Robert Morris The Mind : Body Problem

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ROBERT MORRIS

THE MIND/BODY PROBLEM

Ik

•

m

.

.

ROBERT MORRIS THE MIND/BODY PROBLEM

SOLOMON

R.

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM SOHO JANUARY-APRIL

1994

1994 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation,

New York All rights reserved

ISBN 0-89207-1 17-6 (hardcover) ISBN 0-89207-120-6 (softcover) Printed in the U.S.A. by Hull Printing All Robert Morris works ©1994 Robert Morris. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Guggenheim Museum

Publications

1071 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10128

Hardcover edition distributed by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.

300 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010

Photo Credits Works by Morris, by catalogue number: 1, Bruce C. Jones, courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery. 2. 7, 11, 14, 16, 20, 24, 34, 39, 50-51, 54, 62, 71, 73-74, 76, 80-82, 86-87, 89, 98, 103, 107, 126. 130-33, 137, 139, 141, 149-51,

courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery; 6. 15. 141 (details), Robert Morns. 12. 28. 33. 61, 64, 68, 77. 104. Rudolph Burckhardt. courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery; 18. Axel Schneider. Frankfurt am Main; 21-22, 94, 148, ©1993 The Museum of Modern Art. New York; 23. D. James Dee; 25. 29. ©Dorothy Zeldman; 32. 40. 58. 106. Walter Russell, courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery; 35, Carl Kaufman Yale University Art Gallery. 41, Geoffrey Clements. New York, courtesy Leo Castelli Qallerji 42 Rudolph Burckhardt, 45-49. 95. Eric Pollltzer, courtesy Leo lli Gallery; r>:i. Waltai J Russell; 55, ©1963 Peter .7 finsetsj. 83 (mset), ©Babette Mangolte 1993. 57. ©1964 Peter Moore; 60. ©1993 The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reservod |J9, © 1965 Pet. Moon S3 bottom), Ha&s Namutb 75. Giari SlnigagUa, Milan; 78. Joseph Klun.i lr 79, mi. Linda Loughi an in sy Virginia Museum ol Kim- ahm. Ri< nmond; 85, Lynn Rosenthal 18 o 91. i Andre i

i

•

.

Pti

i

i.

Boi

i

i

ima

l

Will

Brown courtesy Leo

i

New York

Ga

Castelli

d Gallery

13, IS

l

iphy,

•

i

Rosalind Ki-uubb,

130

Bevan Davies Miiiiimo Capoi

Museum

i

i

i

.

Abbot Abbi

Pine ArtH.

"i

DuBrook Photogi apbei

R

Castelli Qallerj

adman

i

i

i

iv

was

tiles of

ol

2,500

Initiated in

the Leo

ipei live

(

objei

1978

i

I

the

its

with the rei ."ds lor I

Sonnabend

Museum

In

was announced as

hive, but the

is

1

400 pieces

galleries,

•

was

988, when the Robert

part of the Guggenheim'-

exhibition program. The current exhibition end

assembled an

scope

he in hive on Morrl

I

catalogue drew substantially from the in

provide a series of

During the fifteen

Hie nutnbei ol art woiks

shifte.l

relocated to the Guggenheim

1994-95

published texts

proiect has been under development,

excess

well in

all

article in this literature BS B

art;

wotk

and course have grown and

work, win.

made

Thomas Krens,

his.

assemble, with the assistance

a

ther chi sciences or

somehow, n pan ill III spi

the author,

1978; the notes and drafts are

on< lusion thai

changing perceptions of thi work

II

arc-

intended as the text for a catalogue raisonne of the artist's work.

bui onlj through direct experience ol

mm

.III.

illustrate a series ot episodes

series of ten essays on the work of Robert Morris that were

from the

the work in

of

in the process ot pin.

am

I

coherence, however,

Its

later on.

selected pages of interview transcripts, notes, and drafts for a

listing,

onteni

thai 'I" noi

is, ol

his project

man

work

fields

the humanitii

gaps

in the

fill

record of the entire oeuvre. Original plans

adept, and

allj

tii

medium and

years ol

ii

raisonni

then an few

episodes and

selection ot notes, drafts,

i

atalogui

to

beings are.

NOTES AND KEY TO THE REPRODUCTIONS

thai he

Along the way, the

annoi win

and

ichaustivel) diverse in i

i

inti

historii ally const ious

In o\<

Human

and context.

ope of his work better than any seamless

The pages

on the

ultural enterprise, mobilizing

i

work has been both

r

and things have the capacity

tacts

continuous project, they can suggest

intended as

By making

pie< e,

(in res. intelligent e, m\i\ insight in a

knows by

the whole-

tell

an iterative, creative, and repetitive

is

This proiect i

is

of

power because the

a special

and was adapted from the

any other

ol

preihi ated

strui rural exhaustion.

himself as an artist .

document

encounter with Morris's work Because they

The

partit ularly

is

perhaps, than that

so.

time

ot its

one

strm tun- Morris's work

more

artist of Ins

all ot

and the various me. minus that may be

t

in its

problematii

fragment gains

was made with the

an increasingly

ol

m my

ot Morris's

the only-

is

and

follows, then,

could fabricate.

the whole story.

tell

Yet the story, in whole or in part,

art

v

one of his most recent texts) says,

even "the whole story Can never

to

incomplete in a conventional sense, and part of the

of

asionally brought to bear Vet the

fictional aliases in

entirety

What

generates.

These fragments

process.

MIT

a catalogue raisonne and other feats of academic hea\ littn

its

conclusion. If "the whole story can never

and think

retrospective) and classification (hke

Guggenheim

first

must

coterminous

is

not an explanatory text but rather a

Knowing

compilation (such as the public ation by

Press of Morris's complete writings

I

by nature, interactive and imaginative; we experience

to tell the

historical analyses

of a

it

retain both mystery

and elucidate the most

are mobilized to define

problem

commentary

gaps between the

are

remarkably prescribed. Retrospective exhibitions and

documentary monographs

ot his art

than the oeuvre in

less

story," the for

two decades,

in

fragments. Morris's work inevitably leads to this

who

ever lived?

the

the introduction to this catalogue of the

which the definition the

artist

information, variety, and complexity as any artist

efforts at

it

concede the meta-definition of his work not simply

nothing

in

much

time provides in and around his work as

significant

idt ritual u ith

the artist himself but rather to the only element with

as a text that

this sets

so actively resists being

The means

is

major Morris retrospective

consciously seduces, and ultimately resists, a definitive

who

that only death

"a

any other

it

underestimate a powerful

to radically

body

his

is

Robert Morns Replies to Roger Denson"

Morris,

Robert Morris's entire oeuvre

way

Thomas Krens

Its

etalogue raisonni material

sheer scale mandated by the

.

.

IJ

u

Tape 1.2

5

Tape 1.1

Talks about 1961, what was made then: Plus-Minus Box,

Tom:

Tom's outline for book.

R.M. says he wasn't showing

Footnote for the Bride, etc. then... mentions Ilyana(?)

PAINTINGS

-

California

R.M. That preceeds everything. Whether that should be included in book or not,

I

...John Cage listened to the BOX WITH THE SOUND OP ITS OWN

R.M.

don't know.

MAKING for

hours.

3

was extremely uncomfortable.

I

didn't

I

expect him to listen...

WERNER JEFFERSON, photographer of R.M. "a Calif, paintings mentioned.

R.M. a

few

completely atopped painting about 59. . .60. .59.

I

.

Most

threw away.

I

And

I

had all these shows out there

But later on, about 68... 69, I noticed certain kinds of reseraof blances between some /the felt pieces and forms of those paintings.

Coincidence?

I

don'

t

know.

Tom:

Was it

a

R.M.

No.

came in, closed the door, turned on the tape and

through the box. A speaker is inaide, the At that time we didn*

Certain problems exist with painting. I

I

on the other hand you ended up with an object.

How long 4ki

Tom:

That was something

it

only one who managed to put those two things together.

I

something.

.

3

at a time.

didn't have

I

a

lot of room to work on big things.

1978

left:

Author's unpublished transcript draft, dated

raisonne not immediately feasible. Expectations that digitized

December

images and texts transferred

between Robert Morns and the author,

soon render the more traditional forms obsolete further argued for the delay

of

Then these

That's why the COLUMN was not put together for a while.

conception made the publication of the catalogue

would

hard-copy publishing

of the definitive publication.

sanding

Sometimes I'd work on things

I

to laser and cd-rom disks

— to

.right on the box.

was still dealing with that same thing.

RECEIVED DEC 13

original

..

The COLUMN was made in I960 and put together in 61.

2 -

changed media, and

half hours. The entire thing

other small things were being made.

made was BOX WITH THE

SOUND OP ITS OWN MAKING, which does resolve that problem.

a

Every tning.

.

That's dated January 1961.

couldn't deal with that and unlike Pollock... he was the

I

it take you to make the BOX.

Three-three and

R.M.

that became more and more disturbing to me on an intellectual

objects

recorder outside.

have small tape recorders.

t

couldn't

accept. Because on the one hand you were invloved in some activity,

One of the first tkxji

The sound is played

"fcape

quit painting

I

couldn't solve.

There was a kinB of ontological character to painting

I

I

this tape recorder recorded the whoe thing.

.

for a particular reason--certain problems

level.

continuous loop?

saved

I

.

side

1.

13, 1978, of audiotaped conversation

This

is

the

first

p.

1,

tape

1,

transcript of a series of

discussions that took place between November 1978

and February 1979

in

NY., and New York

City.

thirty

Wilhamstown, Mass., Gardiner, There were approximately

hours of conversation, which produced more than

250 pages right: Ibid.,

of transcript text.

p.

5,

tape

1,

side 2.

MAS KRENS

x\ x

12

Tape

It.

TOM: They seem to hive an apersonal monumental austerity. -ere RH:

ude

..

if

society's evolution of llnguage was

out of concrete that'd reinforce their massivity..

of things.

method of control.

So it

and cons traint, ... spaces can be metaphors...

.

winted to mike something large, but purposely

then detailed.

a

was all those things those prisons refer to in relationship to the individual

Exactly, and those ideas were carried on in the prison

drawings, ilso Labyrinths. I

13

Tip* U.2

There's no given plan.

a

complex

Basically they dealt with

spaces you noved through or spaces that contained you.

At the end of every year there are a couple of proposals

TOH:

made

I

All ire to be related to one mother,

RH:

They

Were they intented to be constructed?

tacked in.

One for Goosen's Land was.

Yes.

One for Conrad Pisher

was supposed to be done, but he felt there were too many

were to be fitted together in some Tashion that could only

problems with the local police.

have been slide clear once there was a site.

I

Richard Roland was one.

get a lot of correspondence from different artists.

Richard Roland wanted a project from me that he could do and Asks about his interest in prisons.

TOM:

..

the manner of the

that's why

drawings, technique as well as conception.... RMs

I

don't know if it was ever

I

think being fascinated with Pirenesi more than anything

CONTINUOUS PROJECT ALTERED DAILY:

elae and reading Pouciult (sp?) who wrote t book ibout the

history of prisons. to do prints,

I

Then

hid this pressure.

I

hid to do them within

i

..

if

I

was going

very short time ind

sometimes like i deadline to get something organized.

They are prisons in

a

Cos toll

So those

an

much colder

— Tom

noon.

that aociety it

t

lirger prison. Leakey

k

things,

left: Ibid.,

right: ibid

IK

IU'

12, tape 4, side 2.

p

,

p

1

3,

tape 4, side

.11 It

IN

2.

I

decided to do this project.

I

I

I'd work

The warehouse was only open in the after-

I

thru Sat.,

it'd

had no idea of what I'd do or put in

knew I'd work everyday.

taking things away.

Somewhere I

So

So for eich afternoon of the show, Tues.

be open to the public.

there except •

organized a

started with a ton of clay on a particular day.

en it in the mornings.

says this)

Controls move from public execution to educition

I

I

When Haig Of) was up there... way up town.

..People did projects there.

Plreniil'a ldei it quit* extensive, not Just ibout prisons, but restriln and control,

had a warehouse for a while and

i

show of other artiets.

very metaphorical sense... not about

how bad Rlekirs lalind ia. (But for Pirenesi they were bad in romantic way, yours

There's a publication on that, no text, Just photos.

I

three conditions triangulated the project.

a

gave it to him.

I

performed.

have the text. U»

I

also kept

altorod it, adding

I

a

record of ihat

Not only of what

I

I

did.

did, but how

felt about this, which was an extremoly uncomfortable situation.

Underlining the paradox, on the other hand, When Marcel Duchamp stopped working in 1923 on his large glass, wire, lead, and paint construction entitled La Marie J*f%

a

H6 Par Ses Celebaires,

Metae .it

was his

aiMfM

intention to publish a collection of drawings, textual notations, and various

located at some distance from an active area of critical consciousness

work of art produced between 1911 and 1923.

presented problems in the 1920's.

large glass was extremely unweildla#. and fragile.

-

as

But this perception,

occasion, totally misunderstood.

The piece was heavy, over eight feet tall,

treatment of Robert Morris's work is concerned.j

The notes and drawings

in

"Tn"e

Green Box

.

purposefully camoflaged or obscured by the artist, for reasons ranging from a Duchamp-like fascination with the erotic element in the partially concealed, to

in random order,

conscious attempts to structure his art in such a manner as to extend the

During the eight years that lapsed between the exhibition of

temporal vitality of

The Large Glass and the publication of The Green Box , the complexity of the piece

was virtually unknown, and its conceptual elegance completely unappreciated.

And finally it can be said that

potential and actual layers of meaning interest is certain work has been

The Large Glass was abandoned^ when Duchamp was able to finance the publication of of the notes, drawings, and photographs,

Despite his writing Morris has never been very

least the last two decades had certainly not moved toward resolution as far a» its

presented a different problem - one that was only solved eleven years after

94

»*uch

discussed crisis of criticism that has plagued the American art world for at

was shattered in transit, and the piece disappeared into a private collection

facsimile edition of

.

forthcoming on the intent or meanings behind individual works, and the much

After its single exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1926 the glass

a

ii

of the work that is known is only imperfectly or partially understood, or on

Physically, the exhibition of the

ultimately to be repaired by Duchamp only ten years later.

*

virtually unknown, having been lost, destroyed, only temporarily initallcd, or

In fact, according to writers who knew Duchamp, he saw the efforts of

in of itself

Other work

for one reason or another, the -*em*of critical coniideration.

these two parallel endeavors - the object and its essentially textual notations a single, unified

argued that these

Numerous extant works, for example are literally unknown, having never entered,

photographs related to the conception, development, and execution of this difficult piece.

U jgsmmmT be

are significant gaps in the available information on the work of Robert Morris.

a

given piece by releasing its meanings at an indeterminate

future date, a delayed art work, again, perhaps, much in the manner of Duchamp.

Even

Perhaps Morris just intuitively sensed that with some work, that to preserve

then, notes Duchamp, scholar George Heard Hamilton, "Duchamp's elegant invitation

its relevance was to preserve its mystery.

to the reader to thread his own way, with the aid of the notes, through the

artist's mind went unattended by all except Andre Breton."'4

Breton's precipient

essay of 1935, and Professor Hamilton's own/trans; ations of twenty-five of The Green Box documents related to the concept of readymades remained the only scholarly

investigations into the multiple meanings and mechanations of the piece for more than thirty years after Duchamp's work on it ceased.

atot

Ibvre are similarities between this situation, and the one we confront with Robert Morris's work.

Ay»-nM*./ ^JA/^V

/'*>*il» Inn] ••rii™~ r -* has no conception of •%•£** his environment, and feels no need for complex figurations of truth and knowledge!!

sensory stimulation.

i_

the development of consciousness has come the need to possess and conquer the

-iinlniihll

aspects of the worldj £ietzche

"

drive for knowledge, this "will

to power,"

w>

i

m

il

ii

was instinctual,

a

n

tnat

thaa.

^^

reflection of the

human inability to tolerate undescribed chaos. "The so-called drive for knowledge 4mm?> be traced back to a drive to appropriate and conquer:

memory, the Instincts, etc. have developed as

the senses, the

consequence of this drive." The

a

|.

character of the chaos of the world was "not of

lack of necessity but a lack of

a

jmj

order, arrangement, form, beauty, wisdom, and whatever other names there are for

»—

mBBmjmmjmmmsBBmBSmmmmmmmmwB

fx £ r^Li^t

mi mi ml "" K"

ii*

it

fma

shudder In the nerve strings, being

a

J

v T 5t»« Sham

iNPUxriNC.

«

Morris catalogue raisonne project,

December 1980, p

enterprise. His work from

Pieces of Steel

photocopy thesis,

of Morris's

"Form-Classes

Appendix D,

p.

December 1980, on

scale.

unpublished 1966 Hunter College master's in

the

Work

of

Constantm Brancusi,"

and continues on the verso, reads as follow.

and

it

This drawing

x

1 1

a

map

either anticipates or follows the

both the foundation and the

[

is

KOHEIU MORRIS

literal

ot Brancusi's

mapping

achievement

activity that

is

blueprint lor Morris's minimalist

.

.

)

is

Hot

s.

\\%\

first

1

963 (Green

Gallery) to

1

968 (200

nothing less than a systematic catalogue

form classes ot solid geometry keyed to human is

both a primary architectonic form and a

cottm, scaled to Morris's

own dimensions.

This

"true" minimal piece, but in both

is

its

a key

work— not

form and

roughness, fhe bridge and mediation between (he dispassionate

and passionate aspects "scientilic"

Key document.

.

Box (1962)

only his

92. The handwritten notation, which begins on the

front of the sheet

njo

a

5

of the major

right: Author's unpublished notation,

c

Hfrv

ASc*vEcrouio

1

m*

••

*

direct

Author's unpublished draft of the untitled fourth essay for the

left:

)#

prfnary signified.

©

iiu.

^jptii^iae c^i^o .-ft

morphic defining compels humanity to create an unending proliferation of interpretations whose only

"* n«

FrtAuiMBNTlMCr

As Nietzche suggests, this need for power through anthropo-

sign of nothing, leads to

'XI

and

ot Bob's nature- reflei tins the

'anafytii al" minimalist enterprise

and fhe extreme onto/ogical awareness

on the one hand,

that ripples through every

aspect ot Bob's work and being, on the other. (Build the death here.)

WW.

lllf

l«J»-*»'

? It has often been said of Morris that he is one of the roost fully

Morris's relationship to the^epistomologicaKfield in aware and historically conscious practicing artists of his time. general

is the

#68* -$e8rs>?s ,

development,

During the

signular characteristic of his work throughout the course of its

a^

undoubetly provides the key for

course of the four year development og this project there was nothing

continuous understanding of

a

in my numerous excahnges with Morris that suggested otherwise, but the depth of

J^his

stylistic departures.

