the compacting of his early work.

be drawn vigorously. Remember that Pollock

Looking at de Kooning’s 1984 painting, there

talked about self-censorship in his work: when-

is a strong sense of the artist at play in his old

ever he saw anything recognizable emerging, he

age with the forms that he had inherited. He

rubbed it out. One could not comprehend de

would project slides of his earlier drawings

Kooning’s career—the Women, the early figura-

and trace over them to produce these ­ riotous

tions, the recurrent push toward a corporeal art

in his sculpture in the 1970s—without under­ standing that the border between abstraction and representation is not something holy but something labile, permutable, and transgressive, like these pictures. I also did not have time to talk about ­Agnes Martin, whose thin, beautiful executions in graphite and pale oil paint are the opposite of what we were just looking at in de Kooning. Her 1963 canvas and the 1978 watercolor are utterly incorporeal: they have no body—no tongues, no breasts, no sag, no slip, no slide (figs. 6.3, 6.4). They are at the other end of abstraction, and yet not at all cerebral. Despite their seem­ ing asceticism, they could make the same point as the de Koonings about the necessary sensu­ ality of abstraction: namely, that the kind of abstraction I am describing in these lectures is never about absolutes but often about nuances.

surface, to feel the subtlety of the tint. Martin’s

6.2

­Martin’s work is all about a delicacy of touch

art is all about experience—on the part of both

Willem de Kooning, Untitled

and tint, about the recovering of pale moon­

the artist and the observer.

light, of desert beiges and tans, and this draws

Robert Ryman, whom I barely nodded to

upon and is thoroughly dependent on sensory

earlier, presents us with yet a different experi­

and sensual experience. In order to understand

ence. Ryman in his maturity is an artist who

this art, you have to be there to feel the touch of

paints nothing but varieties of white can­

the pencil, the lightness with which it hits the

vases, and for that reason his work is ­ often

IV, 1984. Oil on canvas, 223.5 × 195.6 cm. Collection of the artist

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 4 1

6.3 Agnes Martin, Field #2, 1963. Oil and graphite on canvas, 190.2 × 190.2 cm. Robert and Jane ­Meyerhoff ­Collection, Phoenix, Maryland

Ryman is all about painting; he is an abstrac6.4

tionist who is interested in imagery and in the

Agnes Martin, Untitled, 1978.

nature of painting. But he is the opposite of an

Watercolor and pencil on paper, 22.9 × 22.9 cm. The Museum of

essentialist. Unlike Clement Greenberg, who be-

Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,

lieved there was an essence of painting,1 Ryman

bequest of Marcia Simon Weisman

is sure that there is no essence at the bottom, that painting constantly needs to be changed ­described as ­ ethereal or removed. In order to

and experimented with, that every aspect of it

show that in fact Ryman is not a desert mys-

leaves open a new vista of possibility for him.

tic, like Martin, but a Matisse-loving urban-

And if I cannot prove my point about Ryman

ite, his work needs to be seen close up, which

with slides, I can at least send you to look at the

I have tried to simulate in a full view of Bond

two beautiful Rymans—untitled paintings of

(fig. 6.5). For ­ everything that is pale and thin

1965–66 (fig. 6.6) and 1961—that now belong

and precise about Martin, there is an unctu-

to the National Gallery, thanks to Jeffrey Weiss’s

ous and idiosyncratic ­counterpoint in Ryman’s work. For all the rigor and ­ restriction of the path that he set himself, ­ Ryman indulges in a kind of ­fetishistic precision about the fasteners with which the picture goes on the wall, about the thickness of the ­stretchers, about the size of the brush he uses, about the unit of the brush stroke—in short, about the stuff of painting. His is an art of ­ constant ­ restlessness, an art that despite its pure appearance, is never in fact about perfection.

2 4 2   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

6.5 Robert Ryman, Bond, 1982. Enamelac on fiberglass panel, redwood, with two aluminum ­fasteners, four hexagonal bolts, panel: 76.2 × 76.2 cm; overall: 81.3 × 76.2 cm. ­Collection of the artist

promotion of them. These two signal acquisi-

at the outset of these lectures, the less there

tions are typical of some of the greatest work of

is to look at, the more you have to look, the

Ryman’s career.

more you have to be in the picture. Perhaps

Looking at these paintings, you will grasp

by ­ temperament I am guilty of having been

the perversity of my mission to talk about ab-

overly ­ attentive to ­ abstraction’s noisy, declara-

straction using reproductions. As I cautioned

tive ­protagonists. I have surely not paid enough

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 4 3

every possible freedom. In fact, quite the opposite! Abstraction is to be seen more as a history of denials, of self-imposed rigors and purposely narrowed concentration. Thus its history is not, as often represented, a line of cumulative gains or cumulative reductions, an inverted pyramidal progression pointing down toward the black square, the ultimate end, the effort to produce the last painting. A better model for abstraction is perhaps the hypertext, where the line between a

and b goes out in a million possible and ever

more complex directions, where artists along the line from a to b find that a' or a'' is a window opening onto an entire universe. 6.6

attention to that quarter of contemporary

Brice Marden is another artist whose work

Robert Ryman, Untitled, 1965–66.

­abstraction that is about ­ whispers, innuendo,

I admire and about whom I could have talked

confidences exchanged intimately rather than

more had there been time. At the outset of these

publicly ­ declared. But in part I have done this

lectures you will recall that I set Pollock at one

because, as we have just seen, it is technically

pole as the culmination of one kind of abstrac-

difficult to render this quieter art.

tion and Johns at the other as the vanguard of

Oil on linen, 191.8 × 191.1 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons’ Permanent Fund

2 4 4   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

References to Ryman and Martin are useful,

a new counterpoint to abstraction. Although I

however, because they demonstrate again that

made use of that polarization as a structure, we

the history of abstraction is not, as popularly

have seen again and again throughout this se-

conceived, a history of libertinism, a history of

ries that the most interesting work tends to be a

playing tennis without a net, of allowing oneself

­hybrid of these two things, and that the polar-

ization is spurious. Indeed, one of the ­defining efforts of contemporary abstraction, particularly (but not only) in painting, is the constant effort to pull Johns and Pollock ­ together, and Marden’s work is a good demonstration of that effort. His ­encaustic, Grove Group I of 1973, has everything to do with the fact that Marden was a guard at the Jewish Museum during Johns’ first show in the 1960s (see fig. 1.44). Vine (fig. 6.7), on the other hand, has all to do with the recovery of Pollock’s legacy, perhaps directly through de Kooning’s ribbonlike pictures of the 1980s that we have just been discussing. Again, purity, absolutes, and barriers are not the is-

space in all of its complexity but with Johns’

6.7

sue. Artists such as Marden try to live with the

touch and the cerebral notion of system. He

Brice Marden, Vine, 1992–93.

legacies of Pollock as a great abstract artist and

is ­ looking beyond the landscape of Pollock,

Johns as a representative painter by mixing and

through the systems of minimalism, for new

Art, New York, gift of Werner

blending what Pollock and Johns stand for: in-

metaphors of density and complexity that

and Elaine Dannheisser

stinct versus intelligence, commitment versus

have as much to do with mental constructs

wariness, immediacy versus reserve, lyricism

and ­ geometry as they have to do with birds’

versus ­reticence.

nests and a thatch-work of natural richness

One could look beyond Marden to younger

Oil on linen, 243.8 × 260.4 × 6.4 cm. The Museum of Modern

and complexity.

artists like Terry Winters for further evidence.

These are just nods in the direction of all the

In Winters’ 1996 Parallel Rendering I (fig. 6.8)

stories I had hoped to complete in the span of

it seems to me he is trying to remake Pollock’s

these lectures. But let me at least return to some

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 4 5

6.8 Terry Winters, Parallel Rendering I, 1996. Oil on linen, 188.0 × 248.9 cm. © Terry Winters, courtesy ­Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

2 4 6   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

of the promises I made in the opening lecture.

the manner of one scholar having an in-house

You will remember that I brought onstage in the

academic disagreement with another, but as a

first lecture Ernst Gombrich’s Art and Illusion,

way to give all the skeptics in the house—and

an intellectual landmark of the mid-1950s that

I bet there are still plenty of you out there who,

made a powerful case for illusionist realism as

like Gombrich, dislike abstraction—a more

the great triumph of Western culture. I won-

than respectable stand-in.

dered out loud whether there might be an argu-

The core of my disagreement with Gombrich

ment for abstraction that was as good as Gom-

over these past weeks might be summed up by

brich’s for illusionism—that is, an argument for

comparing Gombrich’s “logo,” the duck / rabbit

abstraction as a legitimate part of both our cog-

drawing (see fig. 1.34), to Andy Warhol’s Ror-

nitive process and our nature as a modern lib-

schach blot of 1984 (see fig. 5.22). Gombrich

eral society. I took on this challenge not just in

liked the drawing so much because it pointed

up the active role of the viewer in ­puzzling out

This comparison brings us back to one of

representation: you can either see it as a duck or

the great difficulties of abstraction, of getting

as a rabbit, but you can never see it as anything

something to be purely abstract. Looking again

in between or as both. As a viewer, you have to

at Warhol’s painting, we are aware that it is not

make up your mind. Gombrich’s ­belief that rep-­

just a blot we are seeing but a blot with symme-­

resentation is a matter of ­ solving ­ dilemmas—

try that we recognize as a Rorschach blot, and by

that you have to posit a question or a schema

recognizing it as such we know where it belongs

in order to get an answer, that making comes

in the history of culture and something about

before recognition—is neatly summarized in

what system of meaning it belongs to. ­Finding

this drawing. In contrast, it is famously known

something that temporarily defies meaning—in

that there is no controlling what one might

a society in which even blots, squares, cubes,

see in a Rorschach blot; there is no either / or,

and grids have been colonized by culture and

no correct interpretation of the Rorschach.

­history—is not in fact easy (playing tennis

Isn’t the idea behind the Rorschach test—and

­without a net) because we are meaning-­makers,

Warhol’s point in painting these big Rorschach

not just image-makers. It is not just that we

blots on canvas—that abstraction has every-­

­recognize images, that we find ducks or rabbits;

thing to do with what the viewer brings to it

it is that we are constructed to make meaning

and nothing to do with what is there before us,

out of things, and that we learn from others

that it is entirely a matter of projection? What

how to do it.

is crucial perhaps for Gombrich and many

The cartoon of the little dancer that

others is that the Rorschach stands for the fact

­Gombrich uses in his book (see fig. 1.35) was

that there is no intention, that these ­ abstract

meant to speak humorously to the history

shapes are produced by pure chance, and

of style but suggests to me a whole bunch of

therefore how can we possibly read meaning

­students trying to get it right, trying to render

into them?

their subject ­correctly. Whereas the little ­dancer

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 4 7

2 4 8   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

thinks she is a flower, she is thought by her

might be the following ideas: ­verticality was over;

­various classmates to be a bird, an octopus, a

painting on the floor and throwing paint down

tree, and so forth. Gombrich’s interests seem to

led to a new kind of physicality, a new way of con-

be primarily in rendering, whereas my interests

tending with gravity; ordered ­ composition was

have been primarily in interpreting. For Gom-

destroyed and in its place was an ­argument for an

brich, and for many who believe strongly in the

allover evenness; here was a new kind of art that

nature of visual representation and realism, art

hugged the floor and invited ­participation. Andre

is one subset of the class of the representation of

had one vision of that new ­allover ­evenness—an

the visible. What I have been trying to argue, in-

order of equal units (see fig. 3.14)—but as we

versely, is that representation of the visual world

saw earlier, Robert Morris at the same time had

is simply one subset of what art is, or can be,

another idea (see fig. 1.40). For Morris, ­Pollock

and that intention is not discernible or limiting

was primarily about chance, the idea that a work

within that idea of art.

could be stored in a can and simply poured on

Suppose, for example, that the dance the little

the floor. For him Pollock was an invitation to

girl is doing was the dance that Pollock does over

­shapelessness, to contingency, to mutation, to

his canvas (see fig. 1.6). And suppose that, in-

chance and chaos as a new form of imagery.

stead of the little girl dancing it, the only clues

But perhaps what is most interesting about

we had to understand what she had been doing

the dance that Pollock does is in fact the dance

and what she had meant by it were the scratches

itself. We can see that this is true for Yves Klein

on the floor. If that were the dance and Jackson

in 1960, when he stages a performance, Anthro-

Pollock’s Number 1, 1950 (see fig. 1.5) were the

pométries, in which the act of painting on the

­result, then we might, if we were Carl Andre in

floor with bodies is the main event, and the

the 1960s, think that the ­ principal thing being

paintings are only the residue (see fig. 2.5).

­communicated was a demolition of hierarchies

Not only does the performance take its signal

and the creation of a new field of possibilities.

from Pollock’s dance, but it perhaps also speaks

Among the old hierarchies and new ­possibilities

of a fineness in Pollock’s line, to which Klein

­responds with a particularly French elegance and

ropes, producing a personal vocabulary of ­

precision—orchestra playing, guests in ­tuxedoes,

aeration and elevation, and at the same time

and so forth.

a kind of sag that brings the body and gravity

Just as the spun gossamer quality of Pollock

back in a different way. Hesse’s rope pieces have

perhaps finds one translation in Klein, it finds

the gossamer, thin quality and elegance of the­

a completely different translation when Richard

Klein, but now with a glutinous and clotted­

Serra in 1969 flings not paint onto a canvas but

aspect, the result of her material clinging to the

hot lead into a corner (see fig. 4.22). Everything

ropes in a very personal and tactile way.

that was chic and refined in Klein’s interpreta-

Robert Smithson’s sense of material in

tion becomes laborious, dangerous, and indus-

­Asphalt Rundown of 1969 (fig. 6.9) shows him

trial with Serra. What leads Serra into a new

thinking about Pollock’s pouring act in yet

territory of industrial strength may be the black

another way, as one of spillage or defoliation.

house paint that Pollock is using, with its unre-

Smithson is interested, in the context of the late

fined grittiness and power.

