FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITY ANNE RORIMER THE AESTHETIC RUPTURE WITH TRADITIONAL FORMS OF PAINTING AND SCULPTURE that occurred internationally during the mid- to late 1960s in the wake of Minimalism may be considered under the rubric of Conceptual art. Ths historical juncture, during which many artists redefined the nature of the traditional art object, was marked by extensive innovation. In doing so, these artists contributed to painting and sculpture's acquisition of new and unfamiliar atributes, if not to their total redefinition. Overarching terms such as “Minimal” and “Conceptual” are useful to the extent that they help commonalities shared in historical time to be identified in order to sted light on the ‘ulti-sided, never fixed nature of ongoing aesthetic innovation, 1m leu of paint or other traditional materials, Conceptual art has involved the revolutionary turn toboth photography and language as independent representational media. Time-based media as well Such as film and video, have often replaced conventional painting and sculpture. Conceptual artists have also utitized numerical, cartographic, and serial forms of representation and have incorporated Performative elements within the overall structure of various works, often by including the viewer or viewing process within thelr thematic parameters. Furthermore, the nascent interest in a work's Spatial surounds, evinced to varying or lesser degrees in Minimal works, has been extended by those Conceptual artists involved explicitly with issues of site-specificity seeking to imbue art with an of political context as much as ts physical or archi- awareness ofits institutional, socio-economi tectural context.ripe 1966 aed wot tht Compartment ch contig peta by tan Brow ae Agee and Ma toate ee s6x 9% The Le att, Gases Coane pps: ol tame Sel Pj #1 (asco) Se, 3966 {ake ana om et Many artists whose oeuvres belong squarely in the province of Conceptualism began their careers referring to the preceding practices of Minimalism. Early works by Robert Barry, Mel Bochner, Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, Douglas Huebler, and Lawrence Weiner present the opportunity to study aspects of their later work against the background of Minimalism. Though more aptly deemed Conceptual than Minimal, the mature oeuvres of these artists share with many artists typically asso- ciated with Minimalism a commonly inherited ends and means. To thus distinguish the Conceptual from the Minimal ultimately makes it possible to observe— without any attempt at prescriptive, airtight codification—the intersecting and shared tines of thought that led artists of the same generation to diverse forms of invention. Drawn on common ground, these lines of thought have yielded a range of comparable, if totally differentiated, aesthetic ‘outcomes that transcend formulaic encapsulation and cross the permeable boundary between the Minimal and Conceptual. The primary aim of first-generation Conceptual art, one could say, was to counter representa- tional ilusion while nonetheless maintaining the auto-crticality so crucial to Minimalism. Contrary to Minimal art, which deliberately forfeited referential ties to reality, Conceptual art sought to Renae reestablish representational fealty to the extant world. The accompanying desire to question the autonomy of the discrete object in turn necessitated the reevaluation of accepted definitions of painting (as a framed planar and often rectangular surface hanging on a wall) and sculpture (as a material and often volumetric entity isolated in space). Conceptual art's radical re-vision and revocation of the once firmly established categories of painting and sculpture was accomplished on multiple fronts. The influential work of Dan Flavin, Eva Hesse, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman, and Robert Smithson, among others, is identified with Minimal and, in some instances, Postminimal art while also being linked to Conceptual art; for this reason, their work will be discussed first. Because of the particular way the work of Richard ‘Artschwager cuts across the categorical boundaries of Minimal and Conceptual, it will be considered at the end of this essay. ‘Any discussion of relationships between Minimal and Conceptual art necessarily features Sol LeWitt’s pivotal, serially based oeuvre, which straddles the divide between the guiding principles of Minimalism, which he helped to foster, and those of Conceptualism, in whose development he also 78 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITYplayed a leading role. His freestanding floor structures and modular cubes may be classified with the reductive, industrially fabricated, depersonalized, freestanding objects of Minimalism. Equally, however, his groundbreaking application of serial systems situates his art directly under the umbrella of Conceptualism. And, ofcourse, it was LeWitt himself who launched the term “Conceptual” in his renowned texts “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” of 1967 and “Sentences on Conceptual Art” of 1969." From his early wall reliefs of 1962 to wal drawings that encompass entire rooms, LeWitt’s work points to the artist's desire to avoid, as per both Minimal and Conceptual tenets, the provi- sionally capricious methods of decision-making that arbitrary manipulations of color, line, and form ‘can incur. Moreover, he considers his works from the early 1960s to be “neither paintings nor sculp- tures, but both,”® referring to them as “structures.” LeWitt began to seriously experiment with serial form in his wall reliefs of 1963. Woll Structure (1963), his “first serial attempt,” is defined by square borders enclosed one within another, grow ing progressively narrower yet taller from the work's rim to its center and jutting out from the flat plane of the wall into the viewer's space. The realization of Muybridge I (1964) defined his explicit concern with the picture plane and spatial reality in relation to durational sequence. LeWitt’s knowl- 1 see So ait, "argapts on anepat fa a 5,10 Ge 05} 79-8 Arstongage 1 (ay 949 2-2 2a Sl eit eh hen Yk The Mam of ers he 78) 0 edge of and interest in the locomotion studies of photographer Eadweard Muybridge aided him in the search for ways to incorporate movement in his art. Muybridge I is built upon the late-nineteenth- century photographer's procedure for presenting an object in motion as a series of individually recorded moments to be read from left to right. Unlike Wall Structure, this work, also to be read from left to right, is experienced over time. Photographs are contained within a long, compartmentalized box with ten equally spaced oculi, Spectators may peer successively through each of the ten holes to view images of a walking female nude, the first of which shows the woman's entire body in the distance and the last of which is a close-up of her navel. The figure, who is depicted walking toward the camera's lens, appears to come progressively closer to the viewer and, notably, to the surface of the picture plane. By creating the sequential effect that the figure is coming ever closer, LeWitt’s siece eliminates the vanishing point of perspectival illusion while at the same time counteracting the static nature of the singular Minimal abject. LeWitt’s understanding of the implications inherent in Muybridge’s photographic progressions nas reinforced by his recognition of the importance of Flavin's the nominal three (to William of Ockham) (1963)—in which one, two, and then three fluorescent tubes are placed at regular 79 RORIMERthe ata t Roemer 199, bt wa alan ew Yorn 1960 Se yop {Seay el esd Hs Cntangran” in Lat Retest, ect (an Fanci San mci Memo Had 200), Thm 5 ait “Srl Projet 1.” Aen apc, 5 cnet 967: tom 6 toatl Don ul: A ate ‘eto alam DJ (Pande, fom Pasadena At Resta, mt 2 ai an vs Pond “ol” he (nae: Meum fone Ie), ng. Te catgut oe (fa compte itch stor pt ‘memati ex 0H exigent. intervals from left to right—in relation to his own nascent ideas regarding serality. These ideas were fully developed in Serial Project #1 (ABCO) (1966), a work that takes permutational progression to a much greater degree of complexity. In Serial Project #1 (ABCD), first exhibited at Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, in 1967, LeWitt’s uti- tization of a serial modality