His knowledge in a variety of fields is more

that awareness and consciousness, and its possible meanings, only gradually

detailed and comprehensive that that of the informed laymen, but less than that became apparent. of the specialist- except in

{jis

own fi§ld where

lis

is

As the chronological

biography and oeuvre of BBJ528Se$30828ase32

the specialist- and he this artist was slowly and even laboriously reconstructed from imperfect and

Knee* knowledge to his work. Therein

has continuously appl ied that epistomological

incomplete collections of sources- among them 4h8 s e#e?«« lies a major impulse in Morris's art.

must of the over 1600

He uses^ history as his medium in a larger

works of art, gallery listings, personal archives and files, private and museum and sublte sense of the word, beyond the consciousness of history as

a

lingusitic

collections, published texts, notebooks, personal and business correspondence,

strcuture, perhaps ina ritualized use of the shifting epistomogogical framework, textbooks, reviews, artciles, catalgoes, the artist's personal library, interviews,

Levi-Strauss began the flight from history in the 1970's be pointing out that films, and video tapes, just to mention

we are a "hot" society rapidly cooling off.

a

few- tN§^p96CaP#

a

picture of the artist's

The structural analysis |S6##ee&= = $

thought also began to emerge.

It is a picture that is far from

complete in its

performed on the history of art by Jack Burnham concluded the end of art history detail, but a picture that demonstrates certain patterns or consistencies; such as it had come to be known;

"the driving force of avant-guardism has been it as a practical

mystigue as an undectedted syntactical structure."

2

awareness of the major developments in thought that describe the

And Morris himself has

history of ideas; and

a

particular interest in exploring the relationship between

acknowledged that the structural gestalt once 46€te& detected, exhausts itself art and various of these Se*a*$eSs6*6S developments expressed in other fields. qua gestalt.

The ftei0$S£$06«Sif$t

revelation that the historical avant-garde Morris is a student of Art History. He read Freud and spent five years in analysis.

operated by transparently logical

,fifl5fl5fla

i.

Is

It

Llkewi se

the state of painting seemed

the answer to this proposition tha

in

stances:

of Robert Morris's work and sensibility are to be

that the pursuit

it

»s

It

th<

I

em-

SBsaH

®

Author's unpublished draft of the untitled seventh essay for

the Morris catalogue raisonne project,

right: Ibid, p. 5.

v

ft'

'hi

t

h|e

oneg^ is

(may begin to lose face and

thi

of tbe collective subscription to a common methodology or body

defines, science moves tastes

aaaaaamaaaa^^t deeply through

i

the transition from

willingly accepted by all the practitioners in the field.

"Though they flBmmmmml

Long as tbe tools that a paradigm supplies continue to prove

x k

But

science than the pursuit of disc

capable ol solving

left:

in

that is "that crises are a necessary precondition lor

operational model to another is not an immediate event, nor

'nary theories is even less a

ol

.rmal

mmmmmmmmmmV Kuhn found all theoret leal developments

emergence of novel theories."

Again, Kuhn's analysis of the mechanics

regular acl

,

the history of science demonstrated similar structural circum-

aaaaaaaassl i

Among numerous examples, Kuhn cited the theoret

leal breakthroughs of Galileo and Newton as examples of response;

"new" art, Creenberg saw

that the theoretical sctructural options open to a

therefore precipitates a crisis, which, in

inspires an extraordinary search for solutions that may

li

I

M< IRRIB

December 1980.

p

4.

Knowledge,

in the activities of

the scientists or artists at

the

point of crisis through the period of transtion, that an explan-

ation of Greenberg's dilemma can be found.

coAfsaVu}*eii

2T The overall goal of the book, is to develop an appropriate treatment of the whole work, lnother words the whole work needs an appropriate response in terms of the book. The RD or Abrams coffee table would be a waste of time, if not for you, at least for myself.

or an explanation that Is moving Into the present and derives or focus** only on the Immediate past Kuhn development of the structure of scientific revolutions is particularly effective for an analysis of this section. Talking about the develpment of ever more comprehensive theories, based on scientific evidence and the continually develpment and redevelopment of scientific paradigms One thinks of Eisteln's search for unified field theory and can make the analogy of developing a unified theory of art that explains all phenomenon and can be used not necessarily as a predictive device, but definitely as a tool to anticipate the future. .

What is needed is an explanation (KB: Rk maps the expanded field of post modernism and suggests that while this kind of investigation of an historical structure is necessary, it is only a small area and it does not address Itself to the need for explanation. '

This project develops from the proposition, fully ackowledglng the need for a reportorial and at least quasi scientific objectivity, the Morris' work occupies a preeminent position, if not the preeminent position, of art of the last ## twenty years, and to accompany it detailed presentation, a logical theoretical explanation that ackowledges both the difficulty of such a task, the specific theorretical concerns that are developed within individual and groups of works within specific historical periods, as well as locating the activity 1) within the larger context of the commonly referred tonhistory of art and 2) the larger context of the demonstrated activity that we have catogorized as art making.

3. The map of artistic actvity from beginning of artististic activity through the present and into the future In terms of consciousness about the Datructure of the process historically

y/WxACfWS

Essential to this endeavor is a complete and unadorned, objective presentation of the complete chronological purve as is possible. The catalogue raisonne approach makes logical sense from an objective and scientific perspective. The explanation is couched in terms of neutrality. The theoretical unifying theory is presented with proofs, but within a necessary speficic Ineluctable bias. The work itself, without drawing specific attention to o-ly single interpretations of the material, Is explained in terms of details as thoroughly as possible. In fact, the reportorial edge to the combined volums, the without commentary will occupy approximately 70Z of the space in a combined total of six hundred + pages. The explanation: Ref. RK the need for an explanation.

Deal with the need for newness, the dialectical, development, change Part of the structural biological develpment suggested by Piaget in Structuralism. On the theoretical level, the structural approach sees an essential uniformity in the development of things, from the organizations of cells, individuals, patterns of though, soclties, and cultures. The most reasonable expanation would be that af a kind af adaptive capability, to be able to change to adapt to the always changing environment. What these characteristics (ability to adapt and change) are tied to is survival, even in the Darwinian sense. Thrfse creatures, cell, societies, that can adapt without surious rupture are those that are the most capable and those that survive. That characteristic filters down to artists in an unconsciousness need to be "original" unique, (giving something of the person to the art or culture of an era.) within the last 100 years it has manifested itself most directly in the art-making aesthetic or impulse as the thoeyr of the avant garde, (form of the dialectical concept of history)

/

6*«

if

,

(J*^

1.

2. Art History itself is only 100 years old. Measure that against the 6000 years of art making cultyre, and you have the conscious perception of development in terms of history to be only a fairly recent phenomenon. Within that recent histories many theories have been suggested, developed, and mapped, but primarily in vleM#M#6t# bounded by fairly precise historical situations, although that the time of the development of these thoeries, they primarily explain without particular awareness of the nature of continuing time and development. In other words, they focus primarily on the present

left:

The consciousness is not just one of history, but also of the potential for artistic expression on all levels, of concept, material, manifestation. Janyes makes several points in his analysis about the breakdown. Por survival, the bicameral mind was needed to sepearte speculation from the completion of r|ftM# taks. If one had to cut a column for a greek temple and they sere not being paid in a time before money was prevalent (not good analog, uae more primitive time) the voices of authorltv kept him at his ftfi task)

More developmet in the area of how art was made in earlier times and civilizations" 1. Example, the pyrmids or stonehenge. No consciousness ab out the art of art. These weee devices, perhaps observatories, the engineering and architecture of based on repeltion and empirical obsrvatlon to improve that repetition over long times rather than speculative minimalist aesthetics. Th4 communication took place through the tightly knit and maintained groups of scientist /priests struggling for some consciousness of their time and situation. The decoration of those temples with specific or religious information, also had the function of mediation. The consciousness of art as art, in entity in and of itself did not take place until the concepts and Investigations of religion and science were albe to separate themselves from 4#4 art and move off In areas of their own more ,

successfully

Author's unpublished notes for the Morris catalogue raisonne

project, ca. 1981.

right: Author's unpublished notes and diagram for the Morris

catalogue raisonne project, ca. 1981.

MAS KHKNH xxv

tftfTvtC

&

XL

frtsrc/J'rx

#/os*TZ

What should extiit between the attlst and the crtitlc, on the one hand, la a kind of competitive Intellect, each trying to move the other one furhtcr along, rather the the critic be a acre flag waver for the artist, because the artlat is reHreensted after all, by an object rather than words. There are certain creative people, in the fullest concept of the word, to whom the visual object represents a certain kind of wanted energy, and don't cpoee to eneter that kind of annual situation. Yet, they do not aake totem*, for all the power of their reasoning, and totems aove people. There Is a point, however, when the resveres id rrue. Perhaps by force of event of •ltaulon, certain words becosM lenurtalized in a text of a particular declarartlon. If the event associated with that declaration became Important enough, the declratlon would cone to represent the event, being the object /symbol of a watershed or moving situation. But those events that particularly get honored in such a way '-arrlor-Polltic inn-Art ist-Crltlc-Sc lent 1st

*»/?'/(& 'A/raj

fen /*>}'£

,,r-vymy

'

•{*>-(?-

/

i£

Tat are these people the parldigme of the stages of development? The evidence would seem to indicate not. Don't all of these "occupations" eppposedly acceptable to "free entry (and exit) juat become a matter of choice and personal preference. And what arwe the character lstslcs of the situation that come to be characterized by that choice, lot particularly Inspiring. ThesmmmsP#vy socialist state la one of no competition and no development. For all the vertuea of paclflcty. It tradlt iojally has not been very effective. Or has it? Things, changes If thla magnitude, cannot happen overnight. There has to be a huge commonality of purpose and that takes tiae to generate, but once generated. It is very hard to change (here I an talking about style)

An

rk-

*}

.

-uu,

«*

left:

tlMy

*».,

flod out

+ M u mil

ud

too

ue<

^ ^

^

Author's unpublished notes and diagram for the Morris

relatively simple

geometric plywood lorms

show. He was certainly not the

catalogue raisonne project, ca. 1981.

firsi

in

the

Green

artisl to write

G,i

about

ait

in

recent times. The acerbic commentary ot Ad Remhardt and the right: Author's unpublished handwritten note, ca. 1980, which

thoughtful analyses ot

reads as follows:

Hamilton did late

much

installments entitled "Notes on Sculpture' /usf over a year alter

i).

emerging

inrcr beiies

1963 and Peter Plagens

an insight, presi

ieni e.

glib art

and syntai

til

the Green Gallery show, the public persona ot Robert Morris as

demon

Renaissance Man has contributed

ol the pen, so to spe.ik. Morris elevated the art to

mythii

jutj that

and message

rum

x * v

came

that

writer, Morris

I

KOI

was

to

in

no small way

surround his work

With

uncharacterlstii ally dense

to the .1

almost

m

»'f

IWI

*n«i plvn»»-

the atomic bomb with pieces like Sketch for a One Megaton Tactical Weapon ,

Instructions for Home-Built One Klloton Yield Device

,

\

and numerous drawings and

proposals dealing with doomsday devices, installations of the first A-bombs,

It.iurJ.

nan

i«t

lh*'

4rj*in£

tmmmmmmm

Little Boy" and "Fat Man," the history of the Atomic bomb development

project at Los Alamos.

Of these pieces Morris has commented that tmmmmmmmtmtammB

I

One can't help but be impressed by the continuing insanity. We are in a very critical state. .. (These pieces are) a physical manifestation of something that occurred ten years ago but didn't have the opportunity to be realized or somehow just didn't come together before now. That's true of a lot of my work. It happens when an occasion arises or you get preoccupied with something that wasn't realized earlier. don't know why I am that in1 tensely focused on these particular Issues at this particular

Jpture

y*- activated by the conviction,

>.

The structure of his Investigations

of art's potentiality has been delineated by concerns that are fundamental

to

the concept and exercise of art- such as process, material, the variety and mechanics

a

left:

Author's unpublished draft of an unresolved essay for the

Morris catalogue raisonne project,

December 1981,

right: Author's unpublished notations on p. ol Robert

Moms

x x v

I

I

I

it<

ih

I

29

of

p. 3.

The Drawings

(Williamstown, Mass.: Williams College

of Art, 1982), July

ii

1993.

I

MUHHIN

:

njildrrun

stated In the broadest manner

•> be Although he may amtmme willing to Identify his motiva-

tions, Morris's decisions are not gratuitous.

bcxirvr-k trv*\

'

possible, that art can be anything; but that is precisely not to say that for Morris art is anything.

munul jiiimjl*

Museum

Wmw

v»j»

sunu'd

in

hLuk

MrlDhottl

WW

INTRODUCTION NOTES: August

drained the activity of art making of values is the ultimate act of valuation. Hit obftcttve it to appropriation, resist understanding, but without ever relying on subterfuge or misrepresentation So the for him is a continual play with meanings, conscious and subconscious, exercise*, processes, experiments, mobilizing his strengths through the accumulation of work and history, leaving an intellectual imprint rather than a dtscemable visual style. Hit it the contrarian's response to changes in

1992

game

the environment; look to the other direction.

SET UP THE ARGUMENT FOR THE "UNKNOWABIUTY" OF MORRIS'S OEUVRE AND TEXTUAL AM? CONTEXTUAL RICHNESS BY REFERENCE TO DUCHAMP] 11.

ITS

In 1923, when Marcel Duchamp stopped working on his masterpiece. La Mane mise d nu par ses celebaires, Meme, it was his intention to publish, more or tess simultaneously, a collection of drawings,

and photographs related to the conception, development, and execution of this difficult and complex work. In fact, although tlut work was produced over a twelve year period, Duchamp saw the efforts of these two parallel endeavors— the actual object, on tlie one hand, and its process documentation, on the other— as a single, unified work of art. But his intention to present it as such met with difficulty. TJte work itself resisted definitive completion, and progress on it was intermittent (a fact that was perhaps most dramatically attested to by Man Ray's famous photograph of dust gathering on the surface of the targe glass— dust that had to be carefully lacquered at two month intervals to render the seven sieves in different degree of opacity). Physically the piece was large, unwieldy, and extremely textual notations,

m

1926 the glass shattered in transit. There it fragile. After a single exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum remained in its packing case for another ten years, ultimately to be "repaired" by Duchamp, with the fracture lines cemented intact and incorporated into the work as yet another chance element. The notes and drawings presented a different problem. They came to public and critical attention only in 1934, when Duchamp was able to finance the publication of a facsimile edition of 94 of the notes, drawings, and photographs in random order in a work that was entitled Green Box Certainly during the eight years .

that lapsed between the exhibition of the Large Glass and the publication of the Green Box, the interactive complexity of the unified work was virtually unknown, and its conceptual brilliance

unappreciated. Even then, notes George Heard Hamilton in his and Richard Hamilton's 1960 topographic version of the Green Box, "Duchamp's elegant invitation to the reader to thread his own way, with the

aid of the notes, through the artisfs mind went unattended by all except Andre Breton." Between Breton's percipient essay of 1935 and the Hamilton/Hamilton commentaries a quarter century later, critics and art historians were virtually silent on the topic of Duchamp and his masterwork. A war intervened. Picasso, surrealism and abstract expressionism

imagination. The art world had

moved

came

to

dominate the popular and informed visual

on.

12. ANALOG Y OF THE TIME CAPSULE, BACK TO THE LARGE GLASS. MORRIS AS AN ARTIST WITH AN EYE ON HISTORY; RECOGNIZES THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF INSTANT COMMUNICATION AND

THE TRANSFER OF MEANING LN PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL TERMS, SKETCH OUT THE FUTURE MODEL OF READLNG MORRIS'S WORK THROUGH A INTERACTIVE DATABASE}

His feats of making are prodigious, and he has written extensively It is impossible to engage and surround this material in any reasonable detail, subject it a critical exegesis, and reduce it to m convenient series of statements that capture its essence The most significant aspect of Moms's oevvrt, like Duchamp's Large Glass and Green Box, (besides its richness, complexity and tubfettivtty) is its interactivity with textual and conceptual reference. There is, however, a logistical problem. Duchamp made about ISO works; Moms well over 3,000 so far. The Large Glass was a lens, a filter, a lighthouse. a point of reference for the rest of the work. The sheer quantity of Moms's work, the force of his personality, and the difficulty of lighthouse construction in contemporary society has removed the possibility of a single work in all of Moms's oeuvre with such a towering presence Therefore,

Moms's

Large Glass

is

his entire ouevre

To see

it

with a similar clarity and

to realize its

potential use as a reflective device, a mirror lens through which to scope the relentless activity of a remarkably self aware artmaker in a given chronological and historical context where transcendent

meaning has been drained from the basic activity requires a new technology Imagine this Thirty years from nolo, squadrons of enterprising curators and art historians working for the Guggenheim la division perhaps, of Time Warner Entertainment Japan) with far more computing power and efficiency at their fingertips then we ever dreamed of in 1993, will undertake to organize a vast hypertext catalogue/interactive database of everything that Moms has ever made (and make no mistake that this is an artist of prodigious output), written or recorded, and everything that anyone has ever said, recorded or written about him. Every photograph, film and video tape or disk that contains an image of Moms or his work will be added to the great concentration. All the information will be catalogued, indexed, cross referenced and stored. Visual Designers will be hired to develop story lines and shape the vast quantity material into an HD-TV spectacular at the high end, a sort of tatter day Masterpiece Theater Supplemented and inspired by those works of art that are actually available and on view in museum collections that wilt testify to the power and necessity of direct experience, the vieweri reader will hare access to the thousand themes of Robert Moms. On this giant interactive video game, the Moms psyche will be exposed. The tapes of Voice and Hearing, the story of his childhood, the thousands of minutes of interviews and performances from the relentless progression of residencies at colleges and universities around the country, the articles, the reviews, the commentaries, the grocery bills, and the tax records, the snap shots and the target from that summer day when Moms and I shot pistols in his backyard. But God is in the details, as Morris well knows, and it wilt be an enormously engrossing toot. Subjects can be scanned, computing is instantaneous, Moms and his art will be more susceptible to understanding and appropriation than ever before. Did Bob plant this time capsule.

Any

exercise in analysis ultimate ends in self referential subjectivity. Understanding and knowing demands appropriation; the "knower" is m a superior position to the "knowee." Moms resists appropriation and understanding every step of the way. He knows that the ultimate power of his art resides in its inscrutability, and that once the paradigm has been defined, inscrutability vanishes TJie conventional approach has most critics and historians assume that the artist has a consistent message that they want to convey, and most artists act as if that is true. Perhaps they lack the verbal and

analytical skills to accomplish the full communication of their message; perhaps the message is simply not powerful enough. To sell and survive as artists, they must engage active collaborators in getting the message out. With Morns its more complex. He regards himself as an intellectual superman and a physiological everyman. He is always just one step away from the ontological quiver. That he has

13. NOW IS NOW. MORRIS'S OEUVRE IS A SINGLE WORK. JUST AS THE THE EXHIBITION AS PART OF THE PROCESS. THE WORK IS NOT REDUCIBLE; BUT, THE MUSEUM THAT HAS THE BEST AND LARGEST COLLECTION OF MORRIS'S WORK UNDERTAKES THE ENTERPISE; MORRIS'S COMPLETE WRITING ARE SIMULTANEOUSLY PUBLISHED (title is the k*yj; THE WORK IS INSTALLED UPTOWN AND DOWNTOWN AS BEST AS CAN BE ACHIEVED UNDLR THE PHYSICAL UMTTATIONS OF THE EXHIBTTOIN SPACES; THE WRITERS WHO HAVE BEST KNOWN MORRIS'S WORK ARE ENGAGED TO WRITE ESSAYS; ITS NOT COMPLETE. BUT THE OBJECTS, THE TEXTS, THE RESEARCH IS BROUGHTTO THE HIGHEST AND MOST COMPREHENSIVE LEVEL

YET.J

left:

Author's unpublished

first

draft/notes for the introduction to

the present exhibition catalogue, August 1992, p. 1.

right:

Ibid., p. 2.