1960s, in the question of pollution, in the imag-

Yet if you compare with this what Eva Hesse

ery of Pollock as one of excess, a combination

is doing at about the same time, you would

of power and exuberance that connects with

think that what Serra derived from Pollock was a

defilement and spillage at the same time. This

downward thrust—a collision with the ground,

provides him with the impetus for a new set of

the same kind of interest in gravity that was so

metaphors about American society at the time

important to Morris and Andre. Hesse looks at

of an oil crisis and the Vietnam War.

the same pictures and seizes on the ­importance

The notion of spillage in a more ­ personal

of their being taken up off the floor and hung

sense might lead to Warhol’s oxidation paint-

vertically on the walls, so that everything that

ings and their specific reference to ­ Pollock’s

had been falling down comes back up, as if it

pouring technique (see fig. 5.20). You will

were being aerated (see figs. 4.34, 4.37). Hesse

­remember that Warhol produced the so-called­

hangs these fiberglass-covered strings and­

piss paintings by having his assistants join

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 4 9

6.9 Robert Smithson, Asphalt ­Rundown, October 1969. Rome, Italy, Estate of ­Robert Smithson, courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York. Art © Estate of Robert Smithson/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

him in urinating on copper-sensitive ­canvases.

series of 1989–91, of a particular Chinese callig-

These paintings have an entirely ­ different

rapher (fig. 6.10). He relates the history of cal-

­relationship to the body than the big tarry

ligraphy and writing to Pollock in a completely

­discharge of ­ Smithson’s ­ Asphalt Rundown. In

different way than Twombly remade Pollock

place of ­Smithson’s reference to an asphalt spill,

as writing. And finally, we see Winters in the

­Warhol uses the spill of human fluids to effect

late 1990s attempting to marry Pollock’s space

an ­alchemical transformation on his ­materials.

with the idea of a contemporary cyber-pattern

We looked at Cy Twombly looking at ­ Pollock’s linearity and overall organization in

in a painting appropriately titled Color and ­Information (fig. 6.11).

1970 and coming up with a kind of furious

The many meanings that we have seen un-

scribbling that amounts to a giant, aerated, cos-

packed from Jackson Pollock—and there are

mic cloud, while his coeval Jasper Johns in 1975

more I could cite—underline what I said earlier

takes the same inspiration—that is, Pollock

about the paucity and narrowness of intention

filtered through the austerity of minimalism—

as a reference point. We have seen how the same

and comes up with something compacted and

form—in this case, Pollock’s poured painting—

having to do with the body (see figs. 5.45, 5.54).

provided a new set of foci and associations for

The surface of Johns’ Weeping Women, unlike

artists of different sensibilities, who found dif-

Twombly’s run-on, clouded, and smeared sur-

ferent truths within this form. We have also seen

face, is ­searing from the impress of irons onto

repeatedly in this series how different meanings

the flesh of the picture and bleeding with the

and ambitions gravitate toward the same form.

sense of ­congestion.

The narrow intention of what brings an artist

Marden, as we have seen, could look to

to the canvas does not control meaning nearly

Pollock and find a link to ancient calligraphy,

as much as does the material existence of the

so that his realization of Pollock’s linearity is

picture itself. This is why I have stressed during

through the medium, in the Cold Mountain

these lectures that the experiential dimensions

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 5 1

6.10 Brice Marden, Cold Mountain 5 (Open), 1989–91. Oil on canvas, 274.6 × 366.1 cm. Robert and Jane Meyerhoff ­Collection, Phoenix, Maryland

2 5 2   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

of abstract art—its scale, materials, method of

wherein arbitrary phonemes and symbols are

fabrication, social context, and tradition—are

pulled ­together to construct meaning. But what

crucially important to our understanding of it.

­semiotics ignores is the fact that shapes, unlike

Using Pollock as a fixed point of reference

phonemes, can never be completely arbitrary;

for the art that follows it yields one, but only

they are immediately invaded with meaning

one, important level of insight into the meaning

by the things people make or have made, by

of the work we have been discussing. It is our

shapes in nature, and so forth. Characteristic of

dependence on the material and ­ experiential

so much of the art that we have looked at over

­dimension of art to yield meaning that sets it

the course of these six lectures is a resistance to

apart so sharply from other symbolic systems

­metaphysics and idealism and a swing toward

that we use, most notably language. For a long

pragmatic literalism and immediacy. (Remem-

time now art has been analyzed in terms of

ber Stella’s insistence that “what you see is what

semiotics, a symbol system akin to language,

you see,” and Judd’s “goodbye” to ­ rationality?

We just want what’s there. We want specific

illusion because it is dishonest, a kind of blank

­objects.2) A resistance to everything that rep-

certainty that can come from the use of repeti-

resented the old humanism is couched in this

tion and sequence, for example, and that always

artwork, including resistance to the standard

wants transparency in the way things are made.

idea of touch in the fabrication of a work of art,

In this pursuit of honesty, there is no sense of

­resistance to the standard idea of style, and resis-

mystery, just an absolute declaration of the way

tance to inherited notions of composition. In the

things are done, a literalism. The artists’ materi-

descent from Pollock, work is not idealistic but

als are not transformed but raw, and they often

6.11

literal, in just the same way that Judd declared:

prefer not to use fine art materials.

Terry Winters, Color and Infor-

“The poured paint in Pollock’s work is poured

The motto of these artists and this art—not ideal,

paint, first and foremost.” 3 Therefore, by virtue

not spiritual, involved in the pursuit of ­honesty—is

of this materialism, it is also not spiritual in the

“we hold these truths to be self-evident.” They are

mation, 1998. Oil and alkyd resin on canvas, 274.3 × 365.8 cm. © Terry Winters, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

sense that we have traditionally ­associated with ­abstraction. We commonly think about prewar ­abstraction—about ­Malevich and ­Mondrian, for example—that it is idealistic, and that in some sense it is spiritual. What we have been looking at is pointedly not spiritual and it insists not on empyreans far away but on the ­ immediacy of present-tense engagement with the stuff of what is in front of us. It wants to ­escape from traditional categories and metaphysics in order to force an engagement with the “thereness” and “thingness” of the work in front of us. Thus what we see in this art is a constant pulse or pursuit toward honesty in Judd’s sense: the rejection of

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 5 3

2 5 4   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

there, and there is no denying them. They take no

goal. One knew where one was going. Art was

referents. And yet it has been the pulse between

absolutist, and it involved pure things in the

that self-evidence—between that pursuit of a

search for ­purity. But we live in the world of the

chimerical certainty, honesty, factuality—and

ironic, the open-ended, and the fragmented,

the attachment to and invasion of ambiguity,

where there is resistance to any one narrative.

association, and metaphor that has shaped this

We ­uphold ­relativism as opposed to absolutism,

discussion. While idealism on the level of Mon-

and the love of the impure and the heteroge-

drian or Malevich is gone from this type of work,

neous as opposed to the pure. In this framing of

there is a similar utopian aspect to the dream of

history, word has it that we are bereft, but a hell

minimalists and others, which is to defer know-

of a lot smarter than they were.

ing, to avoid categories of understanding, to step

In our loss of illusions we have gained a kind

outside the “glueyness” of both history and in-

of bleak savvy. You could trace it, for example,

terpretation, and to deal with a dream world of

if you compared Mondrian to Kelly. We looked

point-blank and immediate response. In fact, we

at Kelly’s Colors for a Large Wall of 1951 (see

cannot escape, as I said in one of these lectures,

fig. 1.11. In Mondrian, we saw the idea of a

either from the realm of interpretation or from

theo­sophical or platonic balance of vertical

the realm of history.

and ­ horizontal and the Ur-principles of the

Everything I have said about art since ­

universe, with pure complementary colors, as

Pollock and its rejection of idealism gives an

the reductive demonstration of absolutes in

­“after the fall” ring to its different kind of spiri-

the optical world. All of Mondrian’s idealism

tuality, its dream of immediacy and truth. In

is chucked out the window by Kelly, who in-

fact, it is standard to describe the era in these

spired by Arp and Cage, instead plays with the

terms. In the prewar world that Greenberg de-

­stochastic, with chance, with the roll of the dice

scribes, there used to be idealism, there used

in organizing this ­ seemingly random beat of

to be essentialism. Art had a linear teleology, a

nonprimary colors that refer to his experience

of the Mediterranean. And this has an ­altogether

and association invade the supposedly neutral

lightweight, upbeat kind of impersonality in

with a work like Byron Kim’s ­ Synecdoche of

which the ­subjectivity of balance so important to

1991–92 (fig. 6.12). The term “synecdoche” is

­Mondrian—the construction of an order of op-

used in literary studies or rhetoric to indicate

positions and of relationships of small to large,

the use of the part for the whole, the smaller

big areas to small areas, thick lines to thin lines—

part standing for the total. Each of the squares in

is gone in favor of the grid, the depersonalized

Kim’s work is a painting of an individual ­human

if not deuniversalized form in Kelly’s work.

being, people of different races and skin tones,

It does not stop with Kelly, however. Richter

and a small part of the anatomy of that human

in his 1024 Colors of 1973 (see fig. 5.36) says, in

being—under the arm, the back of the thigh, the

essence to Kelly—at a time when I think he is

buttocks, and so on—and each ­painting is ­labeled

as yet completely unaware of Kelly—You want

on the back as to the part of the body represented

anonymous colors? You want impersonality? You

and the particular person ­represented. Far from

want anti-idealism? Don’t give me this upbeat,

being impersonal, Kim wants to insist that color

random chance, sense of Mediterranean col-

is not neutral, color cannot be a thing divorced

ors. Give me the Winsor-Newton catalogue! Give

from the world, but color has everything to do

me Canal Street. I’ll show you standardization.

with ethnicity and ­individuality.

I’ll show you what color is. Color is ­existing on a

This point is driven further home, in re-

grid, like things you buy. It is absolutely deper­

sponse to Richter by the artist Rachel Lacho-

sonalized. I can be more impersonal than you

wicz from California in a 1993 picture, a color

are, and colder still. And I am going to achieve

chart made entirely out of tints of eye shadow

utter neutrality. This is going to be as nonsubjec-

(fig. 6.13). Lachowicz insists, as a feminist

tive and purely cold and neutral as you can get.

­artist, that the cold impersonality of Richter is

When we arrive at the 1990s, Richter is re­

by ­definition masculine and that in fact color

minded that there is no such thing, that ­history

has everything to do with vanity, not simply

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 5 5

6.12

with what we are given in terms of skin tone,

others? And does it not have a wearisome habit,

Byron Kim, Synecdoche,

but with how we construct our social ­identity.

­always putting us at the end of something rather

Again, the art is getting smarter in relationship

than possibly near the beginning? How many

to Richter and Kelly and ­ others; it is in fact

“posts” can we be? We have been post-Vietnam,

slightly smart-ass, in the sense that it is wise to

post–fall of the wall, post–Communist era. So

the so-called impersonality of its ­predecessors.

many scholars and critics—and artists too—are

So we have a constant ­process, as I described,

­accustomed to thinking that the party was over

of de-idealization in a sense ­ embedding into

before they got there, and that everything has

history.

to be described in terms of the ruination of a

1991–92. Oil on wood, 100 panels at 25.4 × 20.3 cm. Courtesy of the Max Protetch Gallery, New York

But are we still satisfied with that frame-

2 5 6   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

former set of ideals.

work for dealing with the history that we have

I would like to offer, and I may not have time

covered? Does it not have a nasty echo of the

to prove it if I haven’t already, that the world of

old sense of cumulative progress that we so

abstraction post-1960 is neither the culmina-

disliked about the teleology of Greenberg and

tion of what came before it nor the destruction

6.13 Rachel Lachowicz, Color Chart Flat #1, 1993. Eye shadow in aluminum pans mounted on aluminum panel, 121.9 × 119.4 cm. Private collection, courtesy Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, California

of or postscript to it. Earlier we asked whether

some very basic things about the way art works,

minimalism was the culmination of modernist

the way abstraction works, in a new key. As for

invention, the ultimate reduction, à la Malevich,

lost ­illusions and lost ideals, in some sense you

or the total destruction of the whole narrative,

­cannot lose what you never had. Furthermore,

à la Duchamp. I do not think those are useful

these theories tend to construct a straw man

categories, because what we have been ­ seeing

of earlier art, and they pay much more atten-

may even be a replay or a reconstitution of

tion to manifestos and rhetoric than they do to

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 5 7

as a dream or as a concept, is not a destination on the train, but a loop point, a rebound point, back into the world of abstraction.) To take one example, I would look at ­Mondrian’s career, which I think is the ­greatest single career in abstraction prior to 1945. Look at his Pier and Ocean series of 1914 (see fig. 5.12), and look at his career as it comes to an end in 1942–43 with Broadway Boogie ­Woogie (fig. 6.14). Now what we see here is not a ­vector of perfection or reduction, but a kind of arc in which the suggestion of Parisian ­ cubism— Braque and Picasso—gives Mondrian the clues that he needs to distill a set of essential refer6.14

the actual life of forms in early modern art. (I

ences from the dazzle of light on water as he sits

Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie

should say, parenthetically, the twentieth century

on the shore in Holland with the flat ­ horizon

being over, that it is time to recognize that so-

before him: horizontals and verticals that com-

Modern Art, New York, given

called pure abstraction—the abstraction of the

press all of his experience into a different kind of

anonymously. © 2006 Mondrian/

­theorists that erects strong barriers around it-

organized shimmer, a different kind of rhythm,

self, that reduces itself down to nothing as a

which he feels subtracts from the world a more

­permanent point—is not the main line of

essential set of its rhythms and phenomena into

­twentieth-century art. It is certainly not Pi­

an abstract language. He does not stop there, but

casso’s line, nor Matisse’s line, nor that of many

as he pulls out from that world and creates an

careers. It is a flash that arises from time to time,

autonomous world, in something like Composi-

which makes one think that pure abstraction,

tion No. II (see fig. 2.25), he uses those building

Woogie, 1942–43. Oil on canvas, 127 × 127 cm. The Museum of

Holtman Trust c/o HCR International, Warrentown, VA

2 5 8   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

blocks to come back to the grid of New York

I have described is coexisting in different stages

City, to the rhythm of boogie woogie, to things

at once. We barely get used to Serra’s One Ton

that he could not have imagined when he stood

Prop, in lead originally and then in steel (see

on the shore and made Pier and Ocean in 1914,

fig. 1.17), before we have in 1993 Rachel Lacho-

6.15

to things that didn’t exist: the rhythm of modern

wicz’s Sarah (fig 6.15), made out of lipstick and

Rachel Lachowicz, Sarah, 1993.