becomes fully apparent. The artist describes his approach to this work {in a 1967 article for Aspen Magazine, explaining that “serial compositions are multipart pieces with regulated changes.” The work is to “be read by the viewer in a linear or narrative manner (12345; ABBCCC; 123, 312, 231, 132, 213, 321) even though in its final form many of these sets would be operating simultaneously, making comprehension difficult.” Serial compositions, he further main- tains, preclude subjectivity since “chance, taste, or unconsciously remembered forms would play no part in the outcome.” The work in this instance is composed of “a finite series using the square and cube as its synta Simple visual points of departure that adhere to a clear and rational plan have engendered visu- ally rich and complex permutational sequences in LeWitt’s two-dimensional production, just as they have in the cubical works that evolved from his frst serial piece. Projects based on linear elements reveal how a serial method in drawing led to the broad scope of visual ideas and effects found ‘in LeWitt’s books, prints, and wall drawings. The permutational sequences in LeWitt’s work are comparable to the mathematical progressions employed by Judd to obviate the personal decisio making processes associated with compositional arrangements. Emphasizing that the elements of his, work are given, not invented, Judd commented in an interview on the importance of his use of reg- ular or uneven progressions based on different kinds of mathematical series, such as the Fibonacci and inverse natural number series: ‘No one other than a mathematician is going to know what that series relly is. You don’t walk up to [the work] and understand how it is working, but think you do understand that theré is a scheme there, and that it doesnt look as fit is just done part by part visually. So it’ not conceived part by part, it’s done in one shot. The progressions made it possible to use an asymmetrical arrangement, ‘yet to have some sort of order not involved in composition. The point is that the series doesn’t mean anything to me as mathematics, nor does it have anything to do with the nature of the word.* In works by LeWitt, as distinguished from those of Judd, the underlying program given in descrip- tive and instructional titles for two-dimensional and three-dimensional works—such as 47 Three-Part Variations on Three Different Kinds of Cubes (1967-71) or Ten Thousand Lines, One Inch Long, Evenly Spaced on Six Walls Each of Differing Area (1972)—is brought to the surface as an integral part of their content, Serial methods, which remain behind the scenes in Judd’s oeuvre, are openly and ‘thematically declared in LeWitt’s. Lines in LeWitt’s drawings perform in response to prearranged sequences that provide each work with its particular self-propelting mechanism, which not only serves as a structuring device but also as an integral part of the resulting—yet not visually predictable—piece. His Wall Drawings series from the early 1970s follow instructional directives, included as the works’ subtitles, to evince the idea that the work in effect creates itself. Ultimately itis the preset plan central to LeWitt’s modus operandi that has allowed all manner of visual complexity to reveal itself as the logical consequence of systematized schemes. When LeWitt First decided in 1968 to draw directly on the wall rather than on a secondary sur- face such as paper, he reached beyond the parameters of Minimal self-containment. By drawing, so to speak, the underlying mural surface into the work and, as he would do subsequently, by utiliz- ing the walls of an entire room, LeWitt integrated the work's linear components with the entirety ofits architectural surrounds to inextricably fuse the two. LeWitt's Wall Drawings—in which figure, ground, and support exist literally and conceptually on the same plane—take their place with other ‘80 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITYConceptual works of the period whose content acknowledges the context ofthe setting in which they are lodged. The work of Dan Flavin, a principal figure of Minimalism, may be seen as a watershed between environmental works from the eartier twentieth century and installations realized after 1968 that, within the historical frame of Conceptual art, contend with questions of context, Like LeWite’s Wall Drawings, Flavin's fluorescent light installations merge with their “containers” (the galeries or exhi- bition spaces) instead of simply taking them for granted, Because they comprise their own source of illumination, the exhibition site and its contents become entirely interdependent. When Flavin substituted standard fluorescent light fixtures for canvas and paint in the early 1960, he created a body of work whose material—tght—became its content. By mid-decade, he had abandoned the traditional, delimited placement of these fixtures and was coordinating his works within the structure of one or more rooms. A variety of arrangements of electric lights (pink, blue, green, gold, white, etc.), placed on one or more walls within a given spatial situation, activate the entire exhibition area. Rejecting the term “sculpture” in favor of, in his words, “an indoor routine of placing strips of light,” Flavin fostered an all-absorbing interplay between amorphous color and structured linearity as well as between wall elevations and ambulatory space. Flavin’s work marks a significant departure from prior treatment of the gallery space. By insert- ing commercially available fluorescent tubes into an art gallery or museum context, he explicitly rendered the enclosure and its walls visible. Despite its long-term affiliation with Minimal art, Flavin's work must be taken into account with respect to the Conceptual practices of installation art that reflex- ively (or in Flavin’s case, self-reflectively) embrace the exhibition container within the work itself. ua Raia (ret cing rns (18 Piet Hone who {ace re) 3966, ‘uomsen ht ire wh gee amps ‘nr The Salamon upped Museum, Pa Callan, 81 RORIMERIn Robert Smithson’s Nonsites (1968), the dividing line separating Minimal and Conceptual char- acteristics is relatively clear-cut. Unlike his early Minimal works, such as those from the Alogon (1966) or Mirage (1967) series, the Nonsites employ language in conjunction with cartographic rep- resentation in true Conceptual fashion. Framed together with an accompanying typed text offering relevant commentary, maps are crucial to the Nonsites since they serve to identify the origin of the works’ materials. These materials, procured by Smithson from quarries or industrial sites far from the art supply store, include rocks, stag, lava, and cinders, and, depending on the work, are presented {n single or serial, geometrically shaped, painted metal bins. Here, cartographic and linguistic representations operate together with the three-dimensional ‘geometric forms of the bins, which hark back to the volumetric, serialized elements of Smithson’s, Minimal wall reliefs. Documentation pertaining to the origin of the works’ materials serves to con- nect the natural and industrial debris imported into the exhibition space whose places of origin are abr Sth ene (Pate, byw, Hew ene), Tp rock ad peated Calction Witney {if Hamada 088 Uipman Fund, Ie 50 tbe: heh 58 Cetction tt nar Museum, Oat, The outside cultural and institutional confines. In the text for Nonsite (Palisades, Edgewater, New Jersey) (1968), Smithson states, “Instead of putting a work of art on some land, some land is put into the work of art.” The Nonsites extend traditional notions of sculpture beyond the discrete, singular, material object; they forge a direct connection between the institutional indoors and the natural or indus- trial outdoors. They thereby divest the exclusively Minimal work of art of its autonomous standing in space, or its tangible projection into it. Furthermore, they self-consciously recognize the fact ‘that—housed in the institutions of art—they are not only physical objects but cultural ones as well. These sculptures evince a Conceptual methodology not found in his previous work. Resonating more with the term “Postminimat” than with the term “Conceptual,” the work of Eva Hesse exemplifies the critical assault on the means and meaning of traditional sculpture mounted in the