THOMAS

K R K N8

nil

The visibility of process in art occurred with the saving of

art as icon. Under attack is the rationalistic notion that art is

sketches and unfinished work in the High Renaissance. In the 19th

a

century both Rodin and Rosso left traces of touch in finished

course, attacked the Marxist notion that labor was an index of

Like the Abstract Expressionists after then, they

a

finished product. Duchamp, of

value, but Readymades are traditionally iconic art objects, what

registered the plasticity of material in autobiographical terms. It

form of work that results in

remained for Pollock and Louis to go beyond the personalism of

art now has in its hands is mutable stuff which need not arrive at the point of being finalized with respect to either time or

the hand to the more dir ect revelation of matter itse lf, how

space. The notion that work is an irreversible process ending in

Pollock b roke the dom ination of Cubist form is tied to his

a

inve stigation of means: tools, me thods of making,

nature of

static icon-object no longer has much relevance. The detachment of art's energy from the craft of tedious

material. Form is not perpetuated by means but by preservation of

object production has further implications. This reclamation of

separable idealized ends. This is an anti-entropic and

process refocuses art as an energy driving to change perception.

conservative enterprise. It accounts for Creek architecture

(From such a point of view the concern with "quality" in art can

changing from wood to marble and looking the same, or for the

only be another form of consumer research

look of Cubist bronzes with their fragmented,

involved with comparisons between static, similar objects within

faceted planes. Thf

—a

conservative concern

perpetuati on of form is functioning Idealism. C^~-.

closed sets.) The attention given to both matter and its

In object-type art process is not visible. Materials often are.

the phenomenon of means. What is revealed is that art itsel self is

^JV

When they are, their reasonableness is usually apparent. Rigid

an i-^i^lifY °^ "hanis,

*

Industrial materials go together at right angles with great ease.

discontinuity and mutability, of the willingness for confusion fusion-

But it is the a priori valuation of the well-built that dictates

even in the service of discovering new perceptual Modes.

inseparableness from the process of change is not an empha hasis on

of disorientation and shift, of v iolent

th e ma terials. The well-built form of objects preceded any

consideration of means. Materials th emselves have been limited to

At the present time the culture is engaged in the hostile and

those which efficiently make the general object form.

deadly act of immediate acceptance of all new perceptual art moves, absorbing through institutionalized recognition every art

Recently, materials other than rigid Industrial ones have begun to show up. Oldenburg was one of the first to use such materials.

left:

Author's notations on p.

39

of the draft for

Continuous

Protect Altered Daily: The Writings ol Robert Morris (Cambridge,

Mass.: MIT Press, 1994), October 1993.

right: Author's notations on p.

56

of the draft for Continuous

Protect Altered Daily: The Writings of Robert Morris (Cambridge.

Mass

m x

:

MIT Press, 1994). October 1993.

HOBER1 MORRIH

act. The work discussed has not been excepted.

JC

/

]

unfinished definition provided by viewer also need to consider way elitist subsequent artists also complete work 7 3 Cubism tends to formalism vs. materials/process approach

Krauss, The Mind/Body Problem

analytic philo displaces mind/body problem onto medium of language all else is nonsense

75 automatiion removes taste and personal touch by copting

forces, images, processes 76 artist steps aside for more of the world to step into his art

critique of metaphysics -- rejection of substance

77 minimal art of early and mid-sixties -- based on method of construction rectilinear forming precludes arranging of parts

[can see how this comes together with poststructuralism also see how this leads to the lack of continuity, substance that Antin stresses series of works that not clearly connected by underlying intention or anything else]

80 materials not brot into alignment with static apriori forms but material is probed for openings that allow artist behavioristic access

113 the dumb dense energy of things art facts both generate and destroy speech art facts are dedocated tp o,[i;ses beupmd ratopma;ozomg

4

Morris

7

Box with the Sound of Its Own Making first of M*s many interventions in mind/body problem

114 tidal undertow has informed most art discourse: rational, deterministic, and progressive mainstream of history connects art facts that are borne along mediate twin properties of interruption and flow

[note how much he uses the image of the river

s

performance piece recongigures Beckett

sounds made constructing box play from box mocks notion of privileged access to contents also mocks notions of autonomy, self -containment of consciousness

Heraclitus

6 frequent recourse to language 9 way lang functions has less to do with Duchamp and ore to do with Beckett, mind/body problem and analytic philosophy

most art discourse conforms to this Hegellian oceanography in modernismbecomes comical and even fascistic linear as inevitable, developmental defense agaist the discontinuous merely sequential and unnecessary in a society so governed by pragmatism, nonutilitarian needs ready rationalization ,

'

Beckett -- language ventriloquizes itself thru Unnameable capacity of language to spin itself out in infinite regress carries along helpless vagrants of B 12 charactrs want to stop but impersonal voice wants to continue invasion of language as malicious because unstoppable

,

abstract art seeks to rescue its status from mere decoration -say it signifies something beyond its existence as mere object and thus not to become what Levi-strauss calls the signifier without a signified 116 effort to bestow on artistic development dialectical progres is effort to deny contingency of man's acts rationalize discontinuities

13

Morris's 21.3 -- repeats Panofsky's taped lecture but is as if someting slipped words not refer to things

15

Beckett's world of extreme ordinariness related to minimalism unable to arrest spin into seriality, run the risk of absurdity, madness nonsense

118 pm raises this to critical self-consciousness sees developments as moves rather than permutations of forms with questioning of dialectical development, flooding pluralism emerges

,

pictorial mark that would have no interior, no connection to virtual space no internal or expressive meaning 16 how to

only conceptualism claimed dialectical necessity dial necessity had been way abstract art justified itself Morris sees this argument as intended to secure value and power in other words, is ideological

make

a

usually neo-Dada wh becomes pop set over against minimalism as figurative to abstract 20 as early as 1961, Morris involved with art as language

left:

for

Author's unpublished notes from his reading of the draft

Continuous Project Altered Daily: The Writings of Robert

Moms

(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994), October 1993.

right: Author's unpublished notes from his reading of the draft for Rosalind Krauss's

Series,"

in

"The Mind/Body Problem: Robert Morris

in

the present exhibition catalogue, October 1993.

mas KRENS

k x x

I

ESSAYS

THE MIND/BODY PROBLEM: ROBERT MORRIS IN SERIES Rosalind Krauss

Ayer. a

—

j

There are two important reductions

perform on the assertion, tirst

p

true,"

is

—

the

I

as wholly redundant, since to state "that

to assert that

is

—

to

The

true."

is

head of the sentence

to lop off the

is

think" part

think that p

"I

think

I

The second

it.

attack the feet of the proposition, getting true" appendage, since "that p"

simply, a statement that p

its

ol

riel

by itself

all

is

to

the case rather than not p.

is

Ayer never ceases to term "nonsense." For tacking

I

true" onto the proposition produces the verbal illu-

is

sion that then

on the one hand, something called

is,

this

is

what

Ontology,

floats

the

is

it

think

I

that

There can be no mind/body problem "sunt- these

sense-contents

—

see x;

I

if

conscious-

pain.

The

(

may be may be

(though

it

a

—

hear x

I

— they

or

form

in

is

a series

notion

verj

all

(Ins .ma lysis teceivi

i

in.

>m

I

there

when

Watt s

bj

in null In hi

W .hi

i

1

.' I

1

to

to

1

1

hav<

Kplain iIh

ili>

th<

ol

the

that

mosi

1

nt<

and

precisely

not calm

if

or tree

tree-,

e.ilm. or tree, or

at least

Hsi

organized within the realm

ol

Watt in

in

famous: "And the poor old lousv old earth,

is

ways

n

'I

s

ol

1

umstam

1

•

mt in

this gaii

01

.111

ut

be-

w< n

15).

th<

1

thi

meant

philosophy's

And, thus,

to plug

it

perform instances

language- spinning out ol control and distressingly

language- perversely biting us The

must extraordinary

own

"nonsense

ol

so to speak

tail,

series ol all the- series

m

Watts aci ol communicating to the narrator, Sam, what happened to him at Mr Knott's house. which Watt dues as the- two ul (he in walk, pressed Watt

is

and forehead

to belly

to

Sam moving forward and Wati backward, Wad moving forward and Sam backward, along

then iln 1

extremely narrow passage formed by

ham

link

Inn

is,

the one

in

li

now

in

tin

t

|

otht

1

Wat or in a n switch

si

rializai ion

iiiiiniiitiH

ul

hi

.it

ion

linguist \i

i

\

letters

speaks foi

in.

is

(In

01

her

W an

asylum where-

tin

resides

logii

1

ul

i

llu this

two parallel garden teiuc ol (In

the-

asylum Sam

insane tin

Knoi

n

that analytic

leaching into Ayer's very domain

ighi

any otht

Mi

is

opening onto

precisely the

is

conundrum

said that these- series, in Watt,

human

izi 1

(W

recourse to language

logical analysis in

.

window

the

room

and my mothers tather's mothers mothers and my tather's and my tather's lather's

lather's

forehead,

Watt,

whit h

in

giv<

rh<

" .

observed thai

r

my

infinite regress

rved thai

tsi

and my and my mother's lather's and

father's mother's father's

insoluble logical

1

my mothers and

my mothers mothers

and

against one- another, belly

it

l>\

Kplain had alwa

IRRIH

the novel

hair] are noi

1

I ol

hav<

I

performanci 1

ham com

I

door

rooms

into

no one has elaborate

and

left,

I

theii entrj

way

for

or free and

tree,

not calm and

it

(W

it"

and glad,

free

terms of a linguistic progression, frequently produce

logical

fi

li

For

and my pasi obsi rvations in asseri thai

knowing

series,

mothers.

ol

ing

la>

I

beii

And

mother's tather's

.Amis refutation ol now mj room, have

pan

has

.in

glad, without

of

dismissed as

theii

,on to believe thai [us tabli

Km was

of

But he thought that

so.

calm and

and glad, or glad and calm,

of

the passages in Lang*

ol

being pei

t

is

could have been pronounced

i

lian idi all i

in i.M

certain

instance thai

lor

glad, or glad and calm, or

mother's and

"sub-

oi

and the

languagi

ol

Samuel Beckett's novel Watt

and Lo

Truth, .is

medium

and glad, or

tree

least

at

my

—

philosophy displaces the mind/body

response. Indeed

calm and

kit

calm and

intro-

and mental, is thus comprehends them both

third form thai

ol

felt

and glad,

father's mother's

iinni.iteri.il,

problem into the medium

It

free

Now,

analysis ol propositions. Everything else

met blows

perhaps he

and

that p.

explicitly disallows thi

Analytic

stance")

Watt

that

of the

substances, one spatiall) extended and plnsn.il. the

dissolved by

"Not

did not, and had never done

lu

father's fathers

artesian distinction between two different

other unextended,

nose?

a

117),

Watt's mouth, this very

yet. in

my

propositions that arc structurally equivalent,

them taking the lorm

(W

rational analysis quickly takes on the character of

sense-contents are the ver-

remember x

I

have been pressed' By

bell

projecting tooth?"

earth and my father's and

spected from the world internal to the perceiver feel a

A

heel?

my

set of propositions

bal translations of sense-experiences that

external world

A And

toe?

about

simply reduced into a

is

A

the kinds of openings onto infinite regress tor which

underwrites Episcemolo

ness

thumb, could the

And

Being and, on the other, something called Truth. if

pressed the bell? For by what but by a finger, or by a

series:

Thus beautifully shorn, that p" then rises up out nt the foam of metaphysics like a mermaid returned to the litheness of a fish: mercifully released from what

A

Knott's and Erskine's and Watts, that might have

"is

very

is,

and other thumbs, than Mr

fingers in the house,

I

)a\

it

t

ol

Knott with now b nodrap" >W

urs in

SJ

nta\ and

which Wati

must, night (

162)

<

ionships but

the

h rough

o<

not |ust in the

relai nl

tihei

thai

is

ol

pan.

reb nodrap, s >> thai

Sam

must comment, "These were sounds that at first, though we walked pubis to pubis, seemed so much balls to

(W

me"

mental

—

pubis"

to

is,

perhaps, the most

embrace within which the

efficient description of the

remains. All the attempts to reduce the mental to the physical,

Moreover,

mental

gait, as the

not just their strangely de-eroticized

is

nude couple inches across the stage and

back again, that reconfigures the scene between Watt

and Sam; Morris has,

up

as well, conjured

a sense of

the confining corridor within which Beckett's pas de

deux

The narrow

executed.

itself

is

tracks comprised of

two long wooden beams, which are aligned parallel with the front of the proscenium and on which the dancers

make

Walking moves

just

woman

former, a

and

claustrophobic intensity.

its

behind the tracks

is

which

a third per-

letting

to say "consciousness" to "the brain,

is

simply not work. The pattern that allows us to

reduce one level of description to another, more funda-

to

level, as

when we reduce water

DNA, saying that the

neurophysiology of the brain. Because subjectivity, or consciousness,

And

what

is

that

we

To hold out

for

a bat.

"what

down

Morris's art, of his

list,

drawn up by

numerous references

writers on

to the

work of

Marcel Duchamp, here to Duchamp's "mile of string" installation for the First Papers of Surrealism exhibition in

New

\brk (1942). But

Switch's unmistakable

more convincing

homage

context of Waterman

to Watt, the figure

different

far

is

as an allusion to Beckett's clowns,

somewhat

thus to a

in the

and

form of endlessness and

repetition than that of the bachelor machine.

is it

—

like to be a?

it's

of

is,

nowhere except regress. For

directly into the "nonsense" of infinite

one of the features the neodualist has to that

is

— which mistaken about what — and own

contents

is

has privileged access

it

to say that

is

the case for

sense, "incorrigible"

it

is

cannot be

it

that

it;

it is,

how

analytic philosophers can always reply, "But, it

knowr'"

this

The

"how does

claim that

"I

in this

to this claim that the

does

threat of infinite regress that arises from (or you)

it

am

know?"

is

that

if

am

feeling pain" or "I

add

I

my

to

seeing blue"

the further condition that, subjectively speaking,

cannot be mistaken about these things,

must,

I

Thomas

like to

be

I

in

order to claim this incorrigibility, have something like

an inner pattern or rule (the "constancy hypothesis"

Suppose,

Nagel suggests, we were to imagine what

be a bat"

like to

it's

their charge that discussions of "the mental" lead

an example), which

Bat. what

its

the analytic philosophers and

to its

sometimes figured on the

by examining

brain states.

claim for "consciousness"

labyrinthine associations, has

like for the bat to be

it's

will never get to

both sides of the stage, to create a kind of linear web. its

to claim that sub-

be reduced to something objective like the

jectivity can

out the string from a ball of twine that she attaches at

This string, with

H.O or genes

to

nothing but the

really

first is

when we want

second, doesn't wash

course, to stare

dressed in a man's suit and hat. She

more quickly than does the couple,

far

will

their way, recreate both the setting's vec-

tor within the novel

an irreducible,

is

of the world and the subjectivity of consciousness,

two dancers are clasped for their promenade in the opening and closing sections of Robert Morris's most celebrated performance piece, Waterman Switch (1965). it

conclusion, that there

its

ontological distinction or gap between the objectivity

165).

Now, "pubis

types of substance in the world, the physical and the

I

consult or to which

this particular sensation of pain or of color,

allow

me

to

know that I'm And tins,

is

compare that would I

right about this case of

a bat. "It will not help to try to imagine," he says,

toothache or of blue.

webbing on one's arms, which enables one to fly around at dusk and dawn catching insects in one's mouth; that one has very poor vision, and per-

point out, leads to the problem of knowing that I'm

ceives the surrounding world by a system of reflected

over this instance of application, which would then

high-frequency sound signals; and that one spends the

necessitate another rule, and so on.

"that one has

day hanging upside down by one's will not help,

he explains, because "insofar as

imagine this (which

what

it

would be

But that

is

Nagel its

is

not very

like for

me

not the question.

like for a bat to is

feet in an attic."

to I

far),

it

want

to

know what

think, he

It's

on

is

be a bat."'

is

Whatever we

saying, of the original Cartesian for-

mulation of the problem

—

that there are two different

the story

tlic

of

the

back

itself

be supported, replies. "On

would Box with the Sound of Its Own Making

man who supported

giant turtle, and

of a

how

is

,isk(

r

.1

turtli

//

.ill

"

would

Ami when 'Bui

be supported?" the

man answers turtles

that turtle

p< rsists.

inter lot utor

in

which

when

..iicii lii

rehearsing the mind/body problem

rule to this case,

tli.it

needing another rule to adjudicate

claims that the world

only

it

to

Ir

can

I

me

would then lead

behave as a bat behaves.

postbehaviorist, neodualist phase.

may

tells

right about applying

the analytic philosophers

\

the Wa}

ROS

( ,

problem:

his

how first it's

down

:i

In 1961, when Morris made Box with the Sound of On n Making, he had constructed the first of his own, many interventions into the domain of the

cuitry in the building, that in turn connects to the

mind body problem. A nine-inch cube, handcrafted

mockery

It

— roughly

walnut, the box

—

skull

and screwing that took plan own fabrication. With what

drilling,

during the process of

its

"memory" inside it. viewer from the other

could be thought, then, to be the box seems to confront

its

its

side of that divide that separates object

hat

\\

this question

however,

box

ble

seems to

is it like," it

That a

be

say, "to

a

No

been wired into the vcrv possibility

Card public

can be

viewers from imputing thoughts and feelings to them,

from granting them, that

is,

kind

a

mod-

of inferiority

object's

own

like"

simply the

is

from the behaviorist form

clear

is

as

privacy of subjective experience,

tin-

0and

oiitamniclK

selt-i

of

,

multitude

Card

as

tl

performs

it

kind

a

oj

COgitO

of

although we could say that

F6l

own founding experience, tivitj

onds

maker, and thai

its

of

minds and

i" 'In

ami that

lluil

.

.

/.

with

tht

'.'i

IS

Si,

its

tin-

mind ami

activity itself

other makers,

which Morris made

iduI

anoi

In

lime tor

'ii.ii

1

was

exhibit

first

produi

lie

l

1963, the yeai

in

Own Making

lh

a/

ion oi

1

infinite repress within the situation of a professed

Th< cabinet, which bears on us

privacy and inferiority

photograph

.1

in

v. .J

\i

K-.

.ii 11.

And

a

1 1

wnii

IV..

1

work

puncturing

'in

with

aim:'

I"

op< mil, whit

1

ilniil

joins Box

1

with us dooi opened, opens

of itself

anothei dooi

1

111

1

wot

1

1

lil

<

iju

oj

Its

idea of autonomy and

along anothei trajectory broached bj iln

Foi 1

1.1

an

|'H

1

It

1

11

wtnl.

iln

n v oi

1

'.limed

1.

mini 1

4

II

1.

II

I

III

.

in

lull .Mi\

Mi

ill

HIS

1

il

hi

1

In

ami

rd

1

111 it 111

1 '

W.Anr.

File

Morns,

ard

vviih

File

—

containment

.uiit.it

i

<

bulb

light (lit

I

bull)

ting iln

woi

.