New York in the 1940s, the idea of the kind of

wax, just as her color chart was made out of eye

jazz that he so loved. What he had done through

shadow (fig. 6.13). Hers is an accusation that the

courtesy of Shoshana Wayne

his voyage into abstraction was to provide him-

seeming neutrality of Serra is again ­ intensely

­Gallery, Santa Monica, California

Lipstick and wax, 121.9 × 121.9 × 121.9 cm. Private collection,

self with the building blocks for a new kind of analogue in Broadway Boogie Woogie, a new kind of rhythm of modernity, a picture utterly of its time, representational in the broadest sense. That is, it belongs to its moment in history as much as to its artist, and it depends absolutely on abstraction having been there in the middle of the process, as I said, not as a destination or final stopping point. Within this one career we have an iteration of what we have seen so ­often—in Pollock’s move into Hesse, in Pollock’s move into Smithson, for example: the presence of a so-called pure abstraction refreshing and regenerating the possibility of representation to contend with new sensations of the world. In this regard the 1990s present a strange time, because the life cycle of abstraction that

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 5 9

done with plates of steel and balance? Because that is still being done. And it is being done in fact by the same artist in some of the most remarkable work of the last ten years. In the late 1980s Serra contended with the city of New York over a large tilted arc, a big conic section of rusting steel, that he had been commissioned to install in Federal Plaza in 6.16

masculine and delimited, that the abstraction

downtown Manhattan (fig. 6.16). Someone who

Richard Serra, Tilted Arc, 1981.

that Serra claims is only coded representation,

worked in the office building protested and took

that abstraction is in some sense impossible. So

up a poll. Eventually the piece was taken away.

says this jibe. And yet is this in fact the end of

Serra argued that to remove the piece, which

abstraction? The arrival of something like the

was site specific, was to destroy it. There was a

Lachowicz? Is it more knowing than the Serra? Is

big court case and many hearings. The Tilted Arc

it wiser? Or is this one-liner only a natural part

episode represents one of the low points, prob-

of a recurrent life cycle, the cycling back and

ably of Serra’s life, but certainly in the history

forth between the pursuit of the neutral and

of abstraction’s encounter with society. There

the abstract and the recursion of social mean-

is practically nothing to like anywhere in this

ing and metaphor? If Lachowicz makes a mis-

story of public consensus versus avant-garde

take about Serra, it is the classic mistake of es-

art. On one side, Serra’s supporters pounding

sentialism, I think—essentialism and meaning.

their copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao

The point about these four plates of steel, put

on the podium; on the other, opponents of the

together in a balanced cube, is not what these

arc expressing their fear that bombers are ­going

things are, what this thing is, but what you can

to hide behind this arc. A plague on all their

do with those things, or this thing. What can be

houses! This was perhaps the most benighted

Steel, New York City, destroyed

2 6 0   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

possible site for a work of art in the city of New York, and not one of Serra’s finest hours, it seems to me. And from this destruction, from this debacle, many an artist might have skulked away into a diminishing career. But in fact the opposite happened. In the early 1990s Serra made two pieces in swift succession. Intersection in Basel and a larger version, called Intersection II, now owned

he produces something far larger, I think, than

6.17

by the Museum of Modern Art (figs. 6.17, 6.18).

the sum of its parts. The simple increase in

Richard Serra, Intersection, 1992.

Looking at Intersection II head-on, you can see

­geometric scale, combined with his material,

that it is pretty simple—the same old thing as

gives it an astonishing presence. Encountering

Geschenk von 272 Bürgerinnen

One Ton Prop (see fig. 1.17). Just plates of steel

its enormous scale in a very narrow gallery, as

und Bürgern an den Kanton ­Basel-

and gravity. Only now the steel plates are much

you do at MoMA, gives you the sense that you

bigger and they involve an odd kind of econ-

are at great peril, even if you understand that

omy. They are four sections of cones; imagine

the conic section cannot tip over (similar pieces

peeling off one slice from the outside edge of an

to this were in an earthquake in Los Angeles and

extremely large cone and sectioning it. Serra’s

walked a couple of feet across the floor with-

result is two plates on the outside, one leaning

out falling). Still, you have to convince yourself

inward, one leaning outward, and two on the

to believe that it cannot tip over when you are

inside behaving similarly. Turning the plate on

standing beside it, conjuring up a set of asso-

the far left upside down, you get the plate that

ciations that includes vast ocean liners. Then

is second from the right; turning the one on

you remember that Serra’s family had worked

the far right upside down, you get the ­ second

in shipyards in San Francisco, and you begin to

plate from the left. By this economy, however,

feel there is something elegiac about this metal.

Cor-Ten steel; four elements, 370 × 1300 × 5.5 cm (each element).

Stadt zuhanden der Öffentlichen, Kunstsammlung Basel 1994

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 6 1

2 6 2   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

The art you are looking at is big, rusting hard-

Serra has created an ovoid, womblike interior

ware made in a software age.

space within Intersection II that, in comparison

We talked about Serra’s nostalgia for a kind

to the feeling of compression and narrowness

of 1930s labor politics in the flinging-lead piece

you ­experience on the outside corridors of the

of the late 1960s, and the whole idea of the Soho

work, brings a huge sense of release and a regain

loft and the replacement of the 1930s by New

of the pictorial. By the accidents of the rusting

Leftism. But here in Serra’s work something

steel and metals that he works with, Serra recov-

different is happening, it seems to me. The in-

ers some sense of Pollock, of Still, of Newman:

vestment in metal that had been Brancusi’s and

a vast expanse of rusting orange, and this very

Leger’s, metal as the material of modernity in

delicate surface. Remember we talked about

David Smith, now has a larger, grander pres-

the lead casting in the flung piece of 1969 as

ence but also a huge sense of brooding, a kind

­having a Whistlerian delicacy and fineness. For

of monumentality that is obdurate, not lively,

all that Serra denies having any interest, that

not polished.

same ­velvety quality of rusting steel—which is

We also talked earlier about Serra’s sense of

utterly fragile and vulnerable, which can never

poise and balance, and how in the prop pieces

be repaired if scratched—gives a kind of beauti-

(see fig. 4.27) there is a constant tension be-

ful bloom and delicacy to these massive, hulking

tween the menace and threat of great work

steel plates of Intersection II as they stand before

and the ballerina-like precision. Now this set of

the awed spectator.

tensions and paradoxes in Serra’s work begins

What to do with curved plates of steel? Make

to be enlarged in every possible sense. For the

more of them! Take something, do something to

first time now you have a real interior space in

them, do something else to them! Jasper Johns’

Serra, utterly unlike the space of Delineator (see

dictum: There is no particular meaning to it;

fig. 4.26), where you felt like a fly in a press-

there is not any metaphor to be made. You’ve

ing machine, threatened between two plates.

made a curved plate? How about a torqued

6.18 Richard Serra, Intersection II (head-on view), 1992. Cor-Ten steel, four plates, each 400 × 1700 × 5 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of Ronald S. Lauder

­ellipse? It is a simple problem that came to ­Serra

and you twist the two. It is a different way of

when he looked at the dome of Borromini’s

thinking about geometry. Remember what I said

church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in

about the progress of abstraction not necessarily

Rome and thought about the idea of the transi-

being from a to b but from a to a' to a''? It is not

tion between the side chapels and the oval dome

about ovals but about what happens ­ between

at the top, in terms of what happens if you have

them. What does the space look like ­ between

an oval on the floor and an oval on the ceiling

these two things if the ovals are torqued? That

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 6 3

Mondrian or Vantongerloo, sculpture of cubist origin. Instead now the curve has come in and produced a kind of drunken, fun-house geometry, where things are warped and twisted, where massive plates seem to heave over your head and then slam over against you. And when you look at things inside, they seem to be made partly out of Silly Putty or taffy, yet of course they are steel. 6.19

is the void that Serra wants to make solid. He

The cognitive dissonance is enormous, especially

Ellipse ­models in Serra studio

wants to find the shape of something intangible

when you get inside and feel their huge shape

and make it hugely weighty.

created by different plates of steel put together.

2 6 4   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

This is a simple, even stupid, premise of tran-

Order is innate to these works. They could

sition between geometries. And yet what it pro-

not be made without a computer. They are as

duces is extraordinary! Serra uses models made

pure an expression of geometry as is a square,

by twisting malleable pieces of lead and trying

a triangle, or any ideal or stable form. But they

them out in sand or on top of wood, exploring

are precisely about covert order, the kind of or-

how he could make plates of steel fill that void,

der that cannot be understood but can only be

make that transition (fig. 6.19). And the results,

experienced in an overloaded panoply of con-

as seen in the installation at the Dia Art Founda-

flicting sensations: things leaning away from

tion, are the torqued ellipses of 1996–2000 (fig.

you, leaning toward you, falling over your head,

6.20). These and other Serras are on view at the

falling away from you, and so forth. Serra tests

new Dia Beacon facility an hour north of New

the subtlety and complexity of their geometry

York City. They are remarkable structures in the

against the limits of the brutality of the ­material,

sense that—looking at, for example, Torqued El-

pushes to its limits the technology that makes

lipse IV of 1998 from the side (fig. 6.21)—they

these work. They are created with computer-

are no longer the kind of ideal geometry of

assisted design techniques in order to make

the shapes that put the plates together, but the pieces of steel themselves are bent on the largest machines possible, those used formerly for old battleships. Serra has now moved on to even larger plates of steel that are being shaped in factories in France that formerly made the sides of nuclear reactors. Serra brings the monumentality of old technology back to life in this amazing new liberation of geometry by brute force. If you have made one torqued ellipse, what do you do next? You make two! You make a double torqued ellipse. Here is an overhead view of two torqued ellipses, one nested inside the other. The sense that I talked about before of the slur and bend and distension and distortion of geometry is even more aggressively powerful (fig. 6.22). The experience of going through them now equates not simply to walking into an astonishing space but to walking through cor-

art dealer Richard Bellamy, of 2001, Serra has

6.20

ridors and having no idea where one is going,

pushed to bigger technology and a more com-

Richard Serra, Torqued Ellipse II,

as one might, for example, in the corridors of

plex arrangement of steel pieces. And you can

Intersection II—round and round to arrive at

see how complex the piece has to be, in the sense

and 2000, 2000. Installation

an interior space of an entirely different kind.

that joints have to be made at each of the many

view at Dia:Beacon, New York.

And from the torqued ellipses, he moves into

bends, and that all sorts of pieces have to be

spirals, another form of geometry. For example,

assembled into what appears to be a seamless

in the spiral called Bellamy, a memorial for the

form (fig. 6.24 e, h).

1996; Double Torqued Ellipse, 1997; Torqued Ellipse I, 1996;

Collection Dia Art Foundation

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 6 5

Serra’s spiral is only a stopping point in the work that he made in his late fifties and early sixties, an astonishing rebirth of a great artist at the end of the twentieth century. But it is a good place to pause for a moment and think, because it raises again that question of idealism and geometry that we talked about before. Had the huge building modeled in Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International of 1920 ever been realized, it would have been many times taller than the Eiffel Tower, a great skyscraper with revolving rooms inside of it, whose tilt was the tilt of the axis of the earth, whose spiral was thought to relate to spiral galaxies, whose rooms rotated in relation to the rhythms of the planets and the sun and the moon, where everything about society and culture was organized around the implacable laws of nature (fig. 6.23). The millennial, utopian optimism about the order of the spiral perhaps finds its opposite number in Smithson’s Spiral Jetty of 1970 in the Great

6.21 (above)

6.22 (below)

Richard Serra, Torqued Ellipse IV (side

Richard Serra, Double Torqued

Salt Lake (see fig. 4.10), which you remember

view), 1998. Weatherproof steel, 371.9 ×

Ellipse II (overhead view), 1998.

we talked about as a monument of bleak iso-

807.7 × 990.6 cm. The Museum of

Weatherproof steel, outer ellipse:

Modern Art, New York, fractional and

358.1 × 838.2 × 1,097.3 cm; inner

lation, a metaphor for the last mark on earth,

promised gift by Leon and Debra Black

ellipse: 358.1 × 868.7 × 594.4 cm; plate thickness: 5.1 cm. Leon and Debra Black, New York

2 6 6   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

6.23 Vladmir Tatlin, Model of the Monument to the Third International, 1920. The Museum of Modern Art, New York

visible from space, a sign of entropy, and a crystallization of the relationship between the heat death of the universe and the devastation of culture on earth and nature as we knew it in the 1970s—in short, a monument of dystopian, millennial pessimism. Both the Tatlin and the Smithson entertain the old idea that the authority of the shapes we make, the authority of the art we spawn, should derive from natural law, that the things humans produce should be in synchrony with higher forms above, should derive their authority from the necessary and from the absolute. This, it

in a literal and experiential sense. Here what

seems to me, is exactly what Serra’s art does not

Fried called “the theater of minimalism,” the

do. Serra’s spiral is a summation of the prag-

­displacement of the logic of order from ­inside

matism and literalism that I spoke of ­before, of

the composition of the piece to the relationship

the defeat of idealism and the defeat of order.

of the viewer and the piece, reaches a new height.