second half of the 1960s. Conceptual sculpture, such as that by Bochner, Huebler, and Weiner, ‘82 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITYdissolved three-dimensional materiality altogether. Quite differently, Hesse’s sculpture—compara- j ble to the work of Postminimal contemporaries ike Robert Morris, Richard Serra, and Nauman—does not eliminate but forcefully displays its palpability. This palpability, however, deliberately disrupts the geometric, hard-edged rigidity typical of Minimal sculpture and tempers the mathematical reg- ularty of serial repetition. In Hesse's case, the use of unconventional materials such as rubberized latex and fiberglass con- tributed to the release of sculpture from its previously defined material and formal characteristics, In the process of challenging the obdurate qualities of sculptural self-containment and singularity (despite a work’s possible manifestation as separate, permutational units), Postminimal sculpture often features gravity as an inherent force and/or plays with, without giving up, seriality. Hesse’s ‘Accretion (1968) quite literally expands and expands upon the possibilities and effects of serial rep- etition. Comprising fifty separate fiberglass tubular units, each measuring fifty-eight inches high ee (en Yo Ne Yo Uiety Pes ‘and two-and-a-half inches in diameter, this sculpture stretches many yards across the wall it leans Against. For Hesse, the title ofthe work means “the growing of separate things into one.”* Constructed from multiple, equally sized vertical elements that extend well beyond the confines. of a self-contained gestalt, Accretion does not concern itself with Conceptualism’s eradication of sculptural corporeality. Rather, it remains closely related to and uniquely furthers the radical Minimal cause of erasing figurative and metaphoric connotation from sculptural content. Most aptly, Accretion may be allied with Postminimalism. Instead of being evenly spaced or possessing math- matically determined divisions, ‘ts individual, tubular shapes are separated from each other at unequal distances. This and other sculptures by Hesse take the edge off the potential strictures of enforced regu: lation. Significantly, they do not actually abandon the visual and thematic impact of Minimal repetition but use it to present an array of unconventional, nonreferential, nonhierarchicallyteat cnt (rept Waar At eo, 190 1927 fooance sonnei 28 Pin ce stun ed i das wos ‘and vga ta apa fom tk argos mane is eg er fromthe nat et on Roa 1 See Katy Hae,“ Leni, 101: haan compare (0 alti a “cogating 3 aren bt te aces arranged tubular forms. True to Minimal reflexivity, these narrow, upright, pipe-tike shapes bespeak only their relationship to one another and to the otherwise mute expanse of the supporting wall. Bruce Nauman’s career, extending from the fiberglass/polyester resin works of 1965 to recent audio-visual projections, is characterized by his ongoing subversion of traditional sculpture to the point ofits unrecognizability as a three-dimensional material object independently located in the space of a room, While early works exhibit clear affinities with Postminimal production, concurrent Linguistic and photographic works enter the domain of the Conceptual. Almost from the start, Nauman has employed language extensively. Moreover, as part of his broadly based revision of traditional sculptural practice, he has embraced photography, film, and video, as well as room-based installation. Works Nauman made prior to 1968 prefigure the greater breach with conventional sculpture that would become more dramatically evident soon after. Not unlike works by Hesse, his untitled pieces from 1965 do not stand freely in open space but lean against or project from the wall. These elon- gated forms, which the artist referred to as “soft-shape(s].”* are made by casting the outside contours of various molds, rather than the volumetric insides. In this way, they quite literally turn traditional sculpture inside out. Certain of these works allude to the negative space surrounding the contours of the body—for example, the hairpin shape of the space defined by an armpit. Actively leaning or pushing themselves against the wall and floor in their critique of figuration, they gi concrete form to the proprioceptive experience of space engendered by bodily movement.” Works such as Platform Made Up of the Space Between Two Rectilinear Boxes on the Floor and Shelf ‘Sinking into the Wall with Copper-Painted Plaster Casts ofthe Spaces Underneath (both 1966) reverse conventional sculptural concepts by imbuing the negative space of objects with material form. By thus inverting and commenting upon once unquestioned relationships between material, form, and space, Nauman embarked on his long-term “te-form” of sculptural practice. ‘At the beginning of his career, Nauman was already thumbing his nose at the idea of sculptures as revered yet useless objects. Device to Stand In (1966), for example, invites the viewer to insert 2 foot into an opening in a wedge-shaped object on the floor. The nature of this form suggests that 84 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITYa spectator be held by, and in, the same place as the normally distanced object. Furthermore, the object itself, to be put on like a shoe or slipper, takes on a performative aspect in association with its viewer." This allows the work to poke fun at the high seriousness of its own hard-edged—if eccen- tric—Minimal features and to playfully reflect on Minimal reflexivity. Two slightly later works further the performative character of Device to Stand In. Freestanding sculptures that incorporate their own lighting fixtures, they quite literally stage themselves. Lighted Center Piece (1967-68) paradoxically and ironically removes itself from the art object’s traditional center-stage position by way of its four blinding 1,000-watt halogen lamps. These are affixed to each side of a three-foot-square aluminum (Minimal) plate and are aimed at its stightly recessed center. Lighted Performance Box (1968) is a rectangular aluminum column six-and- a-half feet tall. Housing a 1,000-watt spotlight that hangs inside one of its top comers, the column casts a square of light on the ceiting, skewing the typical method of lighting an object from above. spose Brace Nauman ghd Peorencs Bx, 2968 ‘Aina 000th ‘he Salamon opps Hust, oh: rte Naa ‘Pefornee oat, 868 Wola’ wd wood Sex200170 6 The Solemonf ogpeiein Museum, Pc alan, 1992 Nauman extended the idea of the self-staged work in corridor and room installations that may be linked to Conceptualism’s use of installation and time-based media. Performance Corridor (1968) was first exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art in the 1969 exhibition “AntiIllusion: Procedures/Materals.” OF special note is the fact that this work initially served as the set for Walk with Contrapposto (1968), a sixty-minute black-and-white Video in which the artist walks up and down the length of the corridor in a contrapposto pose reminiscent of figurative sculpture pre: dominantly associated with the Baroque period. Instead of the artist, spectators walk into rather than around Performance Corridor, thereby negating the conventional space between viewer and object. Empty space is kinaestheticaly experienced as viewers proceed through the work to become 4 part of—rather than apart from—it. In his corridor pieces and room installations of the late 1960s and early 70s, Nauman erased the distinction between the physical space of a work and that of the viewer as a bystander rapt in contemplation before an object. They represent yet another, slightly later facet of his prodigious ‘investigation into upending the creation of self-sufficient, self-contained objects.omer for Anes (etele fora Magen, 968-87 Coan a the att Just ds works by Nauman tend to be “more of an activity and less of a product,” Dan Graham's work likewise embodies performative aspects. Subsequent to his early photographic pieces and works for the pages of magazines from the second half of the 1960s, his work came to be room-based, culminating in 1978 with the creation of his Pavilion/Sculptures. These architecturally inspired structures are made of reflecting and transparent panes of glass and accommodate viewers, who nec- essarily enact the process of