1

an.

on

1

1

which n

in

seems

also

11

lear that (he vvav

i

the early works

in

Duchamp and more

—

like

do do with Beckett, the

employed, has

is

to

to

less

mind both problem, ami analytic philosophy. Notes, where aiuoiioiiiv For unlike Due lumps ami

reference are not

sell

parades us

issue,

at

own presumed

An

regress nte within u

ardFi/t once again

(

containment ami com-

sell

pletion, with, nine again, the

same problems

ordinary

of infinite

containing

tile

flat

note cards onto which an alphabetized account

(

onception,"

"Purchases")

"<

onsiderations," or "Decisions," tor

is

Mm

its

conception (the cards headed example, "Prices" ami

(foi

entered, iln

similiar to thai oi

Making

ot

of

example) ami fabrication

work performs

with

/>'"\

M

this time,

Sound

th,

specifically

s

critique

a

oj

//«

Own

indicates

tin piibln space in which us "thinking" or remembering" now takes place is the medium oi the neatly typed on us linguistii event the that p

that

paia.lt of linn

bj

six

An examination

by

earliei object

th<

which bears both 1

Metered Bulb

Own

a

oi itseij

in reveal

sell

.1. hi. 111

si l!

11

tins group,

Sound

//, have a

about/*

further proposition,

p

is

true

if/' is

true,

Y, that states that true," If

and so on

let's

call

it

Z, that states that that

which

itself refers to a

"Y

true

is

if

proposition.

Z, that p, ami

/'

are

A

Beckett takes up the linguistic "solution" to the

Morris had taken up the charat

Dressed

ironically, not

in a "professor

podium, Morns silently tape Morns hail recorded tion of the levels of visual

Panofsky writes, there ing Ins hat to

me

formal pattern

in

of

natural meaning"

tins

is is

." .

.

(W

50>

year before Waterman Switch, in 21. 3 (1964)

is

the clown tor his

ter of

continuing exploration of Beckett's

then

to infinity."

mind/body problem, then he does so

another onion, then another peppermint

all

serial

—

of

Irwin Panofsky's explana-

meaning

is/;:

the

—

insinuated.

man on

greetini

colors

— man

linguistics.

sun and standing at the recited what the "voice"

ami shapes

the strut ,

I

lifting a hat.

i

ru

in e

in

read as a greeting (call this iconograph) n

irst lift-

w hose

endow with a or that p. Then

the culturally interpretive level,

which one can go

1

which I,

from

to higher levels ol interpretation

5

them

(call

iconology). So Panotsky also begins by glid-

was

lc

Judson dancers con-

in this spirit that the

ing effortlessly and imperceptibly from the sense-expe-

ceived of the notion that walking

rience into the statement that expresses

simple

Yet tor the audience watching 21. 3,

Erskine had explained to Watt

truth: that p.

its

was — "something

as if

it

—

as

smoothness of language

so that the sell-evident

hooking into denotation, with sense-contents being transparent to experience, noticeably begins to

mimed performance

the

fail.

As

increasingly goes out of sync

with the cape and opens a gap between the performer

and the "noise" that speaks through him, the professor

when

turns clown, most burlesquely

the gurgle-clink-

And

of "dance" movements.

tempt

slipped.

bending were

lifting or

it

down

the street or

iust fine as repertoires

was

same con-

in this

of "mental" space that Yvonne

for the privacy

Rainer would side with ordinary-language philosophy

Mind li

in truculently declaring. Tbi

a Muscll (the

title

most celebrated dance). This is the context in which Morris composed his dance Sitt (196 D, whose movements, the shifting of heavy sheets of plywood around the stage, are those of of her

ordinary labor. Inferiority

is

also referred to in Site, for

plywood panel

is

removed,

gurgle sound effect seriously lags after the water-

as the last

pitchcr-pounng-drinking routine of the lecturer, or the

Manet's Olympia

nude posed as

a

revealed, reclining in an imitation

is

tape registers coughing and throat-clearing episodes

of the image sequestered within the virtual spate that

way before Morris does them. Thus the ease with

lies

behind the picture plane of traditional painting.

which we apply "natural meanings

But

if inferiority is

move from

anil

we could

to that

/'

own

right this state of

of course, that that rule would need

affairs, realizing, its

would

find a rule that

observed objects

and we wonder where

falters,

p

to

which would need

justification,

own

its

.

.

Since

body

of a dance of ordinary

manifesto

Dance — The

dance world into which Morris was

introduced by his wile, Simone

extreme reorganization iyr>()s

underwent an

1'orti,

ered at the Judson Memorial Church, in

new conception

this

dance

of a

gath-

New

York,

ordinary movement,

of

or ot "task performance," actively sought a

way

make

to

"interior

was ot

gestures,

Balletic

nlled emotions

*&

the music or

ol

*

the body, ol an inaccessible,

ot

virtual field stnu cured bj

established

folded away from real spai

The dan<

im<

Si,e

mally labors to externalize these meanings;

would

the body

tin in

worker, or someone

thai ol the logger, or ih<

ing

down

of

ordinary

ol

walk-

iust

movement" the

dei taring solidarity

ordinary language," whit h

with

a

notion

is

its

(win

ii.'

tin

i

i

|

noi

»

1

1

a

iiln

i.

i

i

te

nothing bui

which word

e

is

KOI

<

» r

n>

I

is

alone publii

haw I

i

access

ithi

iRRIH

i

us<

i

of

—

that attracted

York dancers and performers very powerful-

itself

And Waterman Switch would develop own experience ot the novel Watt,

its

behaviorism

us spin into seriality,

its

»

word

To know ture "i us refer;

ii

something

implementation oi

I

to

Expressionism, abstract — The kind

t

hec k

is.

don't

"i

to

the

!

att.uk

ot

gesture carried out by

balletic

the dance ol (ask performance had been paralleled in

the

1950s In

[asper fohns's ati.uk on (he virtuality

the pictorial gesture, particularly on those gorgeous

smears and swipes and oozes oi viscous pigment through which the Abstract Expressionist painter was thought i" have conveyed his mini sell

A wcuk

like

Icilinss

sink mac hed

a

.

at

/),;/,(

smeared

\

the

"i

and unci

paint,

it

I

he

canvas

a

moves,

a

mocks both

the "device," (he

us putatively

i

is

which rotated

circular swathe

meani

the

such

smear

private world

public one ol (ask

m

:nh (1959)i

presumed expressiveness

tuiiciiein oi

out

(

us midpoint to

160 degrees to register, as

and

tly

Unable

language opens out into

absurdity, madness, "nonsense

the supposed pictun

orrei

need to stage

A serious walk with Watt. hovvcv own extreme reservations about the

certainties ot linguistic

li

private,

a

other things

produces

hi

.

and

this very attraction

Beckett's work.

one's manifest ability

civi

thi

—

work

to his

t

ii

ii

pit

which one can

funi tion

wholly subjei

ol a

Wittgenstein as saying

«

noi to have a

is

the word, n> perform

mind

in tin

a

1

had evei read him)

they

word means, then, meaning in ones mind,

what

he meaning

I

i

would

in

en

la

extreme ordinariness

formed through

hi

to say, ol thai philoso-

is

phy that dissolves the mind body distinction into behaviorisi view ol

New

on the virtuality

ludsnii dancers wi n

of

own

"Specific

more than

stairs

tin

embracing a danci

M\

without

lor

ordinary, nothing

In-

was Beckett's world

taking off and putting on their shoes these

er,

md

i

It

among

body nor-

er's

in Morris's

tramps and hat-passing routines, of actors scratching themselves and talking about farting or halitosis, or

out of Morris's

pre

emv cnl inn and

I

as well as that refusal

Objects."

ly

the dis-

of

movement

painting that would become the

Minimalism, whether

of

ater collective,

it

are always expressive

felt,

an inner meaning:

of

The Mabou Mines, an important theconnected to Minimalism through the intermediary- ot the composer Philip Cilass. was

gesture that would have no

a

i

who

hanneled through the performers

(

joins her

"Notes on Sculpture," or Donald Judd's essay

the late 1950s and early

in

only to be rejected.

is

it

and blood, she

flesh

is

to the anti-illusionism expressed in the very idea

of the inferiority

.

referred to,

Olympia

Site's

a

"gesture."

is

wrenched

ol

feeling

own

Rebelling against his

initial training as a

relation to their maker. But, further, insofar as they

latter-day Abstract Expressionist, Morris encountered

mock

Johns's "device" from within the Judson's search for

units

And

ordinary movement.

he considered the

mark

pictorial

it

artist's

was from

this position that

problem of how

to

make

a

that would have no interior, no connec-

tion to virtual space, no expressive overtones. SelfPortrait

(EEG) of 1963 was one of Morris's answers, much more overtly than Johns's, ties

a solution that,

the very meaning of measurement for which the

— such

as inches, feet, or yards

— must be

invari-

ant and repeatable in order to signify, Duchamp's metersticks form a certain parallel with a behaviorist critique of a mentalist notion of is

meaning

which

as that

guaranteed by internally held ideas or rules that

allow us to

know how

to use a

word

correctly from one

instance to another.

the issue of the device to the question of selfhood, subjectivity, private experience

short to the

—

Fluids, body

in

mind/body problem.

To make the work, Morris had his electroencephalogram taken for a period that would produce a line the length of his

own

— The double

filiation

of the long series

of ruler works (such as Three Rulers, Swift Night Ruler,

MUM Mill

and Enlarged and Reduced

pursued

Inches) that Morris

during 1963 was a declaration of his own connection to

Duchamp

body. For good

through Johns. Begun as early as 1961,

in

the page onto which, over the course of two and a half

measure, during this seismographic

hours, Morris repeatedly copied out the "Litanies of

recording of his brain waves, Morris

the Chariot" from Duchamp's Green Box (his notes for

decided that he would "think about"

the Large Glass), the connection was declared again in

himself. In this sense, if

we could

1962 with Pharmacy, and then over and over

say,

in 1963,

there were ever a line expressive

with works such as Fountain, Fresh Air, and Portrait.

And

This connection, which has been endlessly discussed in

of the

artist's "self," this is

it.

yet the absurdity of the claim

the literature on Morris, was given

is

equally obvious. Neither a picture of Morris's thoughts nor an image of his person, Self-Portrait

early analysis by

Self-

Portrait

as to declare,

(EEG)

(EEG) has

a line that will itself intersect, but only ironically,

And at the same "What is it like to be

most important

"Duchamp's work constitutes

whose interpretative reading

turned to medical technology for a "device" to produce

its

Annette Michelson, who went so

far

a text,

is

Morris's uniquely

historical writing

on the development

personal accomplishment.

While much

with the traditional aesthetic genres.

of the 1960s splits artistic production into either a neo-

time

Dada concern

it

slyly asks the question,

that itself evolved into Pop art, or a

a brain?"

Minimalist position focused on large-scale sculpture,

Contemporaneous with Self-Portrait (EEG), anothwork associates this search for a device "to make a mark" not only with the mental but with language. Morris's Memory Drawings, based on a page of writing

and by so splitting

er

that

summarized

current theories of

own research into the thenhuman memory, are executed in a

his

written line that gradually comes to "picture" the dete-

memory,

rioration of recall

as Morris repeatedly

and rewrite the

initial

attempted

to

page, allowing several

days to pass between each repetition. If,

— the —

postures abstract

presents these as two opposing

it,

first

figurative and the second

certain texts contemporary with this pro-

duction argued for the continuity of a sensibility shared across this landscape. Barbara Rose's "A Art," for example, postulated that a

common

B C

concern

way the ordinary object could be mobilized complacency of American culture meant that between Pop and Minimalism for the

to critique the terrifying

there were both shared strategies (repetition, scale,

in certain versions of his Device Circle paintings,

among them

banal materials) and shared sources,

paint-mixing stick

the immediate example of John Cage

as his

smearing "device," this was undoubtedly a Duchamp's own notorious "device": a set of three metersticks deformed by chance but ironically

and Merce Cunningham, but more

reference to

remotely that of both

Johns used

given the

a ruler instead of a

title

"standard," in reference to the standard-

ization of measure.

Duchamp's

the shape

assumed by

dropped onto

a

a surface

It

made by

own

recording

manner

a set of

artist

production, refusing to divide

maneuvers, resulting

from one meter above, and templates that the

this notion of continuity

in small-scale,

Fluxus-like objects, on the one hand,

and the massively

then

inert

works

used to design various works, among them Network of Stoppages (1914) and parts of Tu m' (1918). Devices pro-

Minimalism, on the other

duced by chance, the

elaborating, two of

lines they trace have

Duchampian

no internal,

expressive meaning, for they clearly have no gestural

it

into a set of neo-Dada, absurdist

meter-long piece of string

repeating the experiment two times, generated in this arbitrary

is

that Michelson argues for Morris's

Trois Stoppages etalons

(Three Standard Stoppages, 1913—14),

Duchamp and

Russian Constructivism

Fountain

of his

( )t

the six

tropes she sees

Morns

parency/reflection

them

(.is

in

—

th<

trans/

ROSALIND KRAI'

7

Glass's use of glass

and mirror) and the revised found-

object

— function

within his Minimalist sculpture;

one

the strategy of framing

—

—

shared by both the

is

sculpture and the more "conceptual

development

when

(as

direction of his

in Statement oj Estbi

Withdrawal [1963] he "untrames" an object he previ-

made by withdrawing aesthetic value from it); two more art as money and the subversion of

ously

— —

measure relate exclusively to the Conceptual work; and a final one art intervening in the ecologically

—

Duchamps

sensitive held of the social (as in

Green Box to "cut

in the

by 1969, the date of her

suggestion

— had extended

the air")

oft

work, and

tive

own snubbing based on style,

of an art criticism (and an art history

Michelson's

guage,

thus joining and extending Rose's

fairly useless categories

Duchamps

of

as this

in

itself

of tropes omits the whole register

list

conceived as a self-justifying

drops from consideration.

ity,

much

that

posals

—

of morphology or

Notes." As a result, the

field of lan-

decided

of his work could remain at the level of pro-

famous projection

as in his

for a

"transformer

designed to utilize the slight, wasted energies Mich .

.

Portrait)

—

laughter.

/

porated into Morris's work as

a

the

/

/

dropping

of

bad been incor-

linguistil

1

earl)' as

1

—

mediums

to be

added

which the

in

expressive body, whether as dancer or as painter, had

traditionally performed

gestures from within

its

and precisely permuted

iihllessly

about the humor involved lessly

a

But

Duchamp and

if

who

wordy-gurdy

sees the

and permutation, which

drum

only he

is

It

way down.' language

juent

Rainer

among

mere sense

Some I'hxi

and pi .

in the ui

with

plat

i

endless

its •'

—

was

tin

nu work, being more open and neutral in terms of surface incident, is more fetish to the varying contexts of space and li^ht in u hich it exists. It reflects mure acutely then two properties and is n itself as

lead in

which two

1964), in

I

of a foot that had been captured as

two things into

warm

captured in the impressionable surface of

lead bars, spaced five feet apart, record the clutching of

from finding an unanalysable set of

performs

performance"

works

oi

result of this, so far is

it

its

and

itselt

space

the-

it.

made Pim

In 1961 Morris also

Portal, a free-stand-

ing doorway, nothing but threshold, doorjam, and lintel.

The work

through

it.

In a

is

wa\ with mirrors.

meant

a

piece

task performance: walk

of

second version, Me>rns lined

each time one did

that

the-

Now walking through

"trace" of one's

a

it

passage was registered, albeit ephemerally; peripheral vision (here would be

outward from

memory

body and into

one's

spatial told that

appeared

ot

weird

in one's

extending

trail

a

kind

a

like a

door-

the door

unloe atahlc

terimage:

al

wrenched away from one's body ami made strangely out ot synt with the

it.

What

is

it

ot

tiki

one's progress,

tO

a

be-

body

I

l

I

hi

loles "i

ii..

"pri

i.

that can I"

ed

u

pun

iuch

wt could saj

Lining, isolating

creates it

as a

peeled away from the

corporealit) i

a hat

10 ROBBR1 M"i

E(rat

I

I

Kemonstrandum)

might

h bi

is

an awareness kind

sell

ol

bound

collet

and present

(ot

tactili

ma ry

I

I

ive

ended

ret

Box

t

e

1

1

the rubric

structu res

M

which

of

body as physical pressure,

called the baptu

—

JcDD, Donald

m

Bod) contact

—

1

it

i

BOX

Q(uod)

1

1

1

in a

1

1

museum to

pi ion ot

due I

misleading path

debut

e

Ins

u

.

nde c

sm made

1

t

I

he

in e

1

lit

it

wink dow n

ol

1

s

1966,

an aesthetit

a

I

the-

ol

we can

ideal forms, the notion of "system," argued via another

It is

exhibition later that year (Systemic Painting), applied

takes "relationships out of the

same idealism

this If

Minimalist

to the issue of serial composition.-*

tended to work

artists

in series,

was

it

argued, this was in order to demonstrate the wholly

a

realm

rational basis for their work, each object the next

for

and

was Judd who

publicly objected to this idea

first

kind of

series,

Which

of

agree with Morris, that

work and make[s] them and the viewer's field of

function of space, light,

vision."

element of a mathematical progression. It

this

to say, the series, transferred into the

is

sculpture, enacts the object's endless capaciu

permutation

as "it takes these

two things [space

light] into itself as its variation

But

their variation."

a function of

is

from being an underlying idea

far

of rationalism as a way of responding to Minimalist

or reason that

work. Speaking of European geometric art (he gave the

work, or group of works, allowing one to essentialize

example of Victor Vasarely), which was, in fact, pledged to what he saw as "rationalism, rational-

around a kind of diagram of

istic

philosophy," he countered, "All that art

based

is

on systems built beforehand, a priori systems; they express

LeWitt

as

-"'

world's like."

idealist,

he

object

example

substituting for such a priori systems was instead, he

taken

And no

claimed, "just one thing after another."

tenaciously the rationalist reading of

Judd was always

matter

Minimalism

dogged

just as

in his

problem

In 1983, speaking of this

it.

— from

— the — up —

thought his own work and that of his colleagues was

rejection of

to

students at Yale University, he said: "One conspic-

uous misinterpretation for example is the idea of most writers in the United States have always said that it's Platonic in some way and involved in order:

some great scheme of

order.

.

.

—

dropped and taken up again

having been characterized as "the look of thought" added his own

—

he explained in a recent interview, "each part dent on the

which

—

— only

—

it

is

it

to be

—

ment" was

just as

ferent placements

much

a function of the object's dif-

and orientations

in space as

it

was

the simplification and reduction of detail. Idealism, that

began

is,

to

Morris began to reason, that ver)

^

I

make

You have

thing

a rational decision

think about

to

is

depen-

you don't think about

it.

it. It

is

something you

is

on each time.

.

.

.

In a logical sequence, a

reduction toward an increasingly

t

bald shape only served to make more naked and unmistakable the

^M

Two Columns

of this irrationality. For an

language one could easily

Hot to

window

from the door bed

.