It is an art of subjectivity, as certainly as Agnes

At the same time, the ambition of scale that

­Martin or Robert Ryman created an art of their

­Pollock had launched, which kindled Smithson,

subjectivity. Serra’s art is dependent on experi-

and Heizer, and earthworks, has been corralled

ence, and specifically sculptural experience; one

back into interior form. And the ambition of

has to move through the piece to understand it.

linking architecture with sculpture that we

There is no understanding Serra in an abstract

saw in the early 1970s has been translated back

sense; this work can only be comprehended

into ­sculpture.

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 6 7

6.24 Torqued Ellipses by Richard ­Serra at the Guggenheim Bilbao. Eight stills of Richard Serra walking into spiral sculptures from Charlie Rose interview, 2001.

I want to take you through Serra’s Torqued

Images e and h: Bellamy, 2001, weatherproof steel, overall:

Ellipses of 2001, courtesy of Charlie Rose

401.3 × 1,348.7 × 1.000.8 cm,

and the video that he made of Serra walking

plate thickness: 5.1 cm. All other images: Sylvester, 2001, weather-

a

proof steel, overall: 414 × 1,249.7 ×

through them. As you follow me through the work (fig. 6.24), think about the experience

965.2 cm, plate thickness: 5.1 cm

of things unfamiliar, and about the reassurance of forms of nature or higher ­authority. As Serra walks into the spiral, it ­ begins to close over us like a tent; the two sides lean in. The tent begins to close, and the overhang b

becomes perilous. Serra moves farther into the piece, which now ­begins to close behind us, at the same time that the walls begin to right themselves and pull away from us. Serra walks farther in, and now we are totally lost in the path. There is no telling what is behind or ahead of us, and the two walls are no longer like a tent, but almost like a cathedral, rising

c

straight up on either side of us. Now the work spreads apart, and we feel no longer that we

d

2 6 8   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

are in a cathedral but ­almost as if we are in the parting of the Red Sea; things fall apart from us on either side. The work begins to lurch, and we feel the wall fall away from us.

e

Instead of experiencing a beautiful parting as we did just a moment ago, now we feel like a drunken sailor, with the wall pitching away from us. And now the work begins to lean both ways against us, and we feel like we can barely stand up. We go farther and the thing begins to pitch the other way. Having been a tent, having risen to a cathedral, having

f

spread apart, now it pushes us in the other direction, and we are tilted over. We come from having left the light behind to arriving at the corner where we face an opening into the center. Now we begin to enter the center of the spiral, and now we are finally in the field of the ellipse, in the center of this amaz-

g

ing work of art.

h

A b s t r a c t a r t n o w   2 6 9

■■■

2 7 0   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

The dream of culture having to do with the

mous ­symbol systems that have a huge variety of

necessity of nature, the idea that we talked about

so-called ­ natural ­ grammars and rules of order

in Vasarely, Gombrich’s dream that the way we

that are in ­mutation throughout history.

are wired individually is the basis of what we do

Making is the invention of autonomous sys-

collectively, that what we need to do is form an art

tems, like abstraction. And what then replaces

that is true to our neurology and hence univer-

matching? What are the criteria? What is the

sal—this dream is false. The ideal of the ­necessity

correction? How do we make progress? How

of nature as the informative culture, the ideal of

do we measure whether we have moved ahead?

neurology and internal organization as the basis

There is only bottomless debate, fragmented

for our culture, is false. What is ­important about

and plural consensus, with overlapping edges

us individually, what makes us human, is pre-

that evolve through history with no fixed goal.

cisely that we are wired for communication, for

Instead of the model of constant correction, or

negotiation, for exchange with others.

getting closer and closer to some absolute order,

What matters in abstract art is not involuntary

what we are always about in culture is getting

firing of neurons, not our ability to recognize

better locally, with no idea of any final best. This

the duck or the rabbit. Making is more powerful

is an order not based on any natural or invol-

than that. Our humanity and our culture are not

untary sequence or progression, a making not

to be based on what is involuntary but on our

simply discovered or matching some standard

will to make things that form a second nature by

but rather based on a process of invention and

invention and imagination. Making in art is not

constant debate. This is why abstract art, and

just a corollary of problem solving, of producing

modern art in general, being based on subjec-

schemas that tell you whether it is a duck or a

tive experience and open-ended interpretation,

rabbit, of ­ producing things that are corollaries

is not universal or the culmination of anything

for the discovery of existing truths. Instead,

in history but the contingent phenomena of a

making is the ­capacity of constructing autono-

modern, secular, liberal society.

Abstraction is precisely not grounded in

is by this very process that it re-energizes our

any universal or grand generalities. It is tied

shared culture. This freedom and individual-

to ­ individual experience and to individual

ism in the creation of art is an irritant, like so

­sensibility, as they are given greater scope and

much sand thrown into our shells. And for all

play. One part of modernity in fact believes in

the sand that we put up with, we get fantastic

absolute order, and this is one of the reasons

results, pearls!

that ­totalitarian governments have never cared

Abstraction has been less a search for the

for abstract art. Our common culture—the

­ultimately meaningful, as I have described

thing that we call our common culture, what

it, than a recurrent push for the temporarily

is part of our ­ society—comes, I am arguing,

meaningless: that is, things that are found not

precisely from what is not shared among us. It

often in exotic realms but rather on the edges of

is not the universal wiring, not the neurology,

banality, familiarity, and the man-made world.

not the absolute forms of things external to us.

It is the production of forms of order that are

The crucial ­ motor ­ generating cultural change,

not recognizable as order, but vehicles of feel-

churning out the new, is best found in modern

ing that seem impersonal, vessels of intelligence

society in private visions, even when those vi-

that appear utterly dumb. Abstract art is a sym-

sions are seemingly stupid, banal, hermetic, and

bolic game, and it is akin to all human games:

utterly particular.

you have to get into it, risk and all, and this takes

A corollary to the idea that ­ the generator of

a certain act of faith. But what kind of faith? Not

the new is found in private visions is the idea that

faith in absolutes, not a religious kind of faith. A

abstract art—far from speaking to those things

faith in possibility, a faith not that we will know

that unite us, to what we all have in common—is

something ­finally, but a faith in not knowing, a

generated precisely from giving the greatest

faith in our ignorance, a faith in our being con-

vent to those things that make us individually

founded and dumbfounded, a faith fertile with

­different and separate from each other. And it

possible meaning and growth.

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 7 1

From this field of not knowing, from our

ing us to change when we least expect it, and

ignorance, from our dumbfoundedness and

slower by linking us to traditions in the past,

disorientation, artists get us into the history of

different from the clocks that tick away in our

our culture, make our culture go. They produce

own lives.

from the form of things defamiliarized, from

In this, I have faith. In surprise, I guess is the

our refocus on the things we thought we knew,

word, I have faith, because of works of art like

from the banal, from the points between a and b,

this. I believe in abstract art. If I have not been

from all those momentary interstices where we

able to justify it, I can perhaps say with the prag-

have no category and no form of understand-

matist, with the literalist: There it is. I have shown

ing. They produce our fresh understanding of

it to you. It has been done. It is being done. And

the world of culture as separate from nature, as

because it can be done, it will be done.

separate from the clock of events in the rest of history: separate by moving faster and stimulat-

2 7 2   P i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

And now, I am done.

N ot e s

1. Clement Greenberg, in Modernist Painting

to get out of my paintings, and all I ever get out

(1960), writes: “The essence of Modernism lies,

of them, is the fact that you can see the whole idea

as I see it, in the use of characteristic methods of a

without any confusion. . . . What you see is what

­discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order

you see.” Judd, see above, chapter 3, n. 11.

to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence.” 2. Stella, quoted in Bruce Glaser interview

3. Judd, “Jackson Pollock,” Arts Magazine (April 1967): “The dripped paint in most of Pollock’s ­paintings is dripped paint.”

(ARTnews, September 1966): “All I want anyone

A b s t r ac t a rt n ow   2 7 3

2 7 4   T h i s i s a r u n n i n g f o ot

ac k n ow l e d g m e n t s

Kirk publicly thanked some of the people who

to work uninterruptedly and with the freedom

made his Mellon Lectures possible. In his own

most scholars only dream of. The exchange of

words:

ideas with the other members and fellows added

I’d like to thank Rusty Powell, the director of the National Gallery of Art, for his hospitality here. I’d like to thank Hank Millon, the former dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, who was dean when this invitation was extended to me; Elizabeth Cropper, the current dean of CASVA who has been a perfectly wonderful host these past weeks; and her two associate deans, Peter Lukehart and Therese O’Malley; and then those that handled the problems of the doors and crowds, Laura Kinneberg and Kimberly Rodeffer; my research assistant in New York, Paulina Wanda Pobocha; and finally my silent partner at the other end of the auditorium, our projectionist, Jeannie Bernhards.

to his happiness there. He would also be grateful to IAS for its generous contribution toward the production costs of this book. Kirk would have appreciated the talented work done at Princeton University Press to produce this book: editor Hanne Winarsky, book designer Maria Lindenfeldar, copyeditor Dale Cotton, and production editor Terri O’Prey. As he well knew, the quality of this book would depend on the careful editing of the audio tapes and transcripts. Kirk would be enormously grateful to Judy Metro of the National Gallery

■■■

for her dedicated efforts to keep the special flow of his words and ideas alive on the page.

I believe he would have continued his thank

For their continuing conversations, friend-

you’s by acknowledging the Institute for Ad-

ship, and care during the development of these

vanced Study for the singular opportunity the

lectures, Kirk would have extended loving

institution provided him to develop the Mel-

thanks to his friends Adam Gopnik and Pepe

lon Lectures. The two years at IAS allowed him

Karmel and his brother Sam Varnedoe. And

Ac k n ow l e d g m e n t s   2 7 5

to the artists whose work he discussed in the

all that his years as a scholar and teacher had

lectures he would be especially grateful because

committed to his formidable memory; all that

without their work he couldn’t have done his

he learned in the years managing the greatest

work.

collection of modern art in the world; all that he shared with and learned from the artists and

During the final lecture, Kirk thanked the de-

colleagues he knew and admired.

voted and loyal audience who came to hear him week after week. I know that the enthusiasm

In the last two years of his life he was sometimes

and warmth of the audience sustained him in

overcome by frustration and despair, but Kirk

a profound way. Kirk had the impossibly poi-

was a player, and he was courageous. He gave us

gnant task of distilling everything into what

all he could in the time left to him, and for that

he knew would be his last public appearance:

I want to thank Kirk. Elyn Zimmerman

2 7 6   p i c t u r e s o f n ot h i n g

Index Note: Page numbers in italic type indicate illustrations. abstract art: “abstraction” and, 47; as communistic, 50; defined by what it is not, 97; design compared to, 19, 27, 61; early twentieth century, 2–3; as “emperor’s new clothes,” 28–29, 42, 95, 201; and emptiness, 42; as endpoint of art, 4, 21, 35, 44n3, 98–99, 154, 258; French, in 1930s, 47; as game, 271; Gombrich on, xi, 27–28; historical quality of, xi, 244, 254–56, 259, 270; historicist model of, 27–28, 35, 36–40, 44n3, 51–52, 87, 91, 254, 256; history of art and, 4, 21, 27–28, 35, 44n3, 51–52, 87, 91, 256–58; humanistic quality of, xi; idealism and, 191, 201, 252–54; and innovation, xi, 35–36, 270; interpretation of, 8, 31–34, 41–42, 247–48, 270 (see also meaning of; reception of; theory of); irony and (see satire and irony about); literal versus, 97–102; meaning of (see meaning of abstract art); natural law and, 266–67, 270; in 1950s, 48; part-time practitioners of, 21, 214; post–World War II, 3–6; process of art making, 4–5, 29; pure, 258–59; rational quality of, xi; reception of, 22, 181, 236 (see also interpretation of; theory of); representation and, 48, 196–97, 240–41; and resemblance, 32–34, 191; return to,

irony and, 213–36; satire and irony about, 21, 191–236; as stylistic option, 21; theory of, 28–29 (see also interpretation of); tradition of, 41–42; and universalism, 2, 27–28, 91, 270; value of, xv–xvi, 23, 25, 34, 40–41, 43, 270–72. See also abstract expressionism; constructivism; minimalism abstract art as language: complexity of, xv–xvi, 40–41; evolution of, xi, 270; and invention, 35–36; semi­ otics and, 252 abstract expressionism: as American art, 3–4, 48–54; Cold War and, 10, 12, 48–53; death of, 5, 48, 121; emergence of, 3–5; Heizer and, 161; jokes at expense of, 18–21, 193–95; meaning of, 53 abstraction, meaning of, 47 Advancing American Art (exhibition), 50 advertising: abstraction in, 76; Bauhaus and, 61; Russian constructivism and, 60 Alain, Egyptian Art Class. Nude Woman Posing in Front of Class, 25 Albers, Josef, 86; Homage to the Square in Wide Light, 61, 62, 92; Interior, 73, 74; To Monte Alban, 63, 65; Steps, 76 Alhambra tiles, 28