viewing from inside the work. Visually and thematically incorporating viewer and site while remaining freestanding, they bring Minimal, reductive self-containment to Conceptualism’s broad-based thematic involvement with questions of context. For over three decades, Grahams work has fully accommodated processes of performative spectatorship within its perceptual and conceptual boundaries in order to dissolve the boundary between viewing subject and perceived object. Graham's work has been resolute in its retraction of the material object’ former detachment— literally and figuratively speaking—not only from its physical environment but also from its social cone. During the period from 1965 to 1969, Graham established the printed page as an alternative exhibition site through his works for the pages of magazines. Successfully eliminating the separa- tion between a work of art and material physicality, Graham’s magazine pieces represent a major step toward his subsequent erasure of the traditional division between a sculpture, its spectators, and its surroundings. Homes for America (article for Arts Magazine) (1966-67) examined the “larger, pre- determined synthetic order." Socially defined structures and sensibilities are expressed through exterior and interior shots of urban/suburban settings." Taking the form(at) of a picture essay in the December/January issue of Arts Magazine, this work incorporates text and photographic images by Graham (however, in the actual magazine layout a photograph by Walker Evans was substituted for cone of Graham's). The picture essay presents variations in basically uniform tract housing typically found on the outskirts of American cities. Without overt comment, the article documents eight choices—desig- nated by musical names such as “The Sonata” or “The Nocturne”—of home models offered to prospective buyers. Eight color choices include “Seafoam Green” and “Colonial Red.” Although the houses are virtually identical, Graham demonstrates how language attempts to disguise the under- {ying uniformity of domestic settings with names such as “Fair Haven,” “Pleasant Grove,” and “Sunset Hill Garden.” He lists all of the permutational possibilities pertaining to a block of eight houses ‘86 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITYbased on four model types and, further, adds a twist: a lst of the proffered colors organized by male and female preferences. Because of its combination of linguistic, photographic, and contextual modalities encompassing socio-economic and psychological content, it is emblematic of the Conceptual period." ‘A catalogue essay by Benjamin H. D. Buchloh articulates how Homes for America “reflect{s] in an obviously ironic and ambiguous manner the formal and stylistical principles of minimal sculpture™ by virtue of its recognition of the permutational elements of serial repetition found within vernac~ ular architecture. Graham's photographic exposé, in marked contrast to Minimal methodology, derives its form from thematic attention to observable, if masked, social realities. Penetrating beneath the verbal veneer applied to homes for sale, the work reveals how the supposedly objective «qualities of form and hue acquire subjective undertones and are “colored” through the manipulation of descriptive phrases. ! Whereas the serial systems of Minimalism are evoked in Graham's photographs of the urban/sub- urban scene, Mel Bochner early work uses photographs to critique sculptural materiality. Bochners ‘arly Minimal practice led him to extend, in a Conceptual manner, the literal and theoretical boundaries of the art object. From the mid-1960s onward, Bochner’s work sought to reveal and under- score the mental processes necessary for materialization as these are dependent on relationships between the epistemological and the empirical. His interests revolved around the “desire...for an art that did not add anything to the furniture of the world,"® and resulted in the analysis of how something is to be perceived and understood rather than in the construction of a three-dimensional object. Between 1965 and 1967, Bochner experimented with numerical combinations derived from simple serial systems that, as with LeWitt’s, emphasized programmatic construction over creation stemming from random, unsubstantiated forms. As he expressed it, he was motivated by the real- ‘zation “that ways existed for moving out of an exclusively mental domain without making ‘things."* 36 Photographs and 12 Diagrams (1966) signaled Bochner’s course away from the material pres cence of Minimal sculpture to an ideational reading of sculpture. The artist explained that he was “not trying to make sculpture but to show sculpture as a method.” Thirty-six photographs record three viewpoints (plan, elevation, and corner perspective) of twelve sets of small building blocks, which he had arranged and then rearranged on his studio table. Each set corresponds to numbers on an accompanying gridded diagram. Not unlike a sculpture by Judd, for example, the work bestows num- bering schemes used to measure visual and spatial form determined by the artist in advance while contrarily eschewing literal volume and mass. Bochner’s photographs described, in short, sculptural three-dimensionality by two-dimensional means. Bochner investigation of the photographic medium with respect to its ability to record real~ ity led him to consider the issue of scale and, thereafter, to question measurement vis-d-vis space in the real world. Photographs entitled Actual Size (Face) and Actual Size (Hand) (both 1968) indi- cate the scale of the artists face and hahd, respectively, by means of a vertical line on the wall demarcated by the designation “12%.” Bochner’s photograph was printed so that its dimensions truth= fully coincided with those of the body part represented. Bochner subsequently proceeded to create works that dealt not only with the measurement of objects, but also interior spaces.” Half-inch wide black adhesive tape affixed to the wall designated whatever heights or widths the artist chose to isolate. These were labeled accordingly with Letraset stickers. As he has observed: ‘Measurement is one of our means of believing that the world can be reduced to a function of human understanding. Yet, wien forced to surrender its transparency, measurement reveals an essential ‘nothing-ness. The yardstick does not say that the thing we are measuring is one yard (ong. Something ‘mast be added to the yardstick in order that it assert anything about the length of the object. This something is a purely mental act...an “assumption.” Ane, “ce Maan imeviened” Yrgaon! Ae ebay 197916 12 ban Gham “ome fr Aner” As eg 4,3 (December 965200) warp 22 tan, The Nett We de We, camer Cramp Ar Be Yo Wty Maman Arian A 398, ‘yy So Faas ee, lan Sela and Benoni. Bun 15 Ste Anan eo, Run tee cg Cts a ine com, Cal Feton (en Ye Woy mf ite, 33), 928 16 benji HB Bhi, “Homes of ay eb Werk of sn Gata” Dt Gm: er (aoe, Te tera ‘ie Aken, 1978) 7 17 a Bec nh Bah” Bota (te 2502 (ebay 1972 2 See Set fateh, an se by atts Suman At Scher Papas 196 196, eat (he Comet: Yale srt Pes: nd Cane asc Hand Uns eeu 00, 87 RORIMERat Na ache ‘til Sie (end), Petal photog raphtogpbes, etaed sed mented ..An all these pieces nothing has been made.... I have only arranged a situation which will ‘momentarily be reabsorbed into its own ordinariness. Bochner’s intervention directly into everyday, unmediated reality culminated in Measurement: Room, first realized for an exhibition in 1969 at Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich. With black tape, the artist indicated the length of all the different walls, from point to point, of a gallery's room in feet and inches, Measurement: Room fused the abstract measurement with the actuality of the bare walls, leaving the room as an undivided entity to be seen as an object of perception and experienced as a totality. The exhibition space as a whole became the work of art rather than simply a contain- er for it. Measurement: Room proposed a Conceptual alternative to sculpture as a material form in (a) space. Like Bochner’ claim of not wanting to add anything to the “furniture of the world,” an equally famous statement by Douglas Huebler speaks to the Conceptual redefinition of the sculptural object: “The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more. I pre- fer, simply, to state the existence of things in terms of time and/or place."