.

bi

and

to the

fire;

from

(W

\at. fro,

Here

In

reflectivity of the mirrorlike

sense of the

change

way the shape was newly

in its

/row the bed

the door

203)

to

ted by ever)

infle(

placement.

examining

this Brancusi

knelt.

the

Hen

to the

be lay.

window,

window

to tht door.

the fin

to

to fire,

the

the period he was

problem, Morris's L-Beams

(1965) enact the pressure that placement exerts on an

cite:

from the door

door: from the

window; /row

to the

to tin

fire to the bed:

position of the form in space.

surfaces of Brancusi's polished bronzes heightened this

object's shape

Here he moved,

new

The

L-beams — Conceived during

There are many images

Here be stood

changes brought about with each

way of not thinking.

irrational."

in

^

follows in a certain sequence as part

last. It

of the logic. But, a rational

.

and seeing

inception in a prime

as in late Cezanne. As Morris considered the prime object in Brancusi's work the ovoid of the head detached from the rest of the body and presented as a separate whole it became clear, however, that the form of its "develop-

exasperation to Judd's protest. "In a logical thing,'

the door.

its

itself

is

classical land-

historical context

as in Poussin's landscapes

whose work more than perhaps any

his art

Cartesian, as

the

its

—

yield to material context. In fact,

Sol LeWitt,

from

a notion of series that

is

frescoes of Pompeii or Boscoreale, for

That's certainly

.

other Minimalist's has been saddled with a rationalist

from the

master's thesis on

a

across those centuries through

1

example

Writing

project a formal problem from Nine Fiberglass Sleeves

persisted,

—

walling off a particular form

scape, say

Judd's

type of order

It is

endlessly.

1965—66, Morris followed out George Kubler's notion

description of the

have to

it

from

it

does in Beckett's linguistic spirals:

it

and

irrationally

of form-classes.- This

what the

finding out

reading

that justifies

Brancusi's use of bases, during the academic year

pretty

is

much discredited now as a way of

wrong."

itself

within, series operates in the art of Morris, Judd, and

Kubler. george

type of thinking and

how

one's experience of the

certain

a

logic that

would ground

fire,

thi

bed,

/row

from the

tht

fire to

— whether

it

an ob|ei

is

seen from

t

outside and thus encountered as a body; or an obji

experienced from inside, as though

form nagged, so

"What

is

it

reflects the

///f-t

were one's own

to be a

body?" And each /.. as it ol weight ami dimen-

apparent distribution

sion, according to its position

ing split

it

to speak, by the mentalisi question,

between the

the upright

/.

appear-

solid halt cleaving to the floor

ROSALIND

K

l:

II

and the

"lighter" half reaching skyward; the

L poised on

the

on

lying

two extremities takes on an arched,

its

lightened quality of the

L

seeming thickened and dense; while the

side

its

—

resonates with

mind body problem. There there

self;

is

sardonic account

its

the body; there

is

is

of

which certainty

be simple geometries based on squares,

and

circles,

would be sectional

ovals,

more rectangular freestanding to

its

example, an eight-part,

peculiarly linear diagram of

inwardly sloping donut,

itself.

migrate to join another,

centrate on this type of

own kind

of insane reasonableness

like the text or score tor these

at

the scale of the

human bod) and

concomitant sense

something

— could

into another tinny, and another

Mirrored cubes —

.

By L965

.

transmute

turn transmute

in

should have been

it

Minimalism

in

concrete thereness," lor the galleries

which

in

the various works were displayed were even then awash

with the

effet ts ol optic

Judd's work, lot

illusioiusni

.il

was opulent with the

ot the

mark.

Williams Mirrors

In 19") he devised an untitled

which tour mirrors, hung on the tour

installation in

opposing walls

were accompanied by

ot the gallery,

paired frames hanging

at

an angle

such that to look through any

mirrored surface was to

haw

front ot each,

in

the frames into the

ot

the illusion ot looking

receding line of frames within frames within

frames

.

.

.

The three-dimensional,

unbend mto the

Two

monument.il

ot

sp.ui.il

impossibility ot a straight

years later, in Portland Mirrors si

(I

1

)"),

Minimalism

ing

reflective

slum

ol

Plexiglas

to

empty

medium

into the

but nature also makes a mark." and by the early 1° 0s Morns had begun to think about the strut tures both made (like Stonchenge) r

and found

(like caves) In

Convert the an straight

line ot

ot

societies to

prehistorit

the suns revolutions into the

the intelligible, arrowlike trajectory,

,i

paradoxical term "uncanny materiality" to describe

to

experience tins culturally ancient notion

tin

basii

stria

llii.

hum. tin

i,

tout

first

ing

fa<

ol

.il>\ss

mon

tin

•

I

It

in

to

whuh

is

to say, ol entering

nun which

than evident

exhibited

l>lo(

'I'

in

1965 set

ks, the gestalt

part

ROBER1 MOI

mto

to

think and

text

a

ot

mark

that

one

he produt ed lo the end sol. u

"primary structure" and

inn, infiniti

the object in

bj

itself

t make the work felt. All that was then necessary to was to lift it onto the wall, where cra\it\ pulled

ROSALIND

Ki

11

against the order of this line and opened the work to

and aggressively against the grain

most

ot its

orthodox. Modernist interpretation. In the eyes of the

seemed

it

to defy gravity, hovering

being thought by

.

.

—

Smithson. Robert

the simple illustration used

in

Monuments

experi-

Smithson's

monuments was

ence that demanded that one think it apart from anything

open grave

"optical''

—

bodily or physical

sing

a

don't

but the result will not

had produced

it

a cut.

want

avoided the edge that would cui

it

would

into space, the edge that, by isolating forms,

By not cutting,

differentiate figure from ground,

it

could allow the canvas to read as an unbroken continu-

And

undivided plane.

a singular,

ity,

of

the visual

and

field,

immediacy,

of

the-

ot

own

the viewers

perception

the Modernist logic, was the wr\ essence

By avoiding the production

within the

formulation

hut tor Morris, everything indeed to do with

it

i

Tin

lengths

ot

a

tin

whi

could

to

maintain

drains oul

•

thi

of a systi

the formli

'

d

1

1

,

ni ss

m, and arrives

Form

is

i,

ii

rati

parati

between things om .,i

./

n

>ial

and an

increast

notion

of

of

anti-form, exemplified by his

the de- architectun of

own enactment of alt Rundown I9i

his

made

"entropy

Buried

as realized in his Partially

visible,"

dshed (1970), and

\\

form's yield to gravity, as in

I

But the parallel between Smithson and Morris, this

moment

might

call

in

the

the W

latefa

cor,

which

to say that anti-

is

form, an irreversible, abyssal endlessness, a

type

ol

serialitj

that

at

1960s, relates to what wt

is

itself

has us true site in language.

Smithson wrote,

"In the illusory babels ol language,"

our plane

ol

'iits.

he

arr/tt

might advanct

sections oj

meanin

irregularis cami plain

ot

the wall

in

the fabrii

or voids

but this

oj

unexpected

knowledgt

\ttomlt

.

n

.

.

./'/./

endless architectures

and counter-architectures

md.

end, art perhaps only meaning/ess

if

then

is

an

Smithson had always countered the ol Minimalism, and specificallj

reading

\t tht

lou

and

in

thi

and

i

desi ribi ng

energj

i

di

b\

r\\ itt's

I

yield to paradox, his

distini

pli

ai

LeWitts

"concepts,"

ol

form

domain of gravit) thi

rationalist ol

supposed manipulation

wit

surfa

tm

diffi

ss

welcome

also

is

ssar]

i

of

i

n ntiai

onsi rvativi

in

enterpri

o

i

lii

extended pit

la

I

Is

ol

Far from

Ian

fi

language guai anti eing

ii

difFerentiation

Morris had thus argued

ntropii

i

ridors oj history,

unknown humors,

echoes,

and to dd inter-

to get lost,

specifically

intoxicate bimselj in dizzying syntaxes,

uts themselves «

th<

entropy, in which

of

hi

ynesi

called neither figure nor ground

I"

horizontal field as the

the operatoi

i

he

I

onto

lilted

gaps thai som< how opt [*h(

hundreds ofti

sand

disturbing theii

pulled open large gaps

thai

ross

from hooks or suspendi d from

ing it)

a<

fal

regular slashes

work was

slicing not

the canvas plant

Systematil

of

n while the

metricallj

had

lint

Morris began to work with

felt

process

ed into their ph. mi

planar

whin

mn

half

in

sand on

Indeed, Smithsons imagination was idled with the

an

form,

oi

rigid

n

were submitted to sIk

vision

of

Pollock's

something

cut, with

th<

onv< ntionall)

vision

to

forms (cut out

of

of

in

into space but into the continuity as

wbitt

the work, then, could produce form

tie-Id),

as the law ot the

itsc-ll

and

.

entropic production

opticality,

iinbrokenness

that field, in an all-at-onceness that, according

itself.

division but

would

that plane

then, according to the Modernist logu yield an analogue of the

sand box divided

\tdt

had

to," he

it

For Greenberg, the importance of Pollocks

was that

of

cutting edge that goes into

"A brush stroke can have

deep space when you liquid line

an

it

turn grey; after that wt havt him run anti-ct

to

Knots

was

able to avoid the sensation that

explained

to

clockwise in the box until tht

vation in the development of it

of

sandbox, whose

to explain the irre\ ersibilit)

bild and havt bim

into the unsized canvas, was hailed by Greenberg as an inno-

drawing precisely because

it

with black rand on the ont

bleed

its

L

Picture in your mind's eye the

said. "

frequently softened by

One

Passaic."

of

a child's

entropy, Smithson advised his reader:

Clement Greenberg had The dripped line itself,

as

his

in

horizontality Smithson stressed by comparing

mirage.

"a

5

.

it

purely

astt

/

(1967), hooks into the notion of entropj as that was

to explain

weightlessly before one's eyes like an effulgent cloud, a field of

as

1968), or profligate Process pieces such as

t

web was prized

pictorially devout. Pollock's linear specifically because

of Morris's telts, as well as

works such

ressively horizontal

Morris, of course, was reading Pollock's painting directly

anti-form

In tins sense, the

the continuous disorder ot anti-form.

t

In

order

of

smithson

Ins

thread watt*

Everything

logit

insisted

LeWiti

.

thinks, writes, or has

The

dictory.

made

is

inconsistent and contra-

'original idea' of his art

is 'lost

mess

in a

of drawings, figurings, and other ideas.' Nothing

where

it

seems

to be.

is

the success or failure of the task), tends to ignore the

presence of the text, neatly, fanatically, pencih J into the left corner of every sheet. Entering the third

Beckett returns, then, through the very guise of

As the body

tries to finish

dying, something

own

anti-form was

made

The

textuali-

the record of the task, once completed. But whether

explicit in the

diary he kept for Continuous Project Altered Daily (1969), in

which he

duced by

his labors.

the beautiful equilibrium that marries subject and

mind and body. For the text is either the command to do the task, given beforehand, or it is

a text, its logic is that of repetition to infinity, the

imitation of form produced by the abyss.

term, language, into the equation, the text pulls apart

mad

nonetheless, relentlessly continues. Taking the form of

ty of Morris's

talks about the bodily disgust pro-

object,

preceding or following, the text

how

regressive paradox of

has understood the task;

Never one with the voice that puts in

its

appearance in Morris's work of the early 1970s, the argumentative, internal drone that

fills

both

Hearing (1972) and Voice (1974), continues to attach the third force of language to the staging of the

of these enactments

to be

is

found

in the series called

Blind Time, initiated in 1973 and returned to in 1976, 1985, and again in 1991- These drawings,

Time

made by

attempt in with plate

.

.

— either

"uncanny materi-

he

It

was

Freud tells us that is experienced as uncanny is precisely this

displacement of the single, coherent, collected

or of

shapes to be applied to

(phallic)

the sheet

ole of multiple, shifting,

— were pure

a case of

said.'

sheet of paper

itself,

found the

what was expect-

form by an aureMirrored Cubes

spooky things gathered r

around an unspeakable absence. the Medusa, he said; this

is

This

is

the image of

the dreadful recurrence

of what the child must strive to repress: the appearance of the "castrated" mother, proof of the oedipal threat.

areas,

everywhere redolent of the

The uncanny, he

— and

pressure pressing back. In this, the objective geome-

become dangers

in the

world

—

the vertical

and horizontal bifurcations of the rectangular sheer,

example, or the masking tape deposited as a take on the resonance of Maurice MerleauPonty's argument about the body's role in the phenom-

for

—

enology of perception.

It is

what he called the "internal

horizon" of the body's density, the fact that a back, a left

and

a right, an

up and

it

a

has a

down,

that allows us to "surface" into a world always already

anticipated as meaningful. Mind, in this sense, present in the very dimensionality of carnality:

is

What

?

The phenomenological reading of the Blind Times, though it captures the striving after an exquisite

is

the return of this threat, narcissistic exten-

thus, according to the infantile

"omnipotence of thoughts," protections of

logic of the

oneself

body describes

explained,

reminder that what were once

limit as a sense of pressure pressing against the

be a bod)

.

reflections "uncanny," a disruption of

those of the rectangular

oil.

like to

." .

ed from Minimalism.

explored in the Leads: the experience of the body's

is it

is

to

disappearance of the "unitary" form behind a surface of

sions of oneself

and

command

Uncanny materiality — Smithson

spread, take on exactly that haptic quality Morris had

front

what

say,

onward from one task

task, the textual

series

then another onion, then another

in a

"square"

we could

then another onion, then another pepper-

hand's pressure, the fingers' extension, the palm's

tries the

is,

mint, then another onion, then another peppermint,

what

mark" that would deposit a record of his a smear of velvety powdered graphite mixed

These marked

".

another:

description of simple

Morris, with his eyes closed, would perform his task by a

what pushes the

ality,"

exercises in "touch." For

"making

also

carrying out graphic tasks geared to the

geometries

Blind

know whether one

mind/body

problem. But, perhaps, the most effortlessly beautiful

in

it

what opens up the

is

to

introduces the turtle.

The textual body — The relentless,

intentional

artist's

marking) and an outside (the external record of

His concepts are prisons devoid

of reason.""

anti-form.

balance between an inside (the

— have suddenly

the double that

turned against one and

to one's very being. is

no longer

a

It's

of

this sense

guardian but now

a

menace that accounts, Freud says, for the location of the uncanny in the doppelganger, in the mirrors through which departed spirits can re-enter the space of the living, in the bodies of androids, and in the endless series of substitutes for the threatened penis.

The uncanny is thus itself a serial production, whose vehicle can often be the mirror, but whos<

medium is the body, and the mind, and langua The casting of body parts, in a multiplication of phalluses and phallic stand-ins. to torm

around an opening, 1980s, was one torm uncanny seriality.

in in

a

Ir.inu

the Hydrocal works of the

winch Morns pursued

ROSALIND

Ki:

this

1

S

—

Vetti. house of the through the

Another, of course, was and pleats

pieces, the folds

relt

which

of

permutability, Duchamp's "Litanies" merely illustrate or thematize

from 1970

Felts

gradually bloomed at the end

m House

image

— into the

(1983)

It

these works that the

meticulousness

of

their

Minimalist

of

now

is

seriality

able

under the

the repressed.

of

So that the later Felts conduct a rereading of Minimalism by entering its own series into a new one, which

may

turn

in

enter into

.

.

English

how

stood

(W

among

relation to,

iii

>>.

exhibition

.

was further peculiar that

this,

singly,

le

followed

"This

12

pronounced

(W

tart"

whom

who had

of the .mists

own

to Ins

',

-

An

and

h.

Hi

\

Oxford

Rosi

'

>.

l

Notes,'

\n

in

mpia Press

l\

Hoefei .1

.

study "i U

was

tit

il»

firsi

t" placi

|ai

qui

.,t

tin

;

ract

and

A

I

(

\

l.ii

Rosi

10

H

i

pp

Cambridgi

Mortal Qmilioiu (Cambridgi

Nagel

.

early

u

I

to -in undi

inn. linn

In

l

he

.

.it

t

Duchami \.

••

Administration to

ni

.iii. ti.

r

Buchloh,

•

Bf

\

.

in

\ted in

'

ritiqui

a luriti

1962

i

13

semiotii

.i

with

ni

of [nstitutioi

i

..i

iii.

I,. i,

.ii

in |oi

n iii,

•

win.

i

e

to whii

i

I

It

inn in rnaki

••

Of all

ti

drawing

1.

•

M

li

n|

lo in

1.

rring to othi

by

B

i

losed

In

it

i

M,

n,.

.

it

M

i

1.

Noti

m lopmi

speaks

inn.

1961

I"

no

14,

An Aesthetics v.

li

(Octobei 19

I

rransgression,"

ol

ot

ol

on

i

1

Man

1

1',

d in ludd

qi

1964), n p

I,

idptun

Si

describing

p

thi

<

multiplicity

Rorty says,

paci

is

made

e) u

is

(February

'

synthesized

ncepts

ti

n

i

nfin

e i.

ni

ms

(embedded

ol

sunn.

cannoi I

whicl

rransci ndi ntal

si

thi

1

1.

sit

relation to the

Running

versus sin

.,i

whi n Ki

h 'I"

thi

spelled oui in thi

is

i

is

given

laim thai

..i

singula! presentations to

l»

brought to consciousness

representations (unnoticed by

rintoom many I

lrti

urns to knot*

in intuitions)

Kani

relations

tedui tion, Rorty says,

can only be conscious of objects

tivity

Galleries,

p. 11

18

collection

intuitions .i

,

mind/body problem's

assumption .,

by

il»

In

1965),

16

"the assumption thai manifoldness

hai

l

[contains]

bin thai then

sense,

I

p

in ibid

.1

so mology and probh

ol this issue ol

(

i

no

19,

.

icepts) as analysed by

li

in

run

!84

p

Galleries

In

Richard Rorty

unless

fi

D

nd thai Bui unliki

i

tin

id its

i

di

B

,

.mil ih. i> unity

ted within the in

19)

i

"Wayward

the top ol

ai

it

DonaldJudd: Complett Writings 1959

Morri

first

1990

ii.n

W

tti

Harper and Row, 1989

\ri

Robin Morris

From

1969

i

(

.

ill

mi

An

u

traditional

.is

..i

of Morri

Conceptual thi

Duchamp's

fun ing

as

H

Lahyrintbi

of

19,43

i

nivenity

I

relation to

ill say so") disruptivi

form

191

p

1),

he also places

as

Robert Rauschenberg

Benjamin Buchloh analyzes Morris's

Michel

ed

Silltr,

,1

Michelson,

|udd 11m. tn.

i

p 50

rransgression,"

ol

George Heard Hamilton (New

1960s (New York

lb*

.Mt

it. ih, s

Watt

See Hoefei

tlu

Nova

B9

Marctl Ducbamp, Salt

Morris, "Aligned with Nazca

19

novel in colloquj with

thi

si

I

Landscapes," his text for this catalo "\i

positivism, although she specifically argui

v

tin

by

I

8(1965),

/''" s (Halifax

!94

p

with tins citation, Paris

ritical

<

p

maliim,

Hen

no 6 (February

i.

A

lr* Yoarbooi

Aesthetics

Bergei opens th< lust chaptei

18

l>

195

I

read \\ ittgenstein in the

Artfimm

pp

I),

nivetsity Press, 197

l

them have

ol

to," pp. 274 9

B(

\

[bid

i

(New Vork

Allrcd Jules Aycr, Language, Trull

an

number

account, Jasper Johns,

ulpture,"

Morris—An

Michelson, "Robert Rosi

.

i

-iutk

kett, U

know

I

Donald Judd, "Speci6i Objects,

28;

Minimalist

French objective novel,

reprinted in Minimal Art

14,

IV Duchamp,

25).

X, Y, Z -...

I

relates the

ol

Novembet 1965], reprinted in Minimal ed Gregory Battoxk [\e» York Dmion.

960s was, according

Ruben Morns.