Allais, Alphonse: First Communion of Anemic Young Girls in Snowy Weather, 192; A Harvest of Tomatoes on the Edge of the Red Sea Harvested by Apoplectic Cardinals, 192; Total Eclipse of the Sun in Darkest Africa, 192 allover composition, 5, 151, 224 American art: abstract expressionism as, 3–4, 48–54; constructivist influence in, 86; earthworks as, 156; minimalism as, 11–12, 16, 54, 57; Pollock’s paintings as, 3–4, 12; precisionism and, 71 analytic cubism, 5–6, 123 Andre, Carl, 10, 66, 86, 92, 99–102, 105, 121, 138, 141, 175–76; 8001 and 8002 Mönchengladbach, 109, 248; Cedar Piece, 57–59, 58; 144 Lead Square, 11, 12, 102; Pyramid, 71; Redan, 97, 99 ; Spill (Scatter Piece), 162, 164 Annie Hall (Allen), 167 anthropomorphism, 58, 101 anti-art, 95 anti-institutional aesthetic, 146, 208 architecture: Heizer and, 152; Kelly and, 78; Lichtenstein’s entablature series and, 195–96; Mondrian as influence on, 72; polychrome façade, Universidad Central de Venezuela (Otero), 78, 82; postminimalism and, 149; Smith (Tony) and, 67, 166

Index  277

Arp, Jean, 77, 204, 254; Madame Torso in a Wavy Hat, 210–11, 211 Art and Illusion (Gombrich), x–xi, 25, 28, 31, 91, 246 Artforum (magazine), 146 Artnews (magazine), 107 Art of the Real (exhibition), 56, 57, 66, 71, 74 audience. See viewer Aycock, Alice, Ramp Structure, 149 Baader-Meinhof Gang, 218 Bachelard, Gaston, The Poetics of Space, 149 bad faith, 201. See also good faith Baez, Joan, 173 Barbus, 172 Baudrillard, Jean, 209 Bauhaus, 3, 61 Bayer, Herbert, Architecture Slide Lecture, Professor Hans Poelzig, 61, 63 beat generation, 66 Beatles, 146 Beaton, Cecil, “The New Soft Look,” 53 Bell, Larry, Untitled, 111, 112 Bellamy, Richard, 265 Bernstein Brothers, 54, 55, 110 Bill, Max, 66, 77, 82, 82n, 85 Black Mountain College, 61 Bladen, Ronald, X, 67, 69 Blade Runner (Ridley Scott), 239 body: Hesse’s art and, 13, 183–84, 186; and mind/body dualism, 120; minimalism and, 15, 120, 139; phenomenology and, 104; Pollock’s art and, 5; Twombly’s art and, 34 Borromini, Francesco, 263

278  Index

Brancusi, Constantin, 11, 66, 149–50, 262; The Endless Column in Tirgu Jiu, 58, 58–59; Male Torso, 200 Braque, Georges, 2, 51 Brown, Julia, 152 Burton, Scott, 149–50; Pair of Rock Chairs, 150 Cage, John, 77, 123, 162, 254; 4’33”, 116, 118 Calder, Alexander, 204 California light and space movement, 120 Capra, Fritjof, The Tao of Physics, 152 Cassandre, A. M., 84 Center for Research in the Visual Arts, 85 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 10, 12, 48–49 Cézanne, Paul, 7 chance: Cage and, 118; Kelly and, 77–78, 82, 254; Pollock and, 5; Richter and, 219; Rorschach blots and, 247 Chardin, Jean-Siméon, The House of Cards, 177–78, 178 Chariots of the Gods (Von Daniken), 152 Chicago Bauhaus, 61, 73 CIA plot, 48–51 Clark, Kenneth, xv, 94–95 Clarke, Arthur C., 93 Cold War, 10, 48–53 commodity, art as, 207 composition: allover, 5, 151, 224; Lichtenstein’s joke on, 194; re­ introduction of, in sculpture, 177;

relational versus nonrelational, 100–101, 104, 143n12. See also order concrete art, 10, 47, 66 Constable, John, Wivenhoe Park, Essex, 26–27, 27 constructivism: concrete art and, 66; diaspora, 63, 82, 82n; diluted, 63, 65, 85, 86; and elemental analysis, 59–60; minimalism and, 11; postwar art and, 10; Russian, 59–60, 150; and social betterment, 59–60, 150–51; Stella and, 86 Corbusier, Le, 78, 84 Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C., 67 creation, abstraction and, 47 cubism, 2, 58, 101, 123, 227, 233 cynicism, 216 Dada, 6, 77, 91, 95, 104 The Dancing Wu Li Masters (Zukav), 152 David, Jacques-Louis, 172 Davis, Gene, 195 Davis, Stuart, 209 De Bartolo, Dick, “2001 Min. of a Space Idiocy” (with Mort Drucker), 94 De Chirico, Giorgio, 162 decoration, 192–93, 212–13. See also design de Kooning, Willem, 3, 59, 221, 239–41, 245; Excavation, 239, 240; Untitled IV, 239, 241 De Maria, Walter: Bed of Spikes, 126, 128, 129 ; The Broken Kilometer, 128, 129, 130; Cage II, 123, 125;

The Lightning Field, 16–17, 18, 22, 130, 130–32, 131 De Menil, Dominique, 132 design: abstract art versus, 19, 27, 61; Kelly and, 73–74; Lohse and, 77; postminimalism and, 149; Vasarely and, 84–85. See also decoration Dia Art Foundation, 132; Beacon, New York, 21–22, 206, 264; New York, New York, 130 diaspora constructivism, 63, 82, 82n diluted constructivism, 63, 65, 85, 86 diversity, abstract art and, 271 Dondero, George A., 50 Duchamp, Marcel, 59, 71, 91, 95–97, 118, 145; Fountain, 6, 7, 95; Three Standard Stoppages, 173, 174 Dürer, Albrecht, “A Man Drawing a Lute” from The Art of Measurement, 26 earthworks, 151–61 East Coast minimalism, 113 Eisenman, Peter, Proposal for Holocaust Memorial, Berlin, 138 Eliot, T. S., The Waste Land, 168 empiricism, 11, 71, 86, 101 emptiness, abstract art and, 42 Encounters (magazine), 49 entropy, 167 essentialism, 104, 260 European art, 2–4, 86, 100–101 experience of art, 8, 251–52 faith, abstract art and, 271–72 feminist art, 15, 185 Fifty Years of Concrete Art (Bill), 66 figuration, 58, 101

A Fine Disregard (Varnedoe), xiii, xiv finish fetish, 111–13 Flam, Jack, 193 Flavin, Dan, 66; installation view, Green Gallery, 121, 123; “monument” for V. Tatlin, 29, 30, 96–97, 145; Ultraviolet fluorescent light room, 121, 123, 124 Ford, Harrison, 239 formalism, 153 Forty Years of New York School Painting (exhibition), 223 Foucault, Michel, 20, 208, 209 found objects, 97 Frankenthaler, Helen, 98–99 French art, 47, 52 Fried, Michael, 8, 88n6, 98, 100, 104–5, 113, 132, 142n6, 154, 177, 267 Friedrich, Caspar David, 216 Friedrich, Heiner, 132 Funeral Mass for a Deaf Man (musical score), 192 futurism, 59 Geldzahler, Henry, 223 geometric abstraction, 19–20, 97 geometric art, hard-edge, 56, 61n, 71, 82n, 86, 92 Giacometti, Alberto, 123; No More Play, 172 Gilhooly, David, installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 148 Glass, Philip, 123, 126 Gombrich, E. H., x–xi, xv, 25–29, 31, 34, 47, 91, 246–47

good faith, 191. See also bad faith Goossen, Eugene, 66, 71, 74 Gopnik, Adam, 49, 74 Gorgoni, Gianfranco, 158; Richard Serra throwing hot lead, 172 Gottlieb, Adolph, 161 Gould, Stephen Jay, xiii Goya, Francisco de, 205 Grateful Dead, 173 gravity, 175–77 Gray, Camilla, 59–60; The Great Experiment, 59 Greenberg, Clement, 3–4, 6, 8, 44n3, 51, 98, 100, 104, 113, 153–54, 242, 254, 256, 272n1 Greenblatt, Stephen, xiii Gursky, Andreas, Times Square NY, 1997, 140, 141 Halley, Peter, 208–10, 212; Powder, 209 ; Prison with Conduit, 208, 209 ; Two Cells with Circulating Conduit, 19–20, 20, 208 hard-edge geometric art, 56, 61n, 71, 82n, 86, 92 hard-wiring, art and human, 25–26, 28, 31, 267, 270 Hawkins, Gerald S., Stonehenge Decoded, 152 Hazlitt, William, 2, 44n1, 191 Hegel, G.W.F., 27 Heizer, Michael, 151–57, 161, 168, 267; City, 22; Complex One / City, 151–52, 153, 154; Double Negative, 155, 155–58, 157; North, South, East, West, 22, 23 Hesse, Eva, 181–88; Accession II, 13, 17, 144, 182; An Ear in a Pond, 182, 183;

Index  279

Hesse, Eva (continued) Right After, 185–86, 187, 188, 249; Sequel, 183, 185; Untitled, 185; Untitled (Rope Piece), 182–83, 184, 249 High and Low (Varnedoe), xiii Hildebrand, Adolf von, 157 historicism, abstract art and, 27–28, 35, 36–40, 44n3, 51–52, 87, 91, 254, 256 history of art: abstraction and, 4, 21, 27–28, 35, 44n3, 51–52, 87, 91, 256–58; evolution and, xiv–xv, 44n3; Kubler on, 153–54; mirror example of, 36–40; progress and, 35; stylistic developments in, 25–26. See also art history, discipline of Holocaust, 106, 138 honesty, in art, 253 humanism: abstract art and, xi; LeWitt and, 126 idealism, abstract art and, 191, 201, 252–54 illusionism, 26–29, 91, 108, 120. See also realism impersonality. See subjectivity, rejection of Incohérents, 192 individuality, 271 industrial aesthetic, 12–13, 36, 54, 110, 174 innovation: abstract art and, xi, 35–36, 270; evolution and, xiii; illusionism and, 26; tradition of, abstraction as, 41

280  Index

Insley, Will, installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 148 intention, of artist, 247–48, 251 interpretation: of abstract art, 8, 31–34, 41–42, 247–48, 270; knowledge versus ignorance and, 41–42; schema and, 48; viewer’s role in, 31–32, 56, 247–48. See also meaning of abstract art invention. See innovation irony, 18, 21, 213–36; Johns and, 226– 36; Richter and, 214–21; Twombly and, 221–26. See also satire Irwin, Robert, 116; scrim installation, 114, 115, 117; Untitled, 112–13, 113 Italian futurism, 59 James, William, 101 Jastrow, Joseph, Rabbit or Duck?, 31, 246–47 Johns, Jasper, xiii, 21, 92, 219, 226–36, 244–45; Corpse and Mirror, 227–28, 229; Dancers on a Plane I, 231–33, 233; Device, 170, 171, 228; Savarin, 229–30, 231; Scent, 226–27, 227; Untitled, 228, 230; Untitled No. 1–4, 226, 228; Usuyuki, 231–33, 232; Weeping Women, 233, 234, 235–36, 251; White Flag, 5–7, 6, 21, 91 Johnson, Philip, 162, 201 jokes: in art about abstract art, 193–98; Dada and, 95, 104; high versus low art, 193; interpretation of abstract art and, 33–34; minimalism and, 95, 104, 105. See also satire

Judd, Donald, 15, 32, 54, 66, 86, 92, 94, 97, 99–102, 105–11, 132, 141, 142n11, 143n15, 162, 168, 172, 178, 195, 252–53, 272n3; Iron Floor Box, 106, 107, 108; Marfa, Texas installation, 22, 133, 135, 136; North Artillery Shed, 136; “Specific Objects,” 145; To Susan Buckwalter, 46, 55; Untitled (Stack), 102, 103, 109; Untitled (1962), 32; Untitled (1963–75), 32, 33; Untitled (1966), 108; Untitled (1969), 12, 15; Untitled (1976), 111 Kelly, Ellsworth, 11, 20, 68–82; Blue Green, 212, 213; Cité, 78, 82, 83; Colors for a Large Wall, ii, 10, 77–78, 254–55; La Combe I, 74, 75, 76; Neuilly, 72, 73; Sculpture for a Large Wall, 78, 80–81; Shadows on Stairs, Villa La Combe, Meschers, 75; Window, Museum of Modern Art, Paris, 70, 71, 74 Kim, Byron, Synecdoche, 255, 256 Klein, Yves, Anthropométries, 52, 53, 248 Koons, Jeff: Inflatable Flower and Bunny (Tall White, Pink Bunny), 38–39, 39 ; Rabbit, 39–40, 40 Kubler, George, The Shape of Time, 153–54 Kubrick, Stanley, still from 2001: A Space Odyssey, 93 labor, 172–74, 179 Lachowicz, Rachel: Color Chart Flat #1, 255, 257; Sarah, 259, 259–60 language. See abstract art as language

latex, 183 Latin America, constructivism in, 82, 86 Lefkowitz, Lester, 167 Left, the art historical, 53–56, 173, 179 Leger, Fernand, 262 Leider, Phil, 97, 99 Levine, Sherrie, Untitled (Lead Checks: 2), 207, 208 LeWitt, Sol, 111; All Combinations of Arcs from Corners and Sides; Straight, Not-Straight, and Broken Lines, 126, 127; Incomplete Open Cubes, 123, 126; Open Modular Cube, 90, 123, 125; Untitled Cube (6), 29, 30 ; Wall Drawing #601: Forms Derived from a Cube (25 Variations), 126, 128 liberal society: abstraction and, 29, 92; illusionism and, 28 Lichtenstein, Roy, 55, 107, 193–99; Ball of Twine, 18, 19, 193, 215; Big Painting No. 6, 194, 196; Composition II, 194, 215; Entablature, 195–96, 196; Keds, 199, 199–200; Mirror #1, 196–97, 197; NonObjective I, 197; Plus and Minus (Yellow), 198 Lin, Maya, Vietnam War Memorial, Washington, D.C., 137, 138 literal art, 97–102, 252–54 logic of the situation, 25, 92 Lohse, Richard Paul, 76–77, 82, 82n; Complementary Groups Formed by Six Horizontal Systematic Color Series (1950), 10, 11, 77; Complementary Groups Formed by Six