* Huebler's Formica constructions (1965-67) do not predict the shift from his distinctly Minimal manner of working to the purely Conceptual methodology with which he is preeminently identified. As of 1962 he had given up painting to construct solid-color wall reliefs. Their repeated elements expressed the shape of their surrounding edge and were predicated on the interplay between material form and real space. By 1967 Huebler had created six or seven large-scale geometrical sculptures made of plywood covered with light-colored Formica. Sitting directly on the floor (or the ground), the works were com- posed of same-sized interlocking modular units and, from any one angle, offered a different view of their surrounding environment. As Huebler stated in the catalogue for “Primary Structures,” a major exhibition of Minimal sculpture held at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1966, he wanted “to make an image that has no privileged position in space, and neither an ‘inside’ nor an ‘outside:”” However, not long afterward he came to recognize the inherent paradox of these multifaceted and infinitely expandable sculptures. Any excessive multiptication of the interlocking units would actu- ally have defeated his purpose: they would have grown overbearingly monumental were the condi- 88 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITYtions of no inside or outside literally met, since they were confined to a single location and point {in time. Bradford Series #14 (1967), shown in a group exhibition of outdoor sculpture in 1968 at the Tufts University campus in Medford, Massachusetts, was the last of its kind. The major turning point in Huebler’s career occurred during preparations for a one-person exhibition organized by Seth Siegelaub in November 1968. Shortly before Siegelaub offered him the exhibition, Huebler had begun to re-evaluate the direction of his sculptural concerns. Unlike the Formica constructions he had shown in “Primary Structures" two years earlier, those in Siegelaub’s exhibition did not assume three-dimensional form but took form on paper only. During the exhibition, nine “sculptures” and four drawings were kept in Siegelaub’s New York apartment at 1100 Madison Avenue rather than put on display in a public gallery. The catalogue, distributed by mail, was considered an extension of the exhibition, which consisted of sculptures that—as it turned ‘out—took form on paper only. Intrepid viewers wishing to see the works in the apartment were wel- come to do so.* Huebler was able to cover thematic ground not possible by means of traditional sculpture by rejecting three-dimensionality in favor of two-dimensional maps, drawings, descriptive language, and photographs, The works in Siegelaub’s exhibition, referred to as “Site Sculpture Projects,” overcame the obstacles that indefinitely expandable sculptures would necessarily have encountered. Most pertinently, these works demonstrate the abundance of ideas underlying Huebler’s search for a sat isfactory “methodology for deconstructing—dismantling—whatever, the rules of formalism, of aesthetics, etc.” that might nonetheless preserve the “sense of infinite expansion” imparted by the freestanding sculptures." More concerned with ways to get an angle on reality than with attempts to cut out segmented static views from it, Huebler articulated in 1969 that “the act of perceiving is what concerns me rather than what is perceived, because it is more interesting to find out what itis we do when we do perceive. Photographs served, in this respect, as empirical data for situations instigated or explored—but never controlled—by the artist. Employed as a means for direct empirical notation, they afforded the possibility of producing visual relationships that could not otherwise be observed. Triggered by verbal scenarios set forth by the artist, the photographs bring together instances from ‘the unstructured and ongoing continuum of people, places, and events that constitute visible reality. By the close of the 1960s, the camera had become for Huebler a primary instrument for carry- ‘ng out his own preestablished directives. His Duration, Location, and Variable pieces, realized over the period of a decade, integrate complementary systems of photographic representation and Linguistic explanation. Multiple photographs, with or in lieu of other forms of documentation, accom- pany signed, typewritten statements that account for the structure of works that overcome material necessity in their attempt to express the uncontainable and infinite. Hans Haacke's principal “working premise” has always been “to think in terms of sy’tems,” which “can be physical, biological or social”” as much as Minimally serial. The thematic concerns of works made between 1965 and 1969 anticipate his full-fledged Conceptual works of the 1970s, wherein politcal content is expressed by means of textual and photographic representation. These early, rote-Conceptual works are hybrids of the Minimal and Conceptual, possessing geometric, reductive shapes while addressing subject matter derived from extant reality. Having dedicated his career to fact-finding missions that bring to light connections between art and politics, works by Haacke after 1969 evidence the obscured linkages between the world of art, devoted to collecting and exhibition, and socio-economic systems related to buying and selling, Prior to his shift in focus to the social, economic, and political, Haacke had dealt with a range of physical and biological phenomena involving movement and by the mid-1960s was participating in a number of international exhibitions on this theme.” Unlike many of the other participants in these exhibitions, Haacke was not so much interested inthe effects of motion per se. Rather, he built 28 ow Hn in Joy 5-2, 1969, ‘ct (en Yo Sth See Cale. oe 23 Mur nist i Pia, Sets ange Aneta od BE Seaton, exh. (ha os The eth nae 986) 2 Seeder ee, “Sth Sips: Cnet ht Estos” Fou retort 9 (Septet 392) 66 Sigua uted asain tat “orth was the ples we yg sal Aes mata of tne ae se Peele at came ute tor nate {oo ee pec wet wh wal 22 eter 26 He, “At witout Space” yep ‘cet y Sgt, MEAL. few? Rover 16. ug pied ‘in uy pane Sie The Dente of te A Oj fom 1986 19197 (Ne oe Pat 1973), 1. 27 ae onan Mand nepal Asoc, ot (en Yor ‘The ew Yor Cate Cte, 1970), 32 28 ace vat ncn 3 mabe of i tho devote te meena sch “Ud od ewer: escheat 985-68 ‘ite nto an “Decne ‘Sate the Unarty Wt Gal See tr 86 et as Eortanpoy ht, Pao 96nd nu ae Stee Mau, Aten, ti et ih eect sacs gh ote, rd pce os ay 0 eee Chanel hemen nd prams ont Arvrnd rage rd valet. sch meat seed ese tet seid by Hanan tr by on wie ow (akan Gato) 6 Neember 1783 89 RORIMERmovement—and by extension, change—into these early works so as to illustrate environmental contingency. Regarding his polished steel and mirror works of 1961, the artist noted that “their environment—the observer is included—is an integral component of them."* Soon after their com- pletion, he wrote that “the never-ending communication—seeing and being seen—of the mirror~ objects with the world and the viewer..is what fascinates me."* The ongoing interaction between a work and its physical environment defines Haacke's sculp- tural production from 1963 to 1969.” His first pieces of this kind—including Rain Tower (1963), Condensation Cube (1963-65), and the Wave works (1964-65)—are activated by external factors while being contained in Plexiglas boxes with Minimal shapes. In the case of the two-foot-high Rain Tower, the viewer is meant to turn the partitioned Plexiglas box upside down. Water droplets then fall through perforations in the horizontal dividers to simulate rain, In Large Wave (1964-65), a Plexiglas container is partially filled with liquid and is intended to be picked up and tipped in dif- ferent directions. Suspended by wires from the ceiling, it also depends on viewers to actuate its meandering patterns. pores Conacto Tt ater, 2 arth and rs Dicer varaie ‘dr eon Wt om, corel etry es, ew Yo 1969 In lie of a spectator’s action upon the work, light and heat determine the cycle that takes place ‘in Condensation Cube. Drops of water collect inside the cube after evaporating and run down the sides of the box according to changes in climate. Ice Stick (1966) likewise assumes its form in direct rela- tionship to weather conditions. A tall, upright metal rod, it houses a motorized freezing coil that ‘causes ice—becoming thicker or thinner in accordance with surrounding air temperature and humidity—to form around it. Presenting in Minimal style only what is there to be seen, the artist has pointed out that Ice Stick has “no mysteries,” and any sort of “psychological investigations would not reveal my secrets."