Robert

Corcoran Gallery

quite the contrary to tluir knowledge of

is

then adds,

One

p. 292).

m

rransgression,"

IM

[Washington.

Sanouillei and Elmei Peterson, trans

I

task performance ol

cautions against assuming that these artists

sin

Am

i< ollegi ot

13.

resembled the

it

Aesthetics

Robbe-Grillet and the

Critical Anthology,

1

Inverted Shoulder

short time by another, less

.i

true. In tins

is

it

.itic r

— An

reprinted in Donald Judd: CompUtt Writings 1959

seldom but was

it

other things, Judson dance, which she calls

i.u.iliii;iK

to Al.un

sensibility

pp 222

in

il\

Row, 1962; 1939), p

An. 1969], pp. 55-59). 11 In her essay A B C Art." Barbara Rose

1966), pp

Watt's smile

.

Hereinafter,

Themes in

Michelson, "Robert Morns

12.

.

s ~i

S56

.is

two

the

>.

I

the "dance ol ordinary language" and ot

early

23).

\i

French in

Annette Michelson's important early essay on Morris analyzes his

work

M

l)

statement (p

s

267 and pp

York: Harper and

1968],

was done"

it

of

in

English trilogy,

Ironi the

.ire

Molloy

Erwin Panofsky

9.

An: A

and thought he under-

17

published

lirsi

textual references to the trilogy arc preceded by

read" (Art in

waft hid jn-ople smile

citations

(p

statements by the Unnamable (p

\\ ittgenstein," she

had

pp 16

wen subsequently published own translation (London John

Beckett's

The above

1959)

follows: "wordy-gurdy

themselves had read

Watt - "Watt

m

as a trilogy,

which, however,

.

Mark lour

trans

.

1950. 1951, and 1952, respectively; they in

10.

Shoulder (1978),

of Stnn

us

Nazca could serve

This freedom, he reasoned, was

Times

itself.

While endorsing the new

for aesthetic experiences that return to the

through

instant

rst

i

an extension of now bang built

./i

pert ti\ ing self [to] take

individual those processes of perception and cognition lost

see>.

world in

./

"something intimate

lines

at

greatcoat fluffed u ith the

.i

Supplement uj\

ii

propose that his

to

<

insidt

and unimposing," something that could help us to rethink the way our bodies relate to the world.

Morns went on

U

rt

Forifthesi \paces imp/) aloneness they indicatt nont of tht

impressed him most about

large scale nor

its

t/.u

Murphy, a Malone, ora

with the dust, tht grimness, or even

and the more expansive, liberating realm of the Peruvian plain.

discontinuous with

i

./

endlessly

ideas

these//

urban spaces

t

xpact

and precise!) permuted his limitei and meagt belongings. IL rt counting andfarting

an aesthetics of the self

—

artist's

out for himself in the post-

yean an

II

of the world. In those spaces,

his

Aligned with Nazca" constitutes

section of

'nna>:

I

The gi

war

what Michel Fbucault would call a description of the monument" a meticulous and personal diary of the

Beckett, The

later, in a critical analysis ot his

argument

significant

first

— Samuel

not about me.

it is

journey published in Artforum, the artist

The

Maurice Berger

inst sui h

i

co Morris

A decade

reated from 1962

an

arti<

Although theses dances represent

ulation

ol

6

the

sell

his only lull scale

choreographic works, they formed a conceptual core for

much of his thinking about the vicissitudes War (1963, no. 56), a jousting tournament

of the

self:

between Morris and the

artist

Robert Huot, examined

masculine power and aggression; 21.3 (1964, no. 57), a disorienting art-history lecture, questioned the extent

which conventional perceptions understood through

to

language can be taken for granted; Arizona (1963,

body

no. 55), a study of the

in

motion, examined the

and productive

relationship between useless

Site (1964, no. 63), a juxtaposition

laborer and a naked Carolee

Schneemann

Olympia, explored the nature of the

and

its

relation to play

tasks;

of Morris as manual as Manet's

artist's

labor

and freedom; Check (1964),

a dispersal of forty performers into a large audience,

and Waterman Switch (1965, no. 69), a nude encounter between Morris and Yvonne Rainer and a transvestite

refigured the artist/spectator relationship;

accomplice played by Lucinda Childs, broached the scandalous subjects of sexuality and liberation.

While these dances centered on various processes and task performances, the reliance on props, sound tracks, words, and role-playing allowed greater access to the humanistic,

emotional space of the self often

banished from the resolutely abstract, antinarrative realm of 1960s Minimalist sculpture and dance.

examined

In these works, Morris

own

his

role as actor:

neither a directly autobiographical "I" nor a neutral task performer, he walked the fine line between

representing different personae and attempting to find

own

a place for those fragments of his

him

that might allow

examine,

to

history

test,

and shape the

interior space of the self.

He holds

a shield adorned with a photograph of President Eisenhower.

wears a

His opponent in

advance

dance at

in

make

to

total

suit of

their

darkness.

armor made

of junk.

They have agreed

weapons harmless. They begin

A

large

gong sounds

their

continually.

They stand

opposite sides of the stage. They taunt each other with voodoo

dolls.

They

hesitate.

They charge

at

each other. They clash. He

releases a pair of white doves. They fight as the doves flap overhead.

They run out

weapons. They

of

fight hand-to-hand.

They

fall

War, 1963. Morris

In

with Robert Huot at

Judson Memorial Church. New York.

21.3, 1964. Morris Theater,

Man

Ray,

print. 8'

New

in

costume

for

performance

performance

at

in

Stage 73, Surplus Dance

Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Selavy. 1924.

S.

collaboration

York.

2x6";

The Samuel

to

inches (21.6 x

White

III

1

7.5 cm). Philadelphia

Gelatin-silver

Museum

of Art,

and Vera White Collection.

10

the floor. They for three

roll

throughout most of Arizona, a position that neither

toward the audience. Blackout. The gong sounds

disrupted nor questioned the

more minutes.

\

iewer's sense ot self, the

made

disorienting finale of twirling lights He stands barefoot

a single finger to indicate the start of the

gesture that

sunglasses and a blue denim

list

He wears

accompanied by

of instrucbons

monotonous sound

a

for sorting

He stands center

returns.

his

blue

He throws

He stands

Blackout.

joint.

lights

was pushed into

memory:

and hence into

a centerless space

a

which the psychological

in

— maintaining

darkness of the hall, Morris was

his place

but masked by the

fairly invisible at this

point. In contrast to Panofsky's notion of perception

emerging into

of

labored breathing and a heart beating. Blackout. He twirls an electrical

cord capped by two blue

mesmerizing repetition served

in the absolute center ot the action

with his back to the audience.

accompanied by a sound track

a javelin at a blue target,

their vertiginous,

center was perpetually unsure

He rearranges

a blue T-form constructed of a lamp stand and two sticks attached

by a swivel

audience's concentration on the luminous specks

and

kind of autistic solipsism

cows. He leaves the

impossible

it

viewer to he comfortable or compliant

The

it

track, a rambling

stage.

tor the

to suppress responses rooted in narrative or

upper

are almost imperceptible. His

used by farmhands

He

stage. Blackout.

and trousers. He twists

movements

torso so slowly that his actions are

shirt

raises

section (a counting

first

introduce each subsequent episode).

will

He

the middle of a large, darkened stage.

in

clear

meaning bound by

historical

convention, the clash ot reduplicated voices and the intentional lapses in synchronization that permeated

over the heads of the audience. The

lights slowly dim. Blackout.

21.

also frustrated the spectator's ability to render

I

Tu

Marcel Duchamp,

122'

m', 1918.

Oil

on canvas and paintbrush. 27

inches (69.9 x 311.8 cm). Yale University Art Gallery,

«

Gift of

v

the

estate of Kathenne S. Dreier.

He steps up

white

shirt,

He begins

podium situated

to a spotlighted

darkened stage. He adjusts and striped

He drops

tie.

his lecture. His

moves

is

He

and out

in

a gray

suit,

t

was eschewed, thecontem

feels his chin.

about the

echoed by a tape

haltingly,

moments

meaning from the performance. In this strange theater, ol spontaneity in which even the most benign instant

the middle of a

dressed

hat

of synchronization

in

me

acquaintance greets

on the street by removing

from a formal point of view within a configuration that lines, I

"When an

Iconology, describes a single, everyday gesture:

is

his hat,

I

forms part

world of vision.

automatically do, this as an event (hat removing), limits of purely

I

When

I

of clashing

\s.is lost .is

lell

I'u

identity,

Morris's first threi dances

within pi

.i

fragmt

rformani

i

nt<

Morris's

ni

d visual and aural

oi

ikewed temporal setting

ol

u

n, ii

audiena i

21)

,i

|

u|

li

'i

i

iv<

oupli

ll'ilil.lll

Mm'

«

1 • «

'In

nl

an

could be

[

ai

ci

maintained tion on

si

1

1

a

i.i

ili<

ni

he passivi

1

being 1

1

is

a

oherent

i

consistent connection with al "I

i

sc

tion ol a

fragmented

hi Ins

prim

Duchamp

For

named

I,

reared

a ret

sell to

som<

iple influence

Duchamp,

only by absurd aliases

R Mutt, marchand du

human

identic]

rirj

found du

I

Ins ni ii

>ui

i

ol his

sel

Marsllavy,

"The

idea

an essential concept

invention

Duchamp said

mi. ept u, or

in

\

the linguistit play and private puns ot a ot

Dm ha m

Cunt [1963, no

I

Litanu

1

1961

>.

vers

ot

in

1

lei

1

i

.i.l.i

mi

i

ii

Mi trace

i

•

a half

oi

hours, the

text ol "litanies ot

oi his

1963

ol

the artist,

[964

oi

dislocated and

a

emotional and intellectual

I

le<

ttoencephalogtam and lead X

/

1

ln(

has

(

1

/9. 7 x

ot the

1962, Painted wood and mirrors, 18

(29.2x91.4

Inchi

Mori

Stage 73, Sutplus

in .hi K

two ami

(tamed with metal and glass. 70't*

Pharmacy

2K

rfornu r

I

43.2 cm). Collection

site

hi< h, tor

ephalogram

Self Portrait (EEG) labels,

36

Pt

no, 52],

Duchamp's Green Box (published in 1"' (EEC (1963, no 14), which consists

Self Portrait

i

>M.

hariot," copying n directlj from the typographic

(

i

1

the wasteful onanism

54]);

w

in

repeatedh wrote out the

artist (In

1

|1

,

number

inspired constructions (e.g.,

>-

1

Switch [I960], Swift Nigbt Ruler

an

i

whuh

cm). Collet tion

irolee

Dam

>

Schneemann Nrw York

IIiimIit,

X

'

1

1

.

x

oi the artist.

in

performance

at

Yvonne Rainer, The Mind

Church,

center; the

two dozen or so objects and drawings of

rulers, rods,

New

produced between 1961 and 1964 that fundamentally

at

Judson Memorial

York.

approach to personality and meaning was not entirely

commensurate with

and other objects of measurement

a Muscle: Trio A, 1966. Yvonne Rainer

Is

performance with David Gordon and Steve Paxton

in

was never

either sensibility. Morris

comfortable, for example, with the formalism of

challenged "objective" or fixed standards by

the Minimalist choreographic milieu out of which he

manipulating or skewing calibration.

emerged. Having participated

in

Ann

Halprin's San

Francisco improvisational dance workshop in the He stands upstage and He

arms are

right of center. His

dressed

folded. His back

work clothes and boots. He wears

is

to the audience.

a

papier-mache mask that reproduces, without expression,

features.

Downstage

is

left,

in

a white box conceals the hardware for the

sound track, a tape of construction workers

He walks upstage center

first

board

off

stage.

drilling

to a large structure

washed plywood boards. He the

his facial

He

with jackhammers.

composed

slowly begins to dismantle returns.

He removes the

of whiteit.

He takes

rest of the

late-1950s

—where

task performance, non-narrative

improvisation, and intuition were championed

Monte Young

the performance projects of La early 1960s, Morris

was drawn

operational, and task-oriented choreography of the

Judson Dance Theater

in

New

York." Deconstructing

the style, conventions, and aesthetics of ballet and

Modern dance, these choreographers

who, in addition Morns, included Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs,

to

the last panel. She

Steve Paxton, and Yvonne Rainer

is

revealed reclining on a lounge of pillows and

powder and a ribbon

around her neck, she recreates Olympia's pose. He walks downstage left.

He

He moves one

carries

it

on

of the

his back.

plywood boards

He kneels next

into various positions

to

it.

He puts

the board

down. He walks upstage center. He covers her with a board. He returns

downstage

left.

He

turns his back to the audience. Blackout.

the

to the passive,

boards, relocating them to other parts of the stage. He takes away

white fabric. Naked, except for a dusting of white

—and

in

advoi ated

the elimination of narrative and the employment

everyday movements and activities

They placed emphasis on

in their

oi

dances.

the temporal actions and

interrelationships of the performer rather than on Ins

The operational members of

or her personality or autobiography exercises choreographed by soon

the juilson group

While the dances were influenced by Duchamp's autistic economy as well as by the work

oi

of Morris's avant-garde dance contemporaries, his

a degree,

Morris's dances

—and

— wen

<

Minimalist sculpture shared us

<

simultaneously explored

in

oexisteni with the nsi in

the mid-1960s and, to

on( erns.

A

i

hart bj Rainer,

MAIHIlii

who

.

S3

and worked with Morris

lived

mid-1960s,

in the

new

the areas of convergence between the

lists

sculpture

and the new dance:

energy equality

factory fabrication

1.

\\9

DANCES

OBJECTS

and

"found" movement 2.

unitary forms, modules

equality of parts

3.

uninterrupted surface

repetition

4.

nonrejerential forms

neutral performance

and discrete events

5. literalness

task or tasklike activity

6. simplicity

singular action, event, or tone

7.

human

human

scale

scale™

As an example, Rainer pointed out gestures in her dance The

(1966) were not mimetic but

Modern dance,

body end,

was "geared

takes the actual weight of the

it

go through the prescribed

to

was the task

it

and

A

Eliminating

literal.

Rainer's choreography

time

to the actual

Muscle: Trio

and the prescribed narrative time

narrative references

of

that the actions

Mind Is a

itself

and the

motions."''' In the

stresses sustained

by

the body in expediting that task that determined the

"The demands made on the body's

dance's structure.

(actual) energy resources," observed Rainer, "appear to

be commensurate with the task the

floor, raising

would get out of a

as one

walk down the

or

movements lit

getting up from

it

when one

stairs

mimetic ...

are not

etc.

—much

chair, reach for a high shelf

The manner

not in a hurry.

is

for in their

execution they have the factual qualities of such

The pedestrian

actions.""' Is

— be

an arm, tilting the pelvis,

a Munlt was reflected

character of The

dam

of the

New

in

performance

Judson Memorial

at

York.

artist

grounded the discourse of Site,

extent that ol Arizona and

was eliminated (David Gordon,

er"

Church,

Mind

in the work's rejection

hit-ran hies of traditional dance: the position of

"principal

Arizona, 1963. Morns

21,

},

subjectivities: here, female prostitute

Duchamp,

as he did to

whom

and male worker.

Paxton, and Rainer held equivalent roles on stage); the

In contrast to

nan issism

a deautobiographizing process in which the work

attai

bed

the "beautiful" dancer's body

t

was suppressed (ordinary street clothes were worn); and romantii artifii

Kami

gestures were discouraged. "The

balleti<

,

performance has been reevaluated," observed

ol

(

Ai lion, or

i

what one dots,

and important than the exhibition and altitude, and that through submerging is

at

oi

not even Oneself, one

tion

|

[more) interesting

is

ol

an best be

lot

USed on

the personality; so ideally one is

a neutral

t

lot

i

urn.

movements,

intrit

.md

historical references,

this

kind

ol

i

ate

sound

tr.u ks,

and elaborate

anonymous posing

favored

l>\

xampli «

.

was

lass laboi

built

and

n adii

tin

thi

ii'

Morns, wearing

faithful reading ol in

many Judson

I"

19 i0»)

II'

)

H

I

It

1

fai

.t

I

(1st

(a

Herbert Marcuse

ilitate this

at

mask

much

oi

her

ol S//t

ot his

OU n lair, was engaged

"various job activities [he| bad while working in

in

onstrui tion

As

it

to undersi ore the impossibility oi being a

lor

when a student in

in

l>\

i

ontamt

Art ana's

land the

at

the

understanding, the

tl

numerous autohiogr.tphu

"method

for sorting

t

al

ows"

tual instrut tions for sorting

the adolest ent Morris and his father,

(

ows used

who was

in

the hvestot k business; the artist's lassoing motion

in ailed his work as

Marxian

Reed College

references it

,

own

the mid- 1960s, while

Morris's tlaiu es

produt tion gleaned from his

philosophy and psyt hology

mid

84

ol tht

a

oi

avoided

on an analogy between working

work

barat teristit oi

t

horeography

neutral doer uninst ribed by ideology or history,

texts,

choreographers Th< ideological content

t

narrative

horeographii literalness as well as the

(is)

panit ular person or

self-representation; Schneemann's nudity, tor

example, was also

I

artist as a

"Rrose signals

Morris's performers were permitted a degree

master. of

Mut Morris's dances, involved as they were with -

bed Iron) the

notorious

harat ter

i

tletat

tor

some

professional

in specific,

I

an

history at

1961 a sei

a

horse wranglet

m

tin

1950s;

related to his experience as a graduatt student in

21

Hunter (

63; and UKr/t

nun

ni

ollege in

New Mirk from

rman Switch was the name

roadway

in

San Prani

isi

ol

o he had surveyed

—

in the early 1950s.

Of this

autobiographical content,

Morris observes:

Although that

is

had sympathy with Duchamp's

I

never centered,

kind ofpresence

bothered

narcissistic

drew on

I even

shape this persona. While

to

effortless

work

Modern dance

was trying other ways

I

lot.

a persona. To some degree

own past

wasn't interested in

I

body doing

every psychological nuance.

me a

notion of a self

wanted to manifest a particular

my performances.

in

showing the perfect,

and masking

I

to establish

the events of my

many

of the

Judson performers were involved in blank-faced, neutral

a name it, to acknowledge that this a person and the audience must deal with

movements.

persona

to

character

is

self-consciously trying to create

frame

it,

to

25

that person.

It is

was

I

—

not surprising then that in a recent essay, Morris,

names that characterized

referring to himself by special

various aspects of his

work

(the Minimalist sculptor

"Major Minimax," for example, or the earthworker "Dirt Macher"), combined corporeal signifier and

proper

name

— "Body Bob" —

to refer to his

choreographic persona. 26 Indeed, Morris played a tangential role in only one

dance piece

Check. This work,

which the

artist

considered his least successful dance, was performed only twice

1964 and in 1965.