Horizontal Systematic Color Series (1975), 77, 79 ; Geilinger & Co., New Year’s card for 1962, 77 Long, Richard: Long Line in the Himalayas, 156; Whitechapel Slate Circle, 165–66, 166 Los Angeles, minimalism in, 11–12, 111–21 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 116 Louis, Morris, 88n6, 98–100, 104, 121; Tet, 51, 105 macho ideal, 15 Mad Magazine, 93, 94 Malevich, Kazimir, 59, 66, 92, 145, 150, 152, 155, 253; Black Square, 96; Suprematist Composition: White on White, 2 maps and mapping, 164–65 Marden, Brice, 244–45; Cold Mountain 5 (Open), 251, 252; Grove Group, 42, 245; Vine, 238, 245 Martin, Agnes, 267; Field #2, 241, 242; Untitled, 241, 242 Martin, Charles, Little Girl Dancing in Front of Class, 31, 247–48 Marx, Karl, 209 materiality of art, 98–99, 142n11, 151, 174, 242, 251–52. See also literal art Matisse, Henri, xv, 59, 78, 110, 143n15, 200, 213; Intérieur aux aubergines [Interior with Eggplants], 192, 193 McCollum, Allan, Plaster Surrogates, 206–7, 207

McCracken, John, 111, 113; Blue Column, 93, 94 meaning of abstract art: absurdity and, 42; ambiguities in, 53–54, 56, 66, 67–68, 71, 86, 93; construction of, 247–48, 271; contemporary life and, 42–43; Pollock interpretations and, 248–49, 251; propaganda and, 53–54; richness of, 34. See also interpretation memory, 139, 148–49 Menand, Louis, xiii Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 104 metaphor, 148–49 metaphysics. See idealism Metropolitan Museum of Art, 223 minimalism, 10–19, 90–141; as American art, 11–13, 16, 54, 57; and body, 15, 120, 139; and context of art work, 104; and Count Panza’s villa, Varese, Italy, 132; craftsmanship of, 54–55, 110; elite and, 133, 137; expansiveness of, 123, 130, 132; Hesse and, 181–88; and industrial aesthetic, 12–13, 36, 54, 110; interpretation of, 56–57, 106 (see also reception of); literal art and, 97–102; and military-industrial complex, 13, 133; monuments to, 22; New York versus Los Angeles, 11–12, 111–21; and nostalgia, 54–55; origin of term, 93–94; painterly abstraction versus, 105, 121; Pollock 1967 exhibition and, 13, 15; pop art and, 18; and power, 54; preciousness of, 128; puzzlement caused by, 94–95, 105;

Index  281

minimalism (continued) reception of, 15–16, 22, 145 (see also interpretation of); and scale, 15–17; value of, 106; variety and ambiguity in, 11–12, 15–16, 67–68, 96–97, 106, 110, 121, 130, 135, 137–38, 145 Miró, Joan, 204 mirrors, 36–40 modernism, 7, 44n3. See also abstract art modernity, 43 Moholy-Nagy, László, Berlin Radio Tower, 159, 161 Mondrian, Piet, 74, 97, 197–98, 253, 254–55, 258–59; Broadway Boogie Woogie, 201, 258, 258; Composition No. II, 72, 258; Pier and Ocean 5, 198, 258 Monet, Claude, Gare Saint-Lazare, 162 Monroe, Marilyn, 55 Morellet, François, 86; Painting, 63, 65, 65–66 Morris, Robert, 94, 102, 106, 143n12, 162, 182, 209; “Anti Form,” 163; installation, Dwan Gallery, 145, 146, 149; installation of Green Gallery exhibition, 104–6, 105, 147; Untitled (L-Beams), 94, 95; Untitled (1965), 36; Untitled (1966), 11, 13; Untitled (1968), 37, 248 Morris, William, 179 Munch, Edvard, Self-Portrait, 229, 231 Murphy, Gerald, 209 Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 72

282  Index

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, installation view, 148 Museum of Modern Art, 10, 48–50, 56, 202 Namuth, Hans: Jackson Pollock, 52; Jackson Pollock creating Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) in his barn studio in Long Island, 1950, 5 Napoleon, Leon, 209 National Gallery of Art, 27, 165 naturalism. See realism natural law, abstract art and, 266–67, 270 Nazca People, Nazca Spiral, 160, 161 The New American Painting (exhibition), 48–50, 49 Newman, Barnett, 3, 44n2, 161, 262; Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue II, 19–20, 20, 211–12 New York: abstract expressionism in, 3; minimalism in, 11, 111–14 New York School, 59 1950s, abstract art in, 48 Noguchi, Isamu, Sculpture to Be Seen from Mars, 160–61, 163 Noland, Kenneth, 98–100, 104, 195; Drive, 97, 98 nonfigurative art, 47 nonobjective art, 2 nonrepresentational art, 47 Nordman, Maria, Varese Room, 120 nostalgia, 54–55 nuclear era, 154, 160–61 O’Keeffe, Georgia, Lake George Window, 70, 71

Oldenburg, Claes, 19, 182; Proposed Colossal Monument for the End of Navy Pier, 200, 200–201 Olitski, Jules, 98, 112 op art, 212 opticality, 113, 142n6 order, 162–70, 226, 228, 235, 264, 271. See also composition organicism, 13, 36, 67, 162–63 Otero, Alejandro, polychrome façade for School of Architecture, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, 78, 82 overhead view, 159–60, 165 painterly abstraction, minimalism versus, 105, 121 Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 72 Palermo, Blinky, 216 patronage, support of art projects on grand scale, 132–33 Pei, I. M., East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, 137 perception, 85–86, 104, 114–21, 132, 138 pessimism, 154, 167–68, 175, 209 phenomenology, 104 photography, 205 Picasso, Pablo, 2, 51, 57, 59, 200, 227; Accordionist (L’Accordéoniste), 3; Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 74, 233; Girl Before the Mirror, 229–30; Guernica, 233; Guitar and Wine Glass, 193; “Ma Jolie” (Woman with a Zither or Guitar), 2; Weeping Woman, 235, 235; Woman in Bed, 233, 235

pictorialism, 58, 102 Plato, 27 The Poetics of Space (Bachelard), 149 Polke, Sigmar, 203, 216 Pollock, Jackson, 3–5, 7–8, 12, 13, 15, 32, 44n3, 51–52, 59, 66, 86, 91, 92, 97–99, 102, 104, 109, 112, 142n6, 162, 170, 185–86, 194, 203, 215, 221, 226, 244–45, 248–49, 251, 262, 267; Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 5, 50, 53, 54, 66, 86; Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), xviii, 4, 225, 248; Scent, 227 pop art: emergence of, 6, 91; influences on, 59; jokes about art in, 193–206; and minimalism, 18 Popper, Karl, 27 Port Huron Statement, 173 posters, Bauhaus-designed, 61 postminimalism, 144–88; and design, 148–49; earthworks, 151–61; imageless abstraction in, 151; Kubler’s The Shape of Time and, 153–54; and metaphor, 148–49; minimalist tradition and, 145–47, 172–73; and near/far views, 155, 157–60, 165, 168; order/disorder in, 162–70; and pessimism, 154; romanticism of, 180–81; sculpture and, 147 postmodernism, 7 postmodern theory, xii power: and Halley’s critiques of abstraction, 20, 208; minimalism and, 54 pragmatism, xiii, 43, 101 Pratt Institute, 73 pre-Columbian architecture, 152

process of art making, 4–5, 29, 54–55, 151, 170 pure abstraction, 258–59 rationality: abstract art and, xi; min­ imalism and, 100 Rauschenberg, Robert, xiii, 6; Factum I, 194, 195; Factum II, 194, 195 realism, 6, 26. See also illusionism reason. See rationality relational composition, 100–101 “Rembrandt problem,” 94 Renaissance art, Florentine versus Venetian, 114 Report to the Club of Rome, 174 representation: abstraction and, 48, 196–97, 240–41; Gombrich on, 247; Lichtenstein’s mirror series and, 196–97; as subset of art, 248. See also resemblance resemblance, abstract art and, 32–34, 191. See also representation Reuther, Walter, 179 Richter, Gerhard, 214–21; Abstract Painting, 216; Cell (Zelle) from October 18, 1977, 218, 219 ; Gray Streaks, 21, 22, 215; November, 219, 220 ; 1024 Colors, 216, 217, 255; Un-Painting (Gray), 215; Waterfall, 216–17, 218 Riley, Bridget, 212–13 Rockefellers, 48, 49 Rodchenko, Aleksandr, 66, 151; advertisement for cigarettes, 60, 61; Pure Red, Pure Yellow, and Pure Blue Colors, 60 ; Spatial Construction No. 18, 59

Rodin, Auguste, 200 Rorschach blots, 247 Rose, Barbara, 95–96, 101 Rose, Charlie, 268 Rothko, Mark, 3, 112, 121, 161, 191 Rothko Chapel, Houston, 22 Rubin, William, 51, 98, 100 “The Ruins of the Tuileries, 1871– 1883” (Varnedoe), xii, xiv Ruskin, John, 179 Russian constructivism, 11, 59–60, 150 Ryman, Robert, 241–43, 267; Bond, 243; Untitled, 244 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 53, 173 satire, 191–213; pop art, 18–19, 193–206; postpop, 19–21, 206–13. See also jokes scale: Kelly versus Lohse, 77; min­ imalism and, 15–17; postminimalism and, 148; Scale as Content exhibition, 67, 68, 69 ; Stella versus Morellet, 63, 65 Scale as Content (exhibition), 67, 68, 69 Schama, Simon, xiii Schjeldahl, Peter, 221 School of Paris, 59 Scott, Ridley, Blade Runner, 239 sculpture: and activation of space, 100, 102, 104, 114, 132; composition reintroduced to, 177; Hildebrand’s theory of, 157–58; postminimal, 147; reworking tradition of, 57–59, 102; viewing points for, 157–58

Index  283

semiotics, 252 Serra, Richard, 22, 168–79, 185, 261–67; Bellamy, 265, 269; Castings, 170, 172, 173, 173–74, 249; Cutting Device: Base Plate Measure, 168–70, 169 ; Delineator, 175–77, 176, 262; Double Torqued Ellipse, 24, 264, 265; Double Torqued Ellipse II, 265, 266; Ellipse models, 264; Equal (Corner Prop Piece), 177; installation view of exhibition Contemporary: Inaugural Installation, Museum of Modern Art, 169 ; Intersection, 261, 261–62; Intersection II, 261–62, 263; One Ton Prop (House of Cards), 13, 15, 16, 177–78, 182, 259; Scatter Piece, 174, 175; Tilted Arc, 260, 260–61; Torqued Ellipse, 268–69 ; Torqued Ellipse I, 24, 264, 265; Torqued Ellipse II, 24, 264, 265; Torqued Ellipse IV, 264, 266 Shakers, 71 Shapiro, Joel: installation view, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 148; Untitled (House), 147–48, 148 Smith, David, 57, 109, 262; Cubi XIX, 101, 102 Smith, Tony, 66–67; Bees Do It, 67; Smoke, 67, 68; Untitled (Church), 67; Untitled (Plan for Linear City), 165–66, 167 Smithson, Robert, 151, 156, 167–68, 209, 267; Asphalt Rundown, 174, 249, 250 ; A Non-Site, Franklin, New Jersey, 165; Red Sandstone

284  Index

Corner Piece, 37–38, 38; Spiral Jetty, 158–59, 159, 160, 161, 266–67 socialist realism, 60 Société des incohérents, 192 society, art and: Bauhaus, 61; diluted constructivism, 65; earthworks, 158; Lichtenstein, 199–200; literal art, 86, 162; Oldenburg, 200–201; postminimalism, 150–51; Russian constructivism, 60; Vasarely, 85, 199 Soto, Jesús-Raphael, 86; Parallèles interférentes noires et blanches, 82, 84 space, activation of, 100, 102, 104, 114, 132 spirituality. See idealism Stalin, Joseph, 50 Steinbach, Heim, Ultra Red #2, 206, 207 Stella, Frank, 8, 21, 57, 85–87, 96, 100–101, 112, 143n11, 162, 204, 215, 252, 272n2; Empress of India, 99–100, 100 ; Gran Cairo, 46, 61, 64, 92; The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, 7–8, 9, 63, 65–66; Palmito Ranch, 85; Zambezi, 18, 19, 193 Stevenson, James, “Now, there’s a nice contemporary sunset!,” 191, 192 Still, Clyfford, 262; Untitled, 219, 221, 221 Stonehenge Decoded (Hawkins), 152 Storr, Robert, 35, 218 Students for a Democratic Society, 173 subjectivity, rejection of, 66, 78, 87, 110, 255–56 surrealism, 86