* Instead of being formed by the artist, Haacke's sculptures of the 1960s shape themselves in response to external stimuli that act upon them. The artist stipulated his intention in 1965 to: “Make something which cannot ‘perform’ without the assistance of its environment,” Air currents and grav- ity, in this regard, are utilized in both Floating Sphere (1964-66) and Sphere in Oblique Air Jet (1967) to cause balloons to hover above bases housing motorized fans, eschewing the visible support of a traditional pedestal. In Blue Sail (1964/65), a fan hidden beneath blue chiffon hanging horizontally 90 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITYfrom the ceiling induces a billowing movement in ever-changing configurations. When installed on the floor under a large sheath of white rayon, fans in Narrow White Flow (1967-68) cause the mate- Fial to ripple tike water. “The wind-driven fabric behaves like a living organism, all parts of which are constantly influencing each other” since “the sensitivity of the wind player determines whether the fabric is given life and breathes.” Following from the use of gravity, light, temperature, and air, the biological processes of growth were enlisted by Haacke in yet another sculptural method. Grass Grows (1969), shown in “Earth Art” at the Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, in the winter of 1969, etaborated on Grass Cube (1967), which consisted of grass sprouting on top of a Minimal Plexiglas cube, At Cornell, the artist placed a three-foot-high mound of soil, nine feet in diameter, on the floor of one of the museum's windowed galleries and seeded it with fast-growing winter rye. During the course of the exhibition, the seeds yielded a thick growth over the entire mound. Some months later, Haacke included Chickens Hatching (1969) in “New Alchemy" at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Each week during the course of the month-long exhibition, a brood of chicks broke out of eggs installed in a series of eight incubator boxes. Like the grass, the cracked eggs and fuzzy baby birds, taking the place of traditional materials, resulted ftom biological processes. Significantly, these and prior works are premised on the fact that “a system is not imag- ined; it is real." With his understanding that “an artist is not an isolated system,” Haacke maintains that “in order to survive...he has to continuously interact with the world around him.”™ Not long before the ‘incubators full of hatching chickens were shown in Toronto, he had set up a teletype machine for Nachrichten (News, 1969-70) at the Kunsthalle Disseldorf during “Prospect 69.” The machine received printouts of an entire day's news from the German press agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Shortly thereafter, for a one-person exhibition at Howard Wise Gallery in New York, Haacke exhib- ited Nachrichten again, this time using a teletype machine provided by United Press International. The work was expanded to five teletype machines receiving transmissions from different wire ser- vices for “Software,” an exhibition that took place at the Jewish Museum, New York, in 1970. In this case, the printouts piled up on the floor, whereas previously they had been posted on the wall.” 29 cl, satenet of 7 Samay 1962, temorerapie (lot: Dont Saber, {912,24 Yaad for testy Gate Ph Sea Hanh soe See ans ace: stems soe” In eer Duane on he ot so Mo, gp: UM each Pet 185). 23, ‘martin 1 07 (Sette 969) ‘Sona ond Woe Caley. New a, oy 1965s ition a Hayden ale sachs tate of acy, ‘soo: Sc” (Salone: Fras tot T1955), 38, {962-9717 25. afghan hce 2s i 26 tant fm 9a te aml meg es Esto te Pin of Po omit 27 See “tag of os: 1961-3065" ioe Wl 2, Hon Pace Ons eines nha ho eT Ne ee oF Contempo Art sd Camb, esate The MT Pr, 1988) 91. RORIMER |92 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITY93 RORIMER28 Worse erie cog to tbe lst along open. Se SPEC {Nat nO, (anne, Fence Nonny Mention eA tagto ute hy ne ft pe, Inari 2 yen Gumpert ary Wo (jn eg Son Bom. a Jnee ay Spe, omence Mb, oa. (few Yr Th ow Me of aie pry a 198), Wein, ee on Space” 1-2 £2 Wein With So, amen ine at atom” Arne 06 (epg 13) 198) Wet ae ited eon Comparable to the drops of water on the sides of Condensation Cube formed in response to climate, the ideologically loaded language of News registered the political atmosphere—at the time of West German federal elections—in the hard-and-fast reality of print. ‘Also shown in the Howard Wise Gallery exhibition, Galley-Goers’ Birthplace and Residence Profle, Part 1 (1969) delivers factual information via maps. Visitors to the 1969 exhibition were asked to put red and blue pins on maps of the boroughs of New York City, its immediate metropolitan area, the United States, and the world, The red pins designated where a person was born and the blue where he or she was living, if different. By the end of the exhibition, 2,312 birthplaces and 2,022 residences had been pinpointed. Gallery-Goers’ Residence Profile, Part 2, primarily using photographs that correlated with the information garnered from the first visitors’ profile, was exhibited one year later at Paul Maenz Galley, Cologne. Photographs of the building facades of the Manhattan residences pinpointed during the Howard Wise exhibition were mounted on the walt with regard to their geo- raphical location. The addresses of the buildings were typed on accompanying index cards. Insofar as information about each residence serves to foreground the cumulative socio-economic back- grounds of the spectators, Haacke's Gallery-Goers’ profiles detail where the viewers, ina sense, were “coming from.” The two works thus succeeded in embodying sociological information about their own viewers, who provided the statistical material on which each is based. Statistical information, as demonstrated in the Gallery-Goers’ works, parallels Haacke's early strategies for creating works that responded to forces external to personal decision-making. By virtue of their material manifestation, Haacke’s works from the mid- to late 1960s may be considered, in part, with reference to the Minimal canon of self-reflexive objectivity. However, to a greater extent than is typical of Minimal production, sculptures like Condensation Cube and Ice Stick demonstrate a Conceptual propensity in that they express the external conditions that serve to determine their visual definition, Ii Haacke's Conceptual work of the 1970s, language performs as the handmaiden to photogra- phy, as it does in the work of Huebler. However, for Lawrence Weiner, language functions represen- tationally as the work's sole material. Since 1968 Weiner has utilized language as it is; that is, not {in predetermined association with a material support or contextual framework. The thematic con- tent of individual works derives from the import of the language employed, while presentational ‘means and contextual placement play crucial, yet separate, roles. Taking the form of linguistic con- struction, it is to be understood as sculpture. These “sculptures,” distinct from the consolidated, material objects of Minimalism, are peripatetic and infinitely multivalent in terms of how, when, and where they are shown. Weiner has recounted that the official turning point in his approach to sculpture occurred when he was in the process of installing apiece for the now historic outdoor exhibition “Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner.” The exhibition, conceived by Chuck Ginnever and organized by Siegelaub, was held on the grounds of Windham College in Putney, Vermont, in the spring of 1968. Having placed his work A SERIES OF STAKES SET IN THE GROUND AT REGULAR INTERVALS TO FORM A RECTAN- ‘GLE—TWINE STRUNG FROM STAKE TO STAKE TO DEMARK A GRID A RECTANGLE REMOVED FROM THIS REC- TANGLE (1968)* in a vulnerable location, he later found it had