—

at the

at the

Moderna Museet

in

Stockholm

Judson Memorial Church

in

New

in

\brk

Engaging the audience more directly than

Waterman

any of the other dances, Check was organized around strategies of infiltration

chairs were placed at

room, with performers

aisles

Rainer

in

Switch, 1965, Morris, Lucinda Childs, and Yvonne

performance

at the Festival of the Arts

Today, Buffalo.

and displacement. About 700

random

in the center of a large

rendered actions. Repeatedly dispersing upon a signal

around the perimeter. Forty

—men, women, and

—executed

through the entire space. At a given signal, the forty

resume their wandering, the performers formed what Morris has termed a "proto-audience." Since the approximately 700 spectators were free to sit or stand

assembled into groups

as they

children

to

various actions in these aisles and then "wandered"

for simple,

simultaneously

watched, the performed actions were mostly

them. "Purposely antithetical" to his

invisible to

previous dances, Morris reminds us that in contrast to

had "no central focus, climax, dramatic

these, Check

Two L-Beams, 1965. 24 inches (243.8

x

Painted plywood, two units, each 96 x 96

243.8

x

61 cm).

x

intensity, continuity of action."

some of the

As such,

it

suggested

neutrality and task-orientation of

the Judson Minimalists without the narrative and

interpersonal complexities of his other dance pieces. 27

The stage

is

set with fake stones and two sets of plywood tracks.

tape recording of stage. Blackout.

Boccanegra

rolling

A

stones drones on. The stones

lush aria

blares.

He

is

roll

A

along the

from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Simone

clutched

in

a tight, face-to-face

embrace

with her. They are both nude. Their bodies glisten with a coating of

Another

woman

appears. She

dressed as a man

mineral

oil.

and

She walks alongside them as they navigate the

tie.

She holds line

a ball of twine.

She

is

is

in

a

suit

parallel tracks.

seemingly directed by the taut

stretched over her shoulder to a point off stage. The aria ends.

Blackout. The

woman dressed

holding the end of a long pole

as a

man

stands at center stage

capped by a red

flag.

Holding the flag

MAURICE BEROER SB

end

of the pole

in

front of him, he runs around

in

circles. His

recorded

voice talks about rearranging the stage. Blackout. Three real stones

appear on stage. At stage study of a muscular

man

an Eadweard Muybridge locomotion

rear,

a stone

lifting

permeates the

of his voice

He

hall.

A sound

track

reading a passage about water

is

from Leonardo's notebooks. Blackout. The two nude figures once again walk along the tracks accompanied by the Verdi mercury-filled vial

in

He pours

his hand.

down

the mercury

He holds a

aria.

her back.

each cube were sloped

idea of completely losing himself in his art to Morris

—an

who was

artist

so fearful

relinquishing control that he refused to enter the

of

Labyrinth (1974, no. 119) in Philadelphia

succumb

to his

his dances

own

I

1

1965, no. 67), an

in

he

lest

known

shape, the gestalt,

(despite the displacement of

the same

at

two

ot its sides). In the

simplest shapes, such as cubes and pyramids, "one sees

and immediately -

The

'

believes' that the pattern within

the

tact of

altered gestalts of Battered Cubes prevent

who now moves around

the spectator, a

the piece as

it

the individual shapes in the arrangement; one has

work

understand

in timt to fully

its

nuances.

another work, Three L-Beami

In

Morns juxtaposed

1965, no.

(

i),

three large, /.-shaped polyhedrons.

the artist to the center of his work. Perhaps the most

The three identical forms, with their massive eight-

dramatic, albeit metaphoric, representation of this

foot extensions,

return occurs in Morris's last dance, Waterman Switch.

the floor: one lying on

an absurd love duet," wrote David Antin, "and

is

It

there

sense that the artist

a

is

'simulating'

is

.

.

Duchamp:

deliberately recalled

man

a

—

Rrose Selavy

—guiding

woman

dressed as

the naked and glistening

and Bachelor beyond

bruit

the

a brilliant inversion of the transvestism of

No

return

Waterman Su

wonder, then, that the itch, essentially a

final

scene

duplication of the

first,

—

si^iiiIk ant in tin

coming,

lor in jai

•

I

ontcxt ol Morris's perform. inces,

Dm hamp

as

ulated onto the surfai e

faunf (19

>'

literally

did

when he

"painting'' l't\

ol Ins

pain, in whii h

-

is ol a

As such,

possible

is

and

to psy< hi'

when

i

the fantasy

least

ai

this final symbolit return

physii al equilibrium, as well as th<

purposeful, ideologii ally impai ol S//i oi

ili«

\ is"

'ill

oui ol

s

d bod) languagi

c<

cot sorting method of Art

suggest iiiuments

emergi

m Mm

t

its autistii

is s

>.

ol

desublimation, and R

1959),

•!

a

l

Freud that advanc ed

a

ol

mental

underscored the

disempowered

id< :a

sell

// liln

I'nlt

ii i.

idea >t

chat

.i

Ii'.

i

It

(H

I

t

he psyt

would

illness,

onlj

disunified

incapable

of ./>/ illusory

man and

sin rtby

a mil.

giving

modern Western

ID

Marxian

ritique politic s

ol

hi. urn

haw

selt

was also

,i

the kind of social

him

Of this weakness,

writes

s.iss

tin

was an

D. Laing's Tbt Divided Selj

agency that was important to

I

a< t,

ultund and sexual

<

liberator) approai h n>

treatment

a

"I."

Morris's reading of Marcuse's

of

1

nor an absolute

a definitive

ivilixation

(

of

example), Morns maintained

him, constituting the

for

a larger

the loops and skeins

in

tor

ideological gesture /

on the

built

full) CO the

docs not permit his performances

linguistic realm), he

entirely to overtake In in to be

ot

Duchamp was after all

Dadaist's ability to submit art

i

form only

herself in the

be taken over by the larger system fascination with

losing

the

so, |ust as

reflection (the "Imaginary"), theje can take

subjet

m

identity myself in language, but only

"I

to the

a unified source of "casual efficacy

experienced only

one":

moving on

—

an effect or language

is

also a shifter,

is

can engender only a fleeting sense of

it

center and being x

"I"

before

/<

n

»/ tbt

tradition. Instead of being reconciled, |><

domination, and manipulation

ol p.. veer,

for

One

GtOVI Press, 1959)

\ \.rk

n ,uh nuJc U

I

parod)

iIiin

name RROSI mi

che

.

tbt

Duihamp (New

York under name llooki

name and

he walked mirror in hand through a

Drama

CNewYork Viking

Dm lump

more on

Bull. alias Pickens etcetery, etceterj

.h ts .in

negotiated the complexities of vision and

boredom

Godot

wail tor

reward for information leading to the an

timbers, and steel, the

rete,

who

that hel|xd shape Morris's conceptualization ot a multivalent

hunp,

Art in 1970 as he installed a <

k

selfhood was tin renin,

Conceptual projects of the early 1970s; the workman

who

it

pi

1,

Robert Lebel. M.ir

8

campaigned against the Vietnam War and the institutional hierarchies of the

1

Century (Cambridge. M.inn

pieces on, this self-referential,

no contradictors 9

is

Rudolf Kuenzli, "Introduction

see

performatorv word —the

197

on

Beckett, lor

180-N^

ua with

7. Pierre Cal

Press.

-

usscd this discomfort in "Notes on Dance." Tulant

disi

Retiru 6 (winter 1965), pp.

Modernist anonymity and proclaims

of

Morns

D

R

to live." See

Penguin. 1965), pp. 40-41.

the language of self-identity and potentially of

which there

way, the two tramps

a

stands at the center of his particular universe,

the rules

"With Sjnim!

health and validity to mitigate the despair, terror,

condemned

are

pp

I,

significant mriuenic

Til On...

in

early thinking about selfhood:

s

existence

ot

N

l

ns

self in its

But, as in the dance pieces that would follow,

~

l|

no. 2 (October

1,

1

P

subject in claustrophobic isolation.

its

Minn. Rcc Morton.

i

As R D. Lung wrote

5.

word, a coffin

p

.

instance, one enters a world in

that enshrouds

Man

Bruce Nauman. Joel Shapiro, and Phil Simkin See Robert Morris.

2.

and

acknowledge

icm Viro Acconci. Michael Asher. Alice Aw.sk,

n

"Aligned with Nj;.a, ' Artfortm

denies representation of a specific

also like to

not specifically discussed, the work ol several artists was used

to illustrate Morris

exposes an improbable self-portrait that challenges

it

divided self helped to

the

would

I

Chris Burden, Peter Campus, Marvin Lorrticld,

the

swinging of a door. While the act of opening the door

art-historical prohibitions

generous advice and

debt to the groundbreaking work of Rosalind Krauss and Annette

Though

1.

but as somewhat arbitrary,

articulation hinging on an external action

number of issues

for his

Duchamp and

Michclson.

spelled out

is

thank Mason Klein

like to

clarify a

my

Morris

conventional self-portrait.

would

I

criticism; his ideas un Marcel

a dtxjr in

a

recycled version as the postei

vn Museum,

retrospective at thi Pasadena

<

drew on paper with graphite and plan

his eyes,

and

later

s< r.iv.

led

.i

t<

i

who posed

of the drawing; thedominator

m 1

o

1

i.

helmet and ScVM drag

a

astelli exhibition;

(

nli.

m

in

i

rei

.i

<

nt

Whether naked work

lothes in

I

the son

bottom naked

halt

poster tor his 19

who

imp's joke

WANTED most wanted men

stands next to Ins

known

in

Waterman

in S//i

own

episodes Irom Ins

ret alls

brain surgeon

donning

Switch, or

Last

-in

similar antisot

a

I

K

lorse,

Morris,

activities in

lightl)

nifii

ant

at

sthi

and so

tii

ntering into the labyrinth i

n

ial

i

sell.

Ifhood without diminishing

onfu lions within

thi

ti

mporal and

i

strovi

nil

1

work

represent

it

"i

<

ai

sell in

h

dam

e, th<

on< eptual

was permitted

sell

the mti istn

i

l><

lui

<

and unit] decenteredness and control, tun and languagl

dam

(achieved w hat

i

itsell

n

to

fragmentation

abstrai

i

In this sense. Morris's th<

i

work

add n

works

in

ontrasi to

,

ould (with the possibli

i

ki

i

pn.ni

19

th<

I

the

101 in.

.11

is

KOI

.in

as

dam

.1

1

iii

i0111i1l.11n.il

..1

on

1

ol

in iIiin sense,

in

failure to establish ide

I

i.ini

./

..

•

y,

and mid

for thi lubjeci

is

1

lologyofthi I'h

I

)

concomitant

In

See

I

Mason

Marcel Duchamp's

s,ii

dissertation

it)

(<

I

niveriity ol

York, forth

Aii'iiii.

Michclson

li

Red

-

is

repi

on an Emblematii

Mich

.1

in

imj Baker Sandback (Ann

Critically

Arboi

hamp

a function of thi unconscious

adearl) bound referential

unpublished

In

is

aligned with Lacan's major thesis thai within

rowardsaPhei

Klein,

in ctx

subjectivity, thai l>n.

1

\\ orl

construction of space itself as an extens

ai

As Mason

equivocation thai occurs

specificall) thi

the sense of sell Ionn thai

nnin

lump,

in.

i.

UM1

Research Press

143-48

1984), p| .

sell

and weight

delimiting and arbitrary

ol

his performancelike installations of the early

ot

On. lump, howevei

world according to convention attests to Iun

this inabilit) to establish referenci

New

in Ins

n.

1.

In

oeuvn

1

157, scar

aucobiographical allusions to Ins work

in l»

d himsell

in

i

'Expli

I

..i

•

Q

r

irthworki

snd

traditional

r

Hoi

I

U

desi ription ol Ins role in

si it

silt

'atorman

referential, sell ...us. ious,

Does that ring a

'

Sti

..

and corporeally

Maybe

hob up hen

think we should get Bod\

numbet che'Heroii

ulptun

s,

Well

bell, Ignatz?

V. itch, greased up, bare

ball Itoni H tr.u

onvt rsely affirms the

ks

(Morris, 'Robert Morris

ol eat

\ i-.ii.il

rhis situational

strength

poU bedron,

li

the

I

ol chi

u

will

us irregularity

early dis< ussion ol the phenomenological

For an important

and

i

ube, only

Bamv.sei Krauss, Passagu in

name* to a

(Whili a

•

it

was built on an

.

I'Ai

i

,

as thi

in.

den

wen soon igt rn

i

..im i

is

ol

•

latei realizing

\lodtrn

ol

the

Sculptm (New York Viking,

re

'I

.

pi

22 Morn

chi

behind, to serve

leti

imperatives ol Minimalisi sculpture, and most partit ulat U

It,

c<

em

toni

iid

21

7

iVu

Despite the altered side

270.

|.

port rait ot

ontinuc co read ns lorni

i

/

19 Ibid

im

gestali

Minimal Dana Activity Midst the

the Quantitatively

ies in

ol

nudity

I

and overweight, inching down the

status

[983)

sclt-

ol

eja< illation

s

IxkU lUnds (including semen),

plus to Rogei Denson," p Morris, as quoted in Berger, Labyrinths, p 53

id

Banes, Democracy'^ Rudy Judsun Dance Theater, 1962-64 (Durham, N.C.:

1993

rei

wouldn't be that meat

assed

Theacer, see Sally

andalous

S s,

i

chey have his it

ol

"excreted," literally

is

existem

and Modern Cnltw,

Assyrian Art

grounded

a dancer and choreoj rapher,

Dui lump

essentia IK s

J),

I

with Unties

t

particularly celling in us

spiraling reduplication of red and green forms

supposedly prurient use

more on the condition of disequilibrium

32. Morris's

infinite,

irs

Leo Bersani and llvsse Dutoit,

pp. 2

up an

l

human

lor

devices tor rotation goes beyond the formal: by juxtaposing the images sets

its

no

Kis.

sublet

one on each side of the glass plate The comparison to Duchamp's

on the glass plate between the mirrors, Morris

l i

Morris, nanus

31. For

between two circular

bourgeois

ol

newspapers attacked

local

of the period also relates CO

painting: Portrait

as

1967), pp. 233-339.

mirrors.

over Adam's genitalia.

fig leal

it

permitting that which

York: Free Press, 1972;

15. Morris's construction interposes a glass place

tableau vivani ol Lucas

Referring to a documentar] photograph

repression. This intention clearly succeeded given the dance

JO.

years at the Orthogenic School in Chicago. For a detailed

Morns.

Paint. Robert

was. This exchange suggests that Morris's use of nudity in U .Herman

run in Buffalo,

p. 145).

Bettelheim's description of Joey, a severely autistic child

Infantile

7,

Duchamp and Brqgna

in Francis Picabia's

the "sensational attraction" for

some

the failure

Duchamp if the camouflage was present in the at tual Duchamp answered that was not. though it probably

Morris asked

Mit nelson's categories of autistic behavior arc taken from

for

Gray

1

Switch was meant to attack the no rmalising mis. nanisms

to the

thought (Michelson, "Anemic Cinema: Reflections

on an Emblematic Work,"

Information,

of the ballet RilJ.it (1924),

at is

performance

enchantment with the psuedo-science of paraphystcs, represent only

strategies

of art

comment about

his

rhat indicated the discreel placement ot a

the subversion of

measure, the constant movement between alternatives [that] supported his esprit

uses

&

Perlmuttcr appeared nude Cranach's

used in the restoration of Vision), the elaborate linguistic play, the recasting

a few

179; Bcfgcf.

p.

Art Sewi 63, no. 8 (April 1966), p. 58.

29 Between

motion, the insistence upon the usefulness of objects (exemplified in his joy at

discovery, the

made

Morris

1

MS

1994), pp. 287

"Notes on Dance,

see Morris.

of Check in a telephone conversation with the author on Decembct

28.

dc contradiction,

MIT Press,

(Cimbr dgt .Mass

more on Check,

27. For

a

77* Vritings

1992.

persistent interest in

the possibility of

22,

That

Is

Paragone')" in Continuous Project Altered Dally

Labyrinths, p. 102, note

197.

Michelson writes:

Duchamp's

My

in

of Robert Morris

in ibid., p. 197. 1," p.

Denson (Or

Morris, "Robert Morris Replies to Roger

Mouse

verb," Russian Language Project (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

14.

New York, October

with the authot.

in conversation

25. Ibid.

196-206.

Press, 1986), pp.

Roman Jakobson,

12.

Morns,

i

Atanl-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge,

Originality of the

Mass

2

1992.

Sec Rosalind E Krauss, "Notes on the Index, Part

1 1

for

p. 30.

in hii

opat

|ui

way

Ins

'Recently chi French

point)

.1

to tin

infani

i

experienci with thi mirror as essential to the construction of selfhood

See Roiert Morris

M/rrw Works (New York Leo< utelli Gallery,

I

ii.

irro

I

AnOri

'

!< volution iry ;

.

/

M

Ufinilnnly

ridge, Mass.:

I

Louis

H 'nfini

MIT Pn

11 i

Ml ROBI

ii

:

MOI

iii<

Sass,

Sell

Jytit

I

to

Its Vicissitudes

mi Gardi

Sociat

An '-'

'Archaeological ••

I

U

no

I

(wintei 198 i

:

A

Study of thi

|ui

i i

in,

1

iiur.

Alan Sheridan (Ne% York

No

i,

•

,

1977); as quoted in ibid., p. 601. 41. For insightful discussions of the "mirror stage," see Sass, Self

and

Its Vicissitudes,"

"The

pp. 597-609; and Fredric Jameson,

"Imaginary and Symbolic

in

Lacan," Yale French Studies, nos.

55—56

(1977), pp. 338-95.

more on Morris's

42. For

intensive reading of these authors and his

notion of activism and political agency, see Berger, Labyrinths, pp. 47-79, 129-62. Perhaps Morris's greatest political effort was his

involvement

in

War

anti-Vietnam

1970s. For more on the

New York

protests in

in the early

activism, see ibid., pp. 107—27.

artist's social

43. Sass, "The Self and Its Vicissitudes," pp. 604-05. 44. Laing, The Divided Self, pp. A2-A5.

"The Ethic and Care of the Self as

45. See Michel Foucault,

Freedom,"

Rasmussen, p.

46. Roland Barthes,

MIT

D. Gautier (Cambridge, Mass.:

trans. J.

11.1 would like to thank Morris for directing

trans.

a Practice of

The Final Foucault, eds. James Bernauer and David

in

"The Death of the Author,"

(New

Stephen Heath

me

in Image/Music/Text

Wang,

York: Hill and

47. Morris's autobiographical position reached

Press, 1988),

to this text.

1977), pp. 142-48.

apex in the recently

its

published essay "Three Folds in the Fabric and Four Autobiographical Asides as Allegories (or Interruptions)'' (Art in America 11 [November 1989], pp. 142-51).

The

essay openly juxtaposes a critical text

concerning the relation between

art

and

discourses with a series of

its

autobiographical "asides," stories from the

from

his

childhood fascination with Egyptian

Duchamp and

encounters with

Barnett

past," he writes in relation to the

dominate the

own

arrist's

Newman. "Today,

economic

avanciousness

may be

art

works.

And

ranging

just as in the

interests that pervade

a time of such heightened

time when those other supporting narratives

a

of art need to be examined"

Rigorously exploring three

(p. 143).

paradigmatic (and for the most part preeminent) approaches to the twentieth century

psychological

—

art in

the formalistic, the political, and the

intellectual

more than

serve as

—

Morris's text repeatedly returns to the private, primal

own

scenes of his

and

commercial ones

art world, "there are stories besides the

which bear on legitimizing

life,

more recent

art to

and aesthetic development. These asides

interruptions; they resound with Morris's frustration,

even disillusionment, with the institutionalized language of cultural discourse.