Sylvester, David, 235 systematic composition, 66–67 Taaffe, Philip, 210–13; Blue Green, 20, 21, 212; Blue Green; Kharraqan, 213, 214; Madame Torso in Deep, 210, 210–11; We Are Not Afraid, 211–12, 212 The Tao of Physics (Capra), 152 Tatlin, Vladimir, 66, 92; Model of the Monument to the Third International, 267; Monument to the Third International, 266 Teamsters, 179 theater, art as, 104, 154, 177, 267 theory, art and, 7–8 time: De Maria’s Lightning Field and, 131–32; Heizer’s work and, 154; Kubler on, 153; Turrell’s art and, 121 totalitarianism, 27–28, 271 Truman, Harry, 50 truth. See universal truths Turner, J.M.W., 1, 191; Snowstorm: Steamboat off a Harbour’s Mouth, 1 Turrell, James, 114, 116, 132; AfrumProto, 12, 14, 116; Laar, 119, 119–20; Mendota Stoppages, 116, 118, 118; Quaker meeting house, Houston, 22; Roden Crater Project, 133, 134, 135; Wedgework IV, 120–21, 122 Twombly, Cy, xiii, 21, 221–26; Cold Stream, 222, 224; Untitled (1956), 221, 222; Untitled (1962), 222, 223; Untitled (1970), 33–34, 35, 190, 224–25, 225, 251; Untitled (1970 [Rome]), 223, 224

unconscious, 3 universal truths, 2, 27, 91, 270 Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, 78, 82, 82, 84 U.S. Information Agency (USIA), 49 Van Doesburg, Theo, 72 Van Gogh, Vincent, xiv Vantongerloo, Georges, 72 Vasarely, Victor, 82, 84–86, 162, 199–200, 267; Grid, 199; Ilile, 85 Venezuela, 82 Vietnam War, 161 viewer, interpretive role of, 31–32, 56, 247–48 Villanueva, Carlos Raul, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, 78, 82 Vogue (magazine), 53

Von Daniken, Erich, Chariots of the Gods, 152 Warhol, Andy, 19, 55, 107, 201–6, 214, 218; Blue Close Cover Before Striking, 201; Crossword, 201; Orange Car Crash Fourteen Times, 201–2, 203; Oxidation Painting, 203, 204, 249, 251; Rorschach, 204, 205, 246–47; Shadows, 205–6, 206; soup cans series, 167, 207; Yarn, 203, 204 waste, 174 Weiss, Jeffrey, 242 West Coast minimalism, 112–14 Whiteread, Rachel: Memorial to the Victims of the Holocaust, 139, 141; Untitled (Paperbacks), 139, 139–41 Whitney, David, 202

Winsor, Jackie: Bound Square, 179, 181; Burnt Piece, 178, 179, 182; Four Corners, 179, 181; Plywood Square, 179, 180 Winters, Terry: Color and Information, 251, 253; Parallel Rendering I, 245, 246 Wollheim, Richard, 93–94 Wortz, Edward, 116 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 67, 166 Yale University, 61 Young, Neil, After the Gold Rush, 174–75 Youngerman, Jack, 194 Zimmerman, Elyn, 146 Zukav, Gary, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, 152

Index  285

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rapher: Erik Gould. 3.18, 3.19 ©

Leo Castelli Gallery, New York;

of the Leo Castelli Gallery, New

2006 Robert Irwin / Artists Rights

photographer: Rudy Burkhardt.

York. 3.12 Art © Donald Judd

Society (ARS), New York; photo:

3.5 Photo: CNAC / MNAM / Dist.

Foundation / Licensed by VAGA,

Collection of Walker Art Center,

Réunion des Musée Nationaux/

New York, NY; photo: Judd Foun-

Minneapolis. 3.20 © James Tur-

Art Resource, New York; pho-

dation. 3.13 Art © Donald Judd

rell. 3.21 © James Turrell; photo:

tographer: Jacques Faujour. 3.6

Foundation / Licensed by VAGA,

Whitney Museum of American

Photo © Saint Louis Art Museum.

New York, NY; photo: Froehlich

Art, New York; photographer:

3.7 Art © Carl Andre / Licensed by

Collection, Stuttgart. 3.14 Art ©

Jon Cliett. 3.22 © James Turrell;

VAGA, New York, NY; photo: Art

Carl Andre / Licensed by VAGA,

photo courtesy of Hayward Gal-

Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. 3.8 ©

New York, NY; photo: Städtisches

lery, London; photographer: John

2006 Frank Stella / Artists Rights

Museum Abteiberg Mönchen-

Riddy. 3.23 © 2006 Stephen

Society (ARS), New York; digital

gladbach; photographer: Ruth

Flavin / Artists Rights Society (ARS),

image © The Museum of Mod-

Kaiser. 3.15 Art © Donald Judd

New York; photo: Flavin Studio.

ern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art

Foundation / Licensed by VAGA,

3.24 © 2006 Stephen Flavin / 

Resource, New York. 3.9 Art © Es-

New York, NY; photo: Museum

Artists Rights Society (ARS), New

tate of David Smith / Licensed by

of Contemporary Art, Los An-

York; photo © Giorgio Colombo,

VAGA, New York, NY; photo: Tate

geles;

Squidds

Milan; photographer: Giorgio

Gallery, London / Art Resource,

and Nunns. 3.16 Photo: Orange

Colombo, Milan. 3.25 Digital

New York. 3.10 Art © Donald Judd

County Museum of Art, New-

image © The Museum of Mod-

Foundation / Licensed by VAGA,

port Beach. 3.17 © 2006 Rob-

ern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art

New York, NY; photo: Gallery of

ert Irwin / Artists Rights Society

Resource, New York. 3.26 © 2006

Ontario, Toronto; photographer:

(ARS), New York; photo courtesy

Sol LeWitt / Artists Rights Soci-

Carlo Catenazzi. 3.11 © 2006 Rob-

of the Museum of Art, Rhode Is-

ety (ARS), New York; photo ©

ert Morris / Artists Rights Society

land School of Design; photog-

Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

photographer:

P h oto g r a p h y a n d C o p y r i g h t C r e d i t s   2 9 1

3.27 © 2006 Sol LeWitt / Artists

Turrell; photos: Chinati Founda-

and Nunns. 4.3 © 2006 Joel

Rights Society (ARS), New York;

tion, Marfa, Texas; photographer:

Shapiro / Artists Rights Society

photo: San Francisco Museum

Florian Holzherr, 2001. 3.38

(ARS), New York; photo ©

of Modern Art. 3.28 © 2006 Sol

Photo © 2006 Board of Trustees,

Museum of Contemporary Art,

LeWitt /A   rtists Rights Society (ARS),

National Gallery of Art, Wash-

Chicago. 4.4 Courtesy Alice Ay-

New York; digital image © The

ington. 3.39 Photographer: Mark

cock; photo: HHK Foundation

Museum of Modern Art, New

Gulezian. 3.40 Photo © Founda-

Collection. 4.5 © 2006 Estate of

York. 3.29 © 2006 Sol LeWitt / 

tion Memorial to the Murdered

Scott Burton / Artists Rights So-

Artists Rights Society (ARS),

Jews of Europe, Peter Eisenman,

ciety (ARS), New York; digital

New York; photo: Des Moines

2000. 3.41 Digital image © The

image © The Museum of Mod-

Art Center. 3.30 © 1969 Walter

Museum of Modern Art, New

ern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art

De Maria; photo courtesy Wal-

York. 3.42 © 2006 Andreas Gursky / 

Resource, New York. 4.6 Photo:

ter De Maria Enterprises. 3.31

Artists Rights Society (ARS),

Dia Art Foundation, New York;

Photo © Dia Art Foundation;

New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn;

photographer: Tom Vinetz. 4.7

photographer: Jon Abbott. 3.32,

photo courtesy Monika Sprueth

Photo: Dia: Beacon, New York;

3.33 Photos © Dia Art Founda-

Gallery / Philomene Magers.

photographer: Jennifer Mackiewicz. 4.8 © Richard Long; photo

tion; photographer: John Cliett. 3.34 © James Turrell; photo ©

4.1 © 2006 Robert Morris / Artists

courtesy Haunch of Venison,

Florian Holzherr, Munich; pho-

Rights Society (ARS), New York;

London; photographer: Richard

tographer: Florian Holzherr. 3.35

photo

Leo

Long. 4.9 Photo: Dia: Beacon,

© James Turrell; photo: George

Castelli Gallery. 4.2 © 2006 Joel

New York; photographer: William

Wray;

George

Shapiro / Artists Rights Society

Nettles. 4.10 Art © Estate of Rob-

Wray. 3.36, 3.37 Art © Donald

(ARS), New York; photo: The Mu-

ert Smithson / Licensed by VAGA,

Judd Foundation / Licensed by

seum of Contemporary Art, Los

New York, NY; photo © Estate

VAGA, New York, NY; © James

Angeles; photographer: Squidds

of Robert Smithson / Licensed by

photographer:

2 9 2   P h oto g r a p h y a n d C o p y r i g h t C r e d i t s

courtesy

of

the

VAGA, New York, NY, courtesy

New York. 4.16 Art © Estate of

courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery, New

James Cohan Gallery, New York;

Robert

by

York; photographer: Gianfranco

photographer: Gianfranco Gor-

VAGA, New York, NY; photo © Es-

Gorgoni. 4.23 © 2006 Rich-

goni. 4.11 Art © Estate of Rob-

tate of Robert Smithson / Licensed

ard Serra / Artists Rights Society

ert Smithson / Licensed by VAGA,

by VAGA, New York, NY, cour-

(ARS), New York; photo courtesy

New York, NY; photo © Estate

tesy James Cohan Gallery, New

Leo Castelli Gallery, New York.

of Robert Smithson / licensed by

York. 4.17 Photo © 2006 Board of

4.24 © 2006 Artists Rights Society

VAGA, New York; courtesy James

Trustees, National Gallery of Art.

(ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / 

Cohan Gallery, New York; pho-

4.18 © 2006 Estate of Tony Smith / 

Succession

tographer: Martin Hogue. 4.12

Artists Rights Society (ARS), New

digital image © The Museum of

© 2006 Artists Rights Society

York; photo © 2005 Estate of

Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/

(ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst,

Tony Smith / Artists Rights Society

Art Resource, New York. 4.25 ©

Bonn; photo © The Art Institute

(ARS), New York. 4.19 Photo ©

2006 Richard Serra / Artists Rights

of Chicago. 4.13 Photo: Georges

Lester Lefkowitz / CORBIS; pho-

Society (ARS), New York; photo:

Rosset / Geneva;

photographer:

tographer: Lester Lefkowitz. 4.20

Judd Foundation. 4.26 © 2006

Georges Rosset/Geneva. 4.14 ©

© 2006 Richard Serra / Artists

Richard Serra / Artists Rights So-

2006 The Isamu Noguchi Foun-

Rights Society (ARS), New York;

ciety (ARS), New York; photo: Ace

dation and Garden Museum, New

digital image © The Museum of

Gallery, Los Angeles, California.

York / Artists Rights Society (ARS),

Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / 

4.27 © 2006 Richard Serra / Artists

New York; photo: The Isamu No-

Art Resource, New York. 4.21

Rights Society (ARS), New York;

guchi Foundation, New York;

Art © Jasper Johns / Licensed by

digital image © The Museum of

photographer: Soichi Sunami.

VAGA, New York, NY; photo: The

Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / 

4.15 Art © Carl Andre / Licensed

Baltimore Museum of Art. 4.22 ©

Art Resource, New York. 4.28

by VAGA, New York, NY; photo

2006 Richard Serra / Artists Rights

Photo © The National Gallery,

courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery,

Society (ARS), New York; photo

London. 4.29 © Jackie Winsor;

Smithson / Licensed

Marcel

Duchamp;

P h oto g r a p h y a n d C o p y r i g h t C r e d i t s   2 9 3

digital image © The Museum of

London. Photo courtesy Hauser

Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Re-

Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / 

and Wirth Zürich / London. 4.37

source, New York. 5.7 © Estate of

Art Resource, New York. 4.30

© The Estate of Eva Hesse. Hauser

Roy Lichtenstein; photo: Kunst-

© Jackie Winsor; photo: National

and Wirth Zurich/London. Photo:

sammulung Nordhein-Westfalen,

Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Milwaukee Art Museum.

Düsseldorf; photo © Walter Klein,

4.31 © Jackie Winsor; photo © Al-

Dusseldorf. 5.8 © Estate of Roy

len Memorial Art Museum, Ober-

5.1 © The New Yorker Collec-

Lichtenstein. 5.9 Photo © Estate

lin College. 4.32 © Jackie Winsor;

tion. 5.2 © 2006 Succession

of Roy Lichtenstein; photog-

digital image © The Museum of

H. Matisse, Paris / Artists Rights

rapher: Robert McKeever. 5.10

Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / 

Society (ARS), New York; photo

© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein;

Art Resource, New York. 4.33 ©

© Musée de Grenoble. 5.3 © 2006

photo: The Broad Art Founda-

The Estate of Eva Hesse. Hauser

Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists

tion. 5.11 © Estate of Roy Lich-

and Wirth Zurich / London. Photo:

Rights Society (ARS), New York;

tenstein; photographer: Robert

San Francisco Museum of Mod-

photo: The Marion Koogler McNay

McKeever. 5.12 © HCR Interna-

ern Art. 4.34 © The Estate of Eva

Art Museum. 5.4 © Estate of Roy

tional; digital image © The Mu-

Hesse. Hauser and Wirth Zurich / 

Lichtenstein; photo courtesy Son-

seum of Modern Art / Licensed by

London. Photo: Whitney Mu-

nabend, New York. 5.5 Art ©

SCALA / Art Resource, New York.

seum of American Art, New

Robert

Rauschenberg / Licensed

5.13 © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

York; photograher: Geoffrey Cle-

by VAGA, New York, NY; photo:

5.14 © 2006 Artists Rights Society

ments. 4.35 © The Estate of Eva

The Museum of Contemporary

(ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris;

Hesse. Hauser and Wirth Zurich / 

Art, Los Angeles; photographer:

photo © 2006 Board of Trustees,

London. Photo © The Art Institute

Squidds and Nunns. 5.6 Art ©

National Gallery of Art, Wash-

of Chicago; photographer: Susan

Robert

Rauschenberg / Licensed

ington. 5.15 © Claes Oldenburg;