been damaged. Although disturbed at the time, Weiner came to understand that physical harm need not be a concern.” Despite the dam- age suffered, the work of stakes and twine remained intact as a linguistic construction. Before this moment proposals for sculptures, which were meant to be reatized, took the form of phrases penned on graph paper. Descriptive text, merging with the work's title, thereafter came to exist as the work itself. Following the Windham College experience, Weiner devised the statement that has accompanied presentations of his work ever since 1969, which reads: ‘94 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITY1. THE ARTIST MAY CONSTRUCT THE WORK 2. THE WORK MAY BE FABRICATED 43, THE WORK NEED NOT BE BUILT EACH BEING EQUAL AND CONSISTENT WITH THE INTENT OF THE ARTIST THE DECISION AS TO CONDITION RESTS WITH THE RECEIVER UPON THE OCCASION OF RECEIVERSHIP® By means of this statement, the artist stipulates that the actual, physical realization of any cone of his works is not a requirement but an option left open to any perceiving subject, himself ‘included. . Prior to his full engagement with language, Weiner had come to recognize—and sought to deal with—the limitations imposed by planar rectilinearity on an aesthetic object’s temporal and spatial definition. The Propeller Paintings (1963-65), shown at Siegelaub Contemporary Artin 1964 and again in 1965, bear witness to concerns pertaining to physical limits not at issue in Minimalism. Presenting images derived from television test patterns, these early paintings are notable for the emphatically colored, propeller-shaped forms that tentatively transgress their rectilinear sur- rounds. Some five years later in a radio symposium, the artist recalled that “the picture-frame convention was a very real thing. The painting stopped at that edge. When you are dealing with language, there is no edge that the picture drops over or drops off. You are dealing with something completely infnite."* Upon completion of the Propeller Paintings, Weiner embarked on a series that would be his last in the traditional sense of paintings as flat objects affixed to the wall. The Removal Paintings (1966-68), in which rectangular sections were “removed” from the corners of stretcher frames, not. only questioned painting’s typical rectilinearity but also attempted to minimize signs of authorial Presence and personal decision-making decidedly suppressed in Minimal art. Weiner evenly covered ‘each canvas with spray paint and added bands of a slightly different color to the work's top and/or bottom. Additionally, he asked prospective owners to propose the size and color of the works them- selves. Even so, he was left with works of art that ultimately could not function as pure “visual infor- mation"® and retained the attributes of uniqueness and monetary worth that he desired to elimi- nate from his work. ‘Acone-person exhibition in December 1968 organized by Siegelaub definitively marked Weiner’s departure from previously accepted methods of making and exhibiting art. The exhibition, comprising ‘twenty-four works, took place only on the pages of a palm-sized grey book entitled Statements.® Printed one to a page, the works are divided into the “generat” and the “specific.” In this regard, (ONE 14 02. AEROSOL CAN ENAMEL SPRAYED TO CONCLUSION DIRECTLY UPON THE FLOOR (1968) is more precise than AN AMOUNT OF PAINT POURED DIRECTLY UPON THE FLOOR AND ALLOWED TO ORY (1968). Some works, such as A 2" WIDE 1" DEEP TRENCH CUT ACROSS A STANDARD ONE CAR DRIVEWAY (1968), had been previously sold and constructed. Following from the publication of Statements, Weiner’ works have, for the most part, remained in their linguistic state. They often take the form of phrases spelled out on the wall using com- mercially available, black adhesive Letraset or stenciled, drawn, or painted letters. As well as being lettered, inscribed, or printed on a wall, in a book, or on a poster, a work may be delivered vocally on an audiotape or record or as part of a film or video.” No matter what form it takes, the work becomes objectified upon its materialization as a written or spoken text. Whether shown on the walls of conventional exhibition spaces or situated within unorthodox settings, Weiner’s work interacts with the culture at large inasmuch as language's chain of verbal signifiers undertes all socal discourse. Space forthe artist ultimately means the “entire cuitural con- See my tig We age Eoin We in PbeatinSane ample Concept Iti USA le Michel Rena ad Jon Be, Rent oes ot (odo feseion oot 397) 1-28 1 For he fi ein finn nich ro now aul ens ye ‘niin oy the at se Lawrence Weer We 8 flat od Reomtnetor eh (Bo ale, om), Inn Poses Noventer 165-186 (it Cae he es of ov Seats Coleg of At nt Des an oc Mt etepal 85 ht Shut Lente ane ek 1958-1089 (gr: Weng er candy Wes nt Year Face: Hots Rat, 69) 4 Barone Yat Show (8) ee he ie 8 es of ane Wee A Cte Rone (Get coat 1992) 95 RORIMERLace Wear Inslaton of Prope Peetigs ‘Seth Sega Contempo A haw York, 3966 pests ern eae 190 MINUTES OF Sear MNT oREeMY {PON THE F008 FROM A STANDARD text” as opposed to “an aesthetically contracted space.” Thus embodied in language, Weiner’ works may be continuously transplanted from one context to another while still remaining rooted in the culture. Because of their countless unspecified applications, they bond with the context into which they are inserted. Through the use of language, which may be placed anywhere while maintaining its representational autonomy, Weiner sculptures resist mandatory allocation to any one time and/or place. Withstanding metaphorical allusion decisively expunged in Minimal art, they replace the Uniqueness of material objects with the capacity for ubiquity. Ideas concerned with infinity more than with ubiquity have imbued the Conceptual activity of Robert Barry. His Minimal paintings from 1963 through 1967 and his nearly invisible sculptures of 1967 and 1968 presage works that depend entirely on language. Barrys language-based work, which deals with the nonmaterial, cognitive space of conception wherein objects and images are harbored ‘in thought, developed from the concems of his Minimally oriented painting. ‘These untitled paintings (many of which were destroyed in a basement flood) refer to the spa- tial reality beyond the edge ofthe canvas. Those shown in his first one-person exhibition at Westerly Gallery, New York, in 1964 consisted of fields of solid color punctuated by squares of unpainted can- vas placed at regular intervals, exposing the support. Leaving the very outer rim unpainted as wel, Barry intimated that the work might be considered part of an overall spatial continuum. As noted in the gallery's press release, “while each painting may be considered individually, Mr. Barry conceives his exhibit as a total and unified lyrical experience.” Two years later, Barry took further steps toward negating the once sacrosanct perimeter of the canvas. For example, Bright Green Edges (1966) in effect disregards the traditional cutoff point of 4 painting's predetermined limits to thus link the work with its surrounding space. It accomplishes this by means of colored strips of paint that wrap around the outer left and right edges of the can- vas, which has been sized but is otherwise left bare, 96 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITYAs distinguished from traditional paintings that may be hung anywhere, small monochromes of 1967 relate to the entire wall of a given space. A single small canvas, Red Square (1967), includes the specification that it be installed in the center of the wall. Other monochromes accommodate more than one canvas of the same size: a unique tripartite—a triangular monochrome—and quadri- partite paintings whose separate elements range from two inches to a side at their smallest to about eight inches to a side, OF critical importance is the fact that Barry specified how far apart the indi- vidual canvases should be hung or how many inches they should be placed from a walls four comers. The background wall in both these cases is thematically included within the totality of the work. Works from 1967 to 1968, as.a logical next step, relinquish the canvas surface altogether. By ‘means of ines strung between points, they hightight their architectural and spatial context.’ These lines are made of materials of varying tensile strengths such as white cotton string, transparent fil- ament, steel wire, or waxed black thread. Barry stretched them either outdoors—between two or ‘more trees, for example—or indoors between floor and ceiling or from wall to wall. For “Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner” he extended four white, shiny quarter-inch nylon ropes parallel to each other from roof to roof between two identical buildings on the Windham College campus. The work spanned a large construction site since the school was still in the process of being built Incorporating the activity of the moment within its visual field, Barry's installation, unlike sculp- tures by Andre and Weiner on the ground, required viewers to look up. According to the artist, “the idea of sky, nature, natural phenomena have always been part of my work.” By 1968 Barry had also begun to create works from materials invisible to the naked eye, such as carrier waves of different frequencies, ultrasonic sound, microwaves, electromagnetic energy fields, radioactive substances, and inert gases. These works, as he has explained, are “made of various kinds of energy which exist outside the narrow arbitrary limits of our own senses. I use various devices to Produce the energy, detect it, measure it, and define its form."* Viewers are apprised of the work's with ay Ha oath, Wy” ate ep, 4 (era 96) 22 forte ast ecrpton ofthe acl ses ‘eh vlna (thr oe pe Aon ugh Kath. The ais wee ‘na Se a "Duion nent ert and Rte ary ot i et eng Ht pour M/W Wor vt (Pas Wan tbe 90), 9. Acting {ofa aM warp come oat bet Bary & ode C Moran” ot any (le, Gerea Hat are en, 97 RORIMER“cat Ane, Robe Bar, at bdr Durr Calg, dtd, Masa 1968 copes Raber tary Ir ec: li, 1968 Tne ala phoopaheand tet Photo 8 10 each eure Gat 8 rma In, em inclusion in an exhibition by means of a wall label. The Inert Gas piece included in Siegelaub’s “March 1969” exhibition, however, was made known only through publication in a catalogue that, atypically, is in the form of a calendar. Each day of March was allocated to a separate page and assigned to one of the thirty-one invited artists, who presented a work on their own day ofthe month rather than in a galley space. Bary’ participation is noted by the statement: “Sometime during the morning of March 5, 1969, 2 cubic feet of Helium will be released into the atmosphere.” Works in the Inert Gas series were the last made from invisible materials and were followed by works that provoked explicit mental involvement with the exhibition space through the medium of language. Verbal statements that initially had served simply as identifying labels for otherwise wisible pieces became an integral part of the work in 1969. According to Barry, his intent was to transform the exhibition space by supplying new thoughts about its relationship to artistic active ity.” Psychic Seres (1969), taking the form ofa text in the catalogue for “July, August, September,” an exhibition conceived once again by Siegelaub to “take place” in a published context, states: “Everything in the unconscious perceived by the senses but not noted by the conscious mind dur- ing trips to Baltimore during the summer of 1967.” As in the Inert Gas series, nothing is made visible. However, in the Psychic Series, language takes over completely, insofr as there is no quan- tifiable physical material; only thought has been presented as an all-pervasve element for its own infinite contemplation. The reductive side of Minimal material presence in Barry's oeuvre gives way to Conceptual invisibility that may only be taken hold of mentally. ‘Asa prime participant in the international groundswell of innovation and iconoctasm initiated in the 1960s, Richard Artschwager has pursued a variety of means by which to deal with ideas cen- tral to both Minimal and Conceptual art (as well as Pop art). His aesthetic approach has resulted in ‘98 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITYthe creation of objects that exist at the outer limits ofthe categorical division between pictorial two- dimensionality and sculptural three-dimensionality. The Minimal and geometric shapes of his works are often taken from the world of household furnishings and are typically made of Formica. As the artist explained early on, his use of Formica, “the great ugly material, the horror of the age, which I came to like suddenly because T was sick of looking at allthis beautiful wood,” supplied him with “a picture of a piece of wood.” Like Nauman's Device to Stand In, the Formica works conceptually open the door—necessarily closed in the face of Minimal nonreferentiality—to the possibility of ral- life use value. ‘Artschwager’s concerted investigation into connections between a flat image and a volumetric object has been ongoing. However, it is his signature “blp's” (begun in 1967-68) that tread well beyond the Minimal domain of sculptural objects to enter the more definitively Conceptual reatm in which the traditional exhibition space is examined, questioned, or circumvented. As opposed to the self-contained, consolidated Minimal object, the peripatetic blp pertinently takes its place with ref- erence to Conceptualism’s fully articulated concern with conditions of display. A blp (“blip” without the “i”) exists as easily within or without a preassigned exhibition space and, like graffiti, need not be subject to an institutional aegis. It is comparable with the grammatical Punctuation of written texts in that it is able to perform within any number of possible contexts, The artist defines the blp’s as generic punctuation and therefore sees them as able to “trigger a reac- tion and get one’s attention.” Furthermore, like any form of punctuation, “they have a physical dynamic that is more than just cosmetic.”* Derived from graffiti-like felt-tip pen markings Artschwager made in magazines, the blp’s are shapes that have left the page for an existence in real space. The first lozenge-shaped blp’s were Sevtamber 183, 53 seen Stns“ eis Shor. {pon sca (Mn, Gamage Wg ‘mde ust Wirbe, 201). 7-0 99 RORIMER54 sehege ncn, 169 nt Fe Rd cage Compe Der (ten Yor: Ble Asana Seto, 09) np. 5 rte informaion on oite dced hoe ny unin my ew te 5 To Redeing May pied y Tames tn to i 0% om nbc (ay ar nated. about the size of a loaf of bread and were made of wood painted black." The artist also stenciled some of his earliest blp’s directly onto interior and exterior surfaces of all kinds. Subsequent blp’s have been made from other materials such as glass or bristles (lending them a fuzziness signaling lack of focus and indeterminate distance from any and all vantage points). They have accumulated a long history through their placement in numerous indoor and outdoor, art and nonart, contexts. Scaled so as to be noticeable without dominating their environment, the bip’s are “portable,” as the artist has noted, “but once you put one in place it becomes locked into its context."* OF major impor- tance to Artschwager is the way a blp, especially those on the floor, can “move about freely—or scurty, if you will." Never a fixed object in its own right, a blp serves to punctuate its surround- ‘ng space. The American artists discussed here join those working in Europe—such as Jan Dibbets in Holland, Victor Burgin in Great Britain, and Daniel Buren in France—whose initial grounding in Minimal ways of thinking similarly gave rise to their respective contributions to a wide range of Conceptual practices. Although no one artist has followed the same course, all took transformative steps in their various explorative journeys from Minimalism toward Conceptualism. Each has held on to the hard-won, self-critical objectivity of Minimal art derived from the suppression of figurative or hierarchical composition, metaphoric or narrative subject matter, and tell-tale signs of manual craftsmanship. Thus furthering the aesthetic gains of Minimalism in its espousal of art as a reality unto itself, Conceptual artists overall set their sights on abrogating the literal and ideational sep- aration of the material object from the represented reality of the world. ear tachmager ‘ps 3967-60 top lf instalation 2 th Mebpttan seam tA Hew Yr 1968 top eg ntltin a Glare Kara "chr ised, Garman 948 etme Ista Uns of car Dal 1968 100 FROM MINIMAL ORIGINS TO CONCEPTUAL ORIGINALITY