Einstein. 4.36 © The Estate of Eva

by VAGA, New York, NY; digital

photo courtesy Gagosian Gallery,

Hesse. Hauser and Wirth Zurich / 

image © The Museum of Modern

New York; photographer: Robert

2 9 4   P h oto g r a p h y a n d C o p y r i g h t C r e d i t s

McKeever. 5.16 © 2006 Artists

Society (ARS), New York; photo:

artist and Gagosian Gallery. 5.30 ©

Rights Society (ARS), New York / 

The Andy Warhol

Museum,

2006 Artists Rights Society (ARS),

ADAGP, Paris; photo © The

Pittsburgh. 5.22 © 2006 Andy

New York /V   G Bild-Kunst, Bonn;

Cleveland Museum of Art. 5.17

Warhol Foundation for the Vi-

photo: Kunstmuseum Bern; pho-

© 2006 Andy Warhol Founda-

sual Arts / Artists Rights Society

tographer: Peter Lauri Photog-

tion for the Visual Arts / Artists

(ARS), New York; photo courtesy

raphie. 5.31 Photo courtesy of

Rights Society (ARS), New York;

Gagosian Gallery, New York. 5.23

the artist and Gagosian Gallery.

photo courtesy Gagosian Gal-

© 2006 Andy Warhol Foundation

5.32 © Ellsworth Kelly; photo by

lery, New York. 5.18 © 2006 Andy

for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights

Eric Pollitzer. 5.33 Photo cour-

Warhol Foundation for the Visual

Society (ARS), New York; photo:

tesy of the artist and Gagosian

Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS),

The Andy Warhol Foundation,

Gallery. 5.34, 5.35 © Gerhard

New York; photo: The Andy War-

Inc. / Art Resource, New York. 5.24

Richter. 5.36 © Gerhard Rich-

hol Museum, Pittsburgh. 5.19 ©

Photo © The Solomon R. Gug-

ter; photo © Gerhard Richter;

2006 Andy Warhol Foundation

genheim Foundation, New York;

CNAC / MNAM / Dist. Réunion des

for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights

photographer: David Heald. 5.25

Musées Nationaux / Art Resource,

Society (ARS), New York; digital

Photo: Van Abbemuseum, Eind-

New York; photographer: Jacques

image © The Museum of Mod-

hoven, The Netherlands. 5.26

Faujour. 5.37 © Gerhard Rich-

ern Art / licensed by SCALA / Art

Photo courtesy of the Paula

ter; photo: Hirshhorn Museum

Resource, New York. 5.20 © 2006

Cooper Gallery, New York. 5.27

and Sculpture Garden, Smith-

Andy Warhol Foundation for the

Photo: Addison Gallery of Ameri-

sonian Institution; photographer:

Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society

can Art, Phillips Academy, Andover,

Lee Stalsworth. 5.38 © Gerhard

(ARS), New York; photo: Daros

Massachusetts. All Rights Reserved.

Richter; digital image © The

Collection, Switzerland. 5.21 ©

5.28 Photo: Peter Halley Studio;

Museum of Modern Art / Licensed

2006 Andy Warhol Foundation

photographer: David Lubarsky ©

by SCALA / Art Resource, New

for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights

1995. 5.29 Photo courtesy of the

York; © Copyright of the Artist.

P h oto g r a p h y a n d C o p y r i g h t C r e d i t s   2 9 5

5.39 © Gerhard Richter; photo:

digital image © The Museum of

(ARS), New York; photo © 1993,

Saint Louis Art Museum. 5.40

Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / 

The Art Institute of Chicago, All

Photo: Whitney Museum of Amer-

Art Resource, NewYork. 5.51 ©

Rights Reserved. 6.2 © 2006 The

ican Art, New York; photographer:

2006 The Munch Museum / The

Willem de Kooning Foundation / 

Geoffrey Clements. 5.41 Photo

Munch-Ellingsen

Group / Artists

Artists Rights Society, New York;

courtesy Sonnabend Collection,

Rights Society (ARS), New York;

photo © The Willem de Kooning

New York. 5.43 Photo: Collection

digital image © The Museum of

Foundation.

of Marguerite and Robert Hoff-

Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / 

Museum of Contemporary Art,

man. 5.44 Photo: The Menil Col-

Art Resource, New York. 5.52 Art

Los Angeles. 6.5 Photo courtesy

lection, Houston; photographer: J.

© Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA,

Robert Ryman Archives. 6.6

Littkemann, Berlin. 5.45 Nicola del

New York, NY; photo © The

Photo © 2006 Board of Trustees,

Roscio; digital image © The Mu-

Cleveland Museum of Art. 5.53,

National Gallery of Art. 6.7 ©

seum of Modern Art / Licensed by

5.54 Art © Jasper Johns / Licensed

2006 Brice Marden / Artists Rights

SCALA / Art Resource, New York.

by VAGA, New York, NY; photos:

Society (ARS), New York; digital

5.46 Art © Jasper Johns / Licensed

Jasper Johns. 5.55 © Estate of

image © The Museum of Modern

by VAGA, New York, NY; photo:

Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society

Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Re-

Anne Gold, Aachen; photogra-

(ARS), New York; photo: Tate

source, New York. 6.8 Photo ©

pher: Anne Gold, Aachen. 5.47 Art

Gallery, London/Art Resource,

Terry Winters, courtesy Matthew

© Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA,

New York. 5.56 © Estate of Pablo

Marks Gallery, New York. 6.9 Art

New York, NY; photo: Rheinisches

Picasso / Artists

Society

© Estate of Robert Smithson / 

Bildarchiv, Cologne. 5.48, 5.49 Art

(ARS), New York; photo courtesy

Licensed by VAGA, New York,

© Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA,

Sotheby’s, New York.

NY; photo © Estate of Robert

Rights

New York, NY; photos: Jasper

6.4 Photo:

Smithson / Licensed

by

The

VAGA,

Johns. 5.50 Art © Jasper Johns / 

6.1 © 2006 The Willem de Kooning

New York, NY. 6.10 © 2006 Brice

Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY;

Foundation / Artists Rights Society

Marden / Artists Rights Society

2 9 6   P h oto g r a p h y a n d C o p y r i g h t C r e d i t s

(ARS), New York. 6.11 Photo ©

www.daschkenasphoto.com. 6.17 ©

Richard Barnes. 6.21 © 2006

Terry Winters, courtesy Matthew

2006 Richard Serra / Artists Rights

Richard Serra / Artists Rights Soci-

Marks Gallery, New York. 6.12

Society (ARS), New York; photo:

ety (ARS), New York; photo cour-

Photo courtesy of the Max

Kunstsammlung Basel. 6.18 ©

tesy Gagosian Gallery, New York.

Protetch Gallery, New York. 6.13

2006 Richard Serra / Artists Rights

6.22 © 2006 Richard Serra / Artists

Photo courtesy Shoshana Wayne

Society (ARS), New York; photo

Rights Society (ARS), New York;

Gallery, Santa Monica, California.

courtesy Gagosian Gallery, New

photo: Archiv Dirk Reinartz; pho-

6.14 Digital image © The Mu-

York. 6.19 © 2006 Richard Serra / 

tographer: Archiv Dirk Reinartz.

seum of Modern Art / Licensed by

Artists Rights Society (ARS), New

6.23 Digital image © The Mu-

SCALA / Art Resource, New York.

York; photo: Archiv Dirk Reinartz;

seum of Modern Art / Licensed by

6.15 Photo courtesy Shoshana

photographer: Archiv Dirk Rein-

SCALA / Art Resource, New York.

Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica,

artz. 6.20 © 2006 Richard Serra / 

6.24 © 2006 Richard Serra / Artists

California. 6.16 © 2006 Richard

Artists Rights Society (ARS),

Rights Society (ARS), New York;

Serra / Artists Rights Society (ARS),

New York; photo: Collection Dia

photos: Charlie Rose Inc.; photog-

New York; photo: David Aschkenas,

Art Foundation; photographer:

rapher: David Gladstone.

P h oto g r a p h y a n d C o p y r i g h t C r e d i t s   2 9 7

T h i s i s a r u n n i n g f o o t  

t h e a n d r e w W. m e l lo n l e c t u r e s i n t h e f i n e a rt s , 1952–20 0 5

1952 + Jacques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art

Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins,

and Poetry (published 1953) 1953 + Sir Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study of Ideal

1968) 1962

tional Mythology (published as Blake and

Form (published 1956)

Tradition, 1968)

1954 + Sir Herbert Read, The Art of Sculpture (pub‑ lished 1956)

Kathleen Raine, William Blake and Tradi-

1963 + Sir John Pope‑Hennessy, Artist and Individual: Some Aspects of the Renaissance Portrait

1955 + Etienne Gilson, Art and Reality (published as

(published as The Portrait in the Renaissance,

Painting and Reality, 1957) 1956

1966)

E. H. Gombrich, The Visible World and

1964 + Jakob Rosenberg, On Quality in Art: ­Criteria

the Language of Art (published as Art and

of Excellence, Past and Present (published

­Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial

1967)

Representation, 1960)

1965 + Sir Isaiah Berlin, Sources of Romantic Thought (published as The Roots of Romanticism,

1957 + Sigfried Giedion, Constancy and Change

1999)

in Art and Architecture (published as The ­Eternal Present: A Contribution on Constancy

1966

and Change, 1962)

Lord David Cecil, Dreamer or Visionary: A Study of English Romantic Painting (pub‑

1958 + Sir Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin and

lished as Visionary and Dreamer: Two Poetic

French Classicism (published 1967)

Painters, Samuel Palmer and Edward BurneJones, 1969)

1959 + Naum Gabo, A Sculptor’s View of the Fine Arts (published as Of Divers Arts, 1962) 1960

1967 + Mario Praz, On the Parallel of Literature and the Visual Arts (published as Mnemo-

Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis, Horace Walpole

syne: The Parallel Between Literature and the

(published 1960)

­Visual Arts, 1970)

1961 + André Grabar, Christian Iconography and the Christian Religion in Antiquity (published as

1968

Stephen Spender, Imaginative Literature and Painting (publication not expected)

1969 + Jacob Bronowski, Art as a Mode of Knowledge

1980

(published as The Visionary Eye, 1978)

and Medieval Architecture (publication not expected)

1970 + Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, Some Aspects of Nine‑ teenth‑Century Architecture (published as A

1981

History of Building Types, 1976) 1971 + T. S. R. Boase, Vasari: The Man and the Book

1982

1983

1984

1985

Ideology of Country Houses, 1990) 1986

1987

Jaroslav Pelikan, Imago Dei: The Byzantine Apologia for Icons (published 1990)

1976 + Peter von Blanckenhagen, Aspects of Classical Art (publication not expected)

Lukas Foss, Confessions of a Twentieth‑Century Composer (publication not expected)

H. C. Robbins Landon, Music in Europe in the Year 1776 (publication not expected)

James S. Ackerman, The Villa in History (published as The Villa in History: Form and

Reconsidered (published as The Rise and Fall

1975

Richard Wollheim, Painting as an Art (published 1987)

1974 + H. W. Janson, Nineteenth‑Century Sculpture of the Public Monument, 1976)

Vincent Scully, The Shape of France (publication not expected)

1973 + Jacques Barzun, The Use and Abuse of Art (published 1974)

Leo Steinberg, The Burden of Michelangelo’s Painting (publication expected)

1972 + Ludwig H. Heydenreich, Leonardo da Vinci (publication not expected)

John Harris, Palladian Architecture in En­gland, 1615–1760 (publication not expected)

(published as Giorgio Vasari: The Man and the Book, 1979)

Peter Kidson, Principles of Design in Ancient

1988

John Shearman, Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (published as Only

1977 + André Chastel, The Sack of Rome: 1527

­Connect: Art and the Spectator in the Italian

­(published 1982) 1978 + Joseph W. Alsop, The History of Art Collect‑

Renaissance, 1992) 1989

Oleg Grabar, Intermediary Demons: Toward

ing (published as The Rare Art Traditions:

a Theory of Ornament (published as The

The History of Art Collecting, 1982)

­Mediation of Ornament, 1992)

1979 + John Rewald, Cézanne and America (pub-

1990

Jennifer Montagu, Gold, Silver, and Bronze:

lished as Cézanne and America: Dealers, Col‑

Metal Sculpture of the Roman Baroque (pub-

lectors, Artists, and Critics, 1891–1921, 1989)

lished 1996)

1991

1992

Willibald Sauerländer, Changing Faces: Art

1998

and Physiognomy through the Ages (publica-

Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art

tion not expected)

(published 2000)

Anthony Hecht, The Laws of the Poetic Art

1999

(published as On the Laws of the Poetic Art, 1995) 1993

1994

2000

cients and the Moderns in the Arts, 1600–1715

Art in Antiquity (published 1994)

(publication expected)

Jonathan Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs:

2001

2002

2003 + Kirk Varnedoe, Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock (published 2006) 2004

2005

­Ingres (published 2000)

Irene Winter, “Great Work”: Terms of Aesthetic Experience in Ancient Mesopotamia (publication expected)

John Golding, Paths to the Absolute (published 2000)

Irving Lavin, More than Meets the Eye (publication expected)

Pierre M. Rosenberg, From Drawing to ­Painting: Poussin, Watteau, Fragonard, ­David,

Michael Fried, The Moment of Caravaggio (publication expected)

Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of ­History, 1997)

Salvatore Settis, Giorgione and Caravaggio: Art as Revolution (publication expected)

Arthur C. Danto, Contemporary Art and the Pale of History (published as After the End of

1997

Marc Fumaroli, The Quarrel between the An-

John Boardman, The Diffusion of Classical

(published 1996)

1996

Carlo Bertelli, Transitions (publication expected)

Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe

1995

Lothar Ledderose, Ten Thousand Things:



+ -(deceased)