48. In the radical psychiatry of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, the schizophrenic's refusal to speak in the

first

person

romanticized as a

is

kind of surrealistic rebellion against the repressive order of language:

who

"There are those of us

word

uttering the this

/,

will maintain that the schizo

and that we must restore

is

his ability to

incapable of

pronounce

hallowed word. All of this the schizo sums up by saying: they're

fucking

me

word again;

over again. it's

third person instead,

And

it

make one

won't

statement

is

if

won't say

I

damned

just too I

happen

/

anymore,

I'll

never utter the

stupid. Everytime to

remember

bit of difference

"

I

hear

to. If it

it, I'll

use the

amuses them.

The quotation from

their

taken from Samuel Beckett's The Vnnamable (1952), a work

that, in a certain sense, refutes their basic premise.

As

in

most of

Beckett's writings, the voice that speaks often utters this illusive "I" in

an

effort to find, albeit

momentarily,

a center for

enacting various

gestures of self-protection. See Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism

and Schizophrenia,

trans.

Robert Hurley, Mark

Seem, and Helen Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), p. 23.

MAUKICK

HKllliVH 3 3

HAVE MIND, WILL TRAVEL

David Ant in

Enthusiastic for the Ratio. 1989. Encaustic on aluminum,

47

-

76

x

'

.

At the end

inches (121.6

,

exhibition with the rather melodramatii

Deny

r

U

thi

rid Th(

drawing and appeared tocovi

title Inability

paintin

in

Ins

i

whole

em

letting for his recent

aluminum hall ol

shows of well known

artists

hibition with

Smiih

thai laisc

i

hough)

"i

1

Mbn is

o

nil-, oi

,i

notion

In

i

1

r

1

i.

ol

major

savagi

ii*

as an ai ..i

in

'

i

to

with respei a

question

tin

1

Mbn

:

nu

Times Arts and Leisure

York

which usually responds

tion,

ol .

isi

t

ill

I

authi

.,o .1

In

.H

originality,

w

i

1

1

.iii

harged thai

<

d

foi

thin\ years he had echoed "ideas and motifs deftlj I

from

whethi

hi

i

i'i.ip |y

The

34

work of other an

thi

had

and

New

i

\

i

vi

i

on\

ai

and

i

|u< si

to laugh,

telling

mc thai

from

haim Soutini

<

I

1

n n n inln red anoi

Is

Ik

because

artists

worth

i

soon

as .in

i

i

gol

.in

ichibition ai

and

fantasy, s.

In

.is

ii.ii

in

.is

.i

d

I

<

Moi h

I.

iw

i

in ni

mow

ii ii

ii

w

.ii

I

I

my

on hi hardly ihmk

someone

Smith review,

thi ai

I

the beginning

beach with a well known

thi

astelli's,

had

had stolen everything

Bui reading

idea,

an dealer

At the timi

w.is like

It

Kelly

remembei dn si ill

i

I

occasion ba< k

i

I

hadn'i

i

is

bitterly thai

almost

would

"II

seemed imii

i.i

i

win

•

rip

iii

funny Sol

like a

up an

il

lb

elaborati

took to be a temporary

I

Id p. ii .nu

ii.

i

hieved mui h an thai was nglj

/

ists

was

Im.it ion

I

thai Morris

Beuys

<

tomaniai and, ion,

nu

told

young sculptoi who omplained

.ilw.i\s

iis.ii

,

room

Living

of the 1970s, walking on

and

ntii ity I

kle|

i<

by Roberta

h

mj

years ago a verj intelligeni

oi

two more dissimilar

ol

museum

tful reviews,

ai tai

sitting in

though

m

att« ni ion to thi

couple

an world gossip

like this before,

stolen every) hing from Joseph

On January

works on display

i

theSunda) Seu

20,

on

austii

A

it

paintings, whii h accounted for nearly

tli-

omments

i

who

Moreover, whai

art-world scold

official

she said hears a certain relation to

paid mui h

and

•

mints as the

had heard

areer, bui

i

bui Smith ism Hilton Kramer,

in criticism, i

xhibition was

i

work

to Morris's

|j

of the artist.

Corcoran Museum of Art in opened a massive Robert Morns

L990

oi

Washington, D.C

194.9 cm). Collection

x

hi-,

All

o

IK distinguished

\tui

a dou

hatu

a in

.i

in tin i\

(iii/zi

book, notan

///i

with .,'

./

great idea, You unit

'gipi // /« i"/^»

lau u

r,

a safe-deposit box with

who with two

witnesses places

one key that

placed in the hands of a neutral trustee

is

who has no idea what bank hang out

in

the box

Then you just go

is in.

wind up

him about your great

telling

when he puts on

you can't keep your mouth

show at

the

Ad Reinhardt owns

squares.

relation of

and

come

quite different person from someone

Conceptual piece.

Russell terrier.

trustee,

knew

I

the whole plan, even in fantasy, was

fundamentally flawed. set

up

knew

I

that

if

like

charade and shot

this elaborate

off his

mouth

would have kept him from shooting

plan was never tested, and like most gossip of

supported or refuted.

world

of the art

nor blow away.

like a

And

just sits out there at the

It

because

anything about I

beliefs

was

another

just

a

whole cluster

This

So Smith

not surprising.

is

what kind of

can't tell

is.

The notion

of persistence

has always been important for art criticism. That's is

the understanding that

if

an

artist

works can be read as a

series of related actions that

one of the fundamental suppositions of traditional history

it is

that

all

of an

artist's

works

of Time, to lay out

all

And

proposal, in Tin Shapt

the artifacts of a culture in

temporal order to obtain an

it.)

art

laid out in

not a great step beyond that to George Kubler's

somewhat more archaeological

the assumption that an artist can

establish a kind of proprietary right to an idea. (You

an idea unless somebody already owns

—

temporal order form a kind of artistic biography.

context of Morris's major retrospective at the

can't steal

earthworks,

art,

unite to form a trajectory of intention. This has been

of

Guggenheim. is

a lot of dogs.

because there

and that these were worth discussing

First there

art.

Neo-Dada, Minimalism,

does related things in work after work, the sequence of

never thought of doing

resurfaced in Smith's review,

it

was

owned

edge

about contemporary art that Morris's work

collides with, in the

until

it

realized there

it

I

Morris's "inauthenticity."

process art and installation art." Morris has apparently

dog owner he

gray cloud that will neither rain

piece of art-world weather,

when

kind,

its

vehement opinion has neither been

the sculptor's

clearly a

who owns a Jack

"Since the 1960s Morris' art has mirrored nearly

Conceptualism, and performance

my

So

it.

is

its

a little

absence of persistence that Smith

in this

main symptom of

He's been associated with

mouth

his

off about his even better idea for protecting

it is

owner

is

every twist and turn in American contemporary

about his great idea, nothing in the world

to Morris

A Doberman

having a dog.

finds the

the sculptor had

to be

owner. In this sense having an idea

artist

Now But

this

defined by the idea he or she owns, and the idea by

and you let the editors open the safe-deposit box with the dated and notarized page from your notebook, and you claim Robert and the whole show as your

your

And

ownership eventually becomes mutually

self-defining. So that an artist will

witnesses,

owns

black. Christo

wrappers. Jeff Koons owns sleaze kitsch.

shut,

idea. Then,

Artforum magazine with your lawyer, your

through persistent employment. Josef Albers

owns

you appear at

Castelli's.

Wright brothers, and the U.S. Patent Office. In ownership right is more often established

practice, this

your usual way. Sooner or later you '11 run

into Robert, and, because you'll

in

it

artistic

biography of the

This proprietary right obviously also depends on

culture.

the assumption that artists have ideas and that their

sequence should count

work embodies them.

(If

can steal them, and

they don't show up in your

some twenty years of making nonhgurative process paintings, Philip Guston opened a large exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery,

work no

artist will

if

you don't have ideas nobody

think to steal them.) But

how do

you acquire the proprietary right to an idea? This

is

where primacy comes

held belief that being the

you property rights to the gold-rush model: else,

we

This

you can stake out a claim.

will recognize

it.

But

little

hard to do. Even

Who

poured

first.''

Mark Rothko? But

There

is

in

a loosely

one to have an idea gives

what we might call you get there before anybody

it. if

first

in.

you can prove

in a global art

in a

small one

it's

Every

who

critic

it

dealt with the

is

a

not so easy.

show

went beyond

figures.

ailed

upon

that. In order to approvi ol i

ii

Guston's artistu identity up to the exhibition:

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, the

i

new work, sympathetic nt s had to find an aspect of this new series of paintings that would connect them to the process paintings that had defined

in spite of the difficulty of proof,

and

tilt

apparent break in Guston's car

the

the notion of primacy remains, sustained, at least in

of

York, with thirty-three paintings ami eight

Helen Frankenthaler' Morris Louis?

principle, by analogy with invention or discovery,

memories

New

for a great deal.

after

drawings populated by hooded cartoonlike

For some,

it,

world this

October 1970,

to explain this

is

If

In

In such biographies apparent breaks in the

i

ourse

in

i

1

le

took three lessons

artooning



to gel

lif<

uner used ihe break tO argUI thai

ndoni d

work.

ruston has had

consideration, but has taken his wholi

them

i

static gra) relicts,

small objet

might havi counted as a

in his

arrangements under

oi

orner Piect

discrepancy in style between the two bodies

thematic,

ol

"<

oro ludes thai

abular)

i

i

edge; Cloud

Leads (1964, nos 78 85)

I

somewhat

it

and psychological recurrences •

an elevated square slab;

12),

Beam,

.'

embedded with

oi

areas oi Ins previous

development." Compiling an extensive

hnii al,

/

L964, no. 64), a corner wedge; and Boiler

and motions

i

tei

—

earlier ac nous, invoking arrested or potential functions

ma) at firsi seem: they're a surprisingly onsistent summation. In them Guston seems to have revisited all his past successes and failures, tout hing all

oi large,

among them. beam with one rounded

170—71)

electrodes, batteries, and other

aren't the

betrayal they

base again and again with

an installation

boiler-sized cylinder. The other featured the enigmatic

palette remains the same, ed

Tins kind rea<

One was

with each other.

freestanding, elementary forms oi uniformly painted

shapes in his later nonfigurative works suggest objects I

common

that appeared to have virtually nothing in

nches (33

it

him to say. "I wanted to tell stories Now, in December 196-4 and March 1965, Morris had two exhibitions at the Green Gallery in New York

steel key ring,

.

right,

clockwise: Table, Corner Beam,

Corner Piece, Cloud, and Floor Beam.

and

most members of this world,

for

shorter than that, since his

first

Green Gallery hadn't occurred

it

was probably

solo exhibition at the

1963-

till

Still,

had already staked out a place with works

number

(1963, no. 21) and a objects like

Box with

the

Morris

like Litanies

of other paradoxical

Sound of Its Own Making

It was a place what most critics were then calling neo-Dada, which meant that they read his work as taking account of Marcel Duchamp's readymades and Jasper Johns's gray paintings from a position at some distance from, but somewhere alongside, Fluxus's absurd objects. The large, geometric sculpture in the "white show,"* on the other hand, seemed to declare itself as

(1961, no. 11) and 1-Box (1962, no. 25). in

altogether different, situating Morris

among

sculptors

Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, and Sol

like Carl

LeWitt. Morris reinforced his claims to this position with his

own

critical writing, the

two-part "Notes on

Sculpture" that he published in Artforum in 1966. 9

These precise and polemical essays engage with

all or

the basic theoretical issues raised by the Mimimalist

him alongside Judd

sculptors and established

major spokesman

as a

group; their republication in

for the

1968 in Gregory Battcock's widely read anthology

Minima/ Art consolidated

his reputation for a

more

popular audience as a leading theoretician of this

Donald Judd. Untitled, 1968. Galvanized

elementary, object-oriented sculpture just at the time

each 6

that he

was beginning

Morris's "Notes

abandon

to

27

x

x

24 inches (15.2

New

Castelli Gallery,

68.6

x

x

York.

it.

on Sculpture" explicitly rejected

—

the self-referential and enigmatic objects had been

for him seemed

based: "The relief has always been accepted as a

suggested an idea of development.

nearly all of the ideas

viable

upon which the

mode. However

it

lead reliefs

and

cannot be accepted today as

The autonomous and literal nature of demands that it have its own, equally literal

legitimate.

sculpture

space

—

not a surface shared with painting."

1

"

This

Morris's claim to be chef d'e'cole of the it

new object

goes on to reject intimate scale and

to

precise, intellectual,

make

his

And

world the opportunity to consider

it

that

He had come

art

as a Minimalist.

—

intelligible. It

own

offered the all of

into

New

York

the

absurdist or paradox pieces as "early works," in spite

no one was

really in a position to

establish the chronological order of the conception

many

or fabrication of all

and humorless

1960s career

his

of the fact that

polemical and deliberately pedantic essay stakes out

sculpture as

boxes,

iron, ten

61 cm). Courtesy Leo

of them. In fact, during

much

of the period between 1961 and 1967, there was

internal relation of parts, including incident,

considerable overlap between what seem to be two

configuration, texture, and color.

different

It

also proceeds to

separate his work from that of Ronald Bladen and

working

logics,

though

may be

it

truer to say

that while paradox remained a working element in

Kenneth Snelson, and from some of the works of

nearly all of Morris's successful sculptural projects,

Andre and Judd, by

simply ceased to be foregrounded.

rejecting both

monumentality and

conspicuously displayed mathematical, logical, or technological ordering systems in favor of the simple

polyhedrons and more or

less

human

scale of the

instantly knowable, uniform, and obdurate shapes in Morris's second

Since Morris's neo-Dada works

articles

Minimalist pieces, works as

elevated inches above the floor or a plywood pyramid

wedged

(first

—

aired in 1963) significant

into a room's corner,

whose

color

it

nearl)

had not been published about them

in the art

them had not they never became

cubes with mirrored faces become nearly m\ imNi turning into

floor.

Ring with Light

<

divided

been widely circulated

at the

and emits

in halt

two

cuts.

light

But while many

pm es

mark out

never mentioned in the writing So

writing very quickly established a Minimalist persona

hand,

it

is

is

.ire

marked

delivered deadpan and

by this sleight

of

.

66, no

trom an unseen SOUTH

established as his trademark and, consequently, didn't a distinct public personality. Moreover, his

1965

a circular fiberglass ring eight feet in diameter,

journals, photographic reproductions of

—

clearly

apparently neutral as plywood slabs invisibly

matches, become absurd through displacement Simple

Green Gallery show.

had not had a very long public career

Even the most

it

it

is

never becomes

part of the persona.

HAVID ANTIN 37

By 196 7 Morris ,

closed object to the

works

is already moving away from the more open pieces the felt

—

example. Stacked and Folded [1967, no. 92]

(tor

and Tangle [1967,

93])—and,

no.

by 1968, their

weak "formal"

apparently strong material and

properties are beirn; exaggerated in the truly formless

where hard and

scatter pieces,

soft,

is*.ous

\

spread on the pristine gallery or warehouse In an appropriately polemical fashion

arguments

a set of

"Ami Form" and

and

and fabricated, are heaped

triable materials, natural

he

or

floor.

lays out

1968 Artforun article

tor this in his

1969 curates ^ in a Warehouse^

in

an exhibition or work by nine artists relating to rhis idea ar the

Leo CastelU Warehouse

The

is

exhibition

Artforum Corner Piece, 1964. Painted plywood, 78

x

108 inches

New

in

York.

accompanied by another "Notes on Sculpture, Part IV: Beyond

article,

Objects Question:

(198.1 x 274.3 cm).

really.

The hard-edged in

change?

this a career

Is

Answer: Not

work

object

is

given

its

rationale

terms of a kind ot abstract, audience-oriented

psychology

—

the perceptual adventures

unoccupied individual

The newer work appears

ot

an otherwise

an otherwise empty space.

in

evoke the relationship

to

of

the maker, rather than the viewer, to the different properties ot

varied materials

its

—

those

powder, and pools

piles of

ot

and hard,

soft

sharp and brittle scraps and shards, snarls

of fiber,

gunk, Vet both

types of work remain equally abstract arrangements,

and the anti-rorm pieces derive their perceptual aesthetic ism not only from their contrasts with each orher, but from their contrast with the architectural

Mirrored Cubes. 1971 refabrication

1965

of a

original.

Plexiglas mirrors on wood, four units, each 21 x 21 x 21 inches

(53.3

x

53.3

x

53.3 cm).

elements

the spat es in whit h they're arranged.

ot

by the 1980s, Morris himself would characterize these works as a straightforward continuation of the abstrat

i,

Modernist impulses

demythologized, made

ol

literal,

\.u

kson Pollot

k.

and typically bound

to

simple mechanical operations chat determine their final

an ati.u k on

form

And

appearance.

Notes on

and

the

work

ot

promise an

Si

while the

"Ann Form"

tat

lonahst

that results

art that "lias

whit h need not arrive

it

notion that

m a finished m its hands

at a

m

same

the

tat ionalisi

cm

a

Morris's

>

work

is

as

a

mutable

Stufl

point ot being finalized

cheargumem

is

abstrat tart sp.ue as the earlier

essays and speaks in the is,

art

product" and

with respect to either time or space," placed

essa\

tilptnre. Part IV" present this

same assuicd Minimalist

(that

voi< e

Conceptual works

of

the 1970s appear to

straightforward continuation and extension

ol

the ideas articulated in connection with the anti form

wotks The essaj Ring with Light

'glass and fluorescent

191

intensified ties (61

(35.6

<

iti

cm)

high,

I

•

urn

hlng grai

of

An, General

is |it

is|

hut

in

A

National

>

liol"

them \\

averj simple

>

places an

hatevei else

at

.

ii

.

Mm

i

is

level

was

broadens the context

ol

an

making

ot this

making from the phenomenologii al to the sot ial nun \t of laboi ami produi cion: "What wish to

.

38

that introduces

emphasis on process

I

16 4 (.m)

ml

"

light,

I

point

—

Untitled, 1968. overall

Felt,

rubber, zinc, aluminum, nickel, steel

dimensions variable. Collection

out here

is

of the artist.

that the entire enterprise of art

making

THE PERIPATETIC ARTISTS GUILD

provides the ground for founding the limits and possibilities of certain

behavior of production

become

so

kinds of behavior and that this itself is distinct

expanded and

visible that

it

ROBERT MORRIS

has extended

the entire profile of art." 15

These were the

Available for Commissions Anywhere in the World

political 1970s, the

Nixon

government was continuously expanding the Vietnam War, and many not especially were

finally

beginning

and announces

and has

offering to undertake

political artists

to question their relation to the

cultural institutions of the gallery

and the museum,

which despite their support seemed

/

EVENTS FOR

XPLOSIONS

CHEMICAL SWAMPS

—M(iM

Till

SOUNDS FORTHE VARYING W

to function

QUARTER HORSE-

MENTS

SPEECHES iLTERN

iSONS

DESIGN

\ll

AND

primarily as the legitimators of a brutal, technocratic

POLITICAL SYSTEMS

nil if, is

imperialism. Accordingly, a political tone begins to

ENCOURACI

color Morris's writing.

OTHER VAGUELY

MUTATED FORMS OF LIFE AND ULTURAL PHENOMENA, SUCH \S EARTHV ORKS—Dl MONSTR WONS

This political stance shows up characteristically a

November 1970 "advertisement" by Morris

appeared in several art magazines. In an typical of

its

in

that

elliptical style

commercial models, here strongly

ironized by hyperbole and comic juxtaposition, the ad

presents

\ll

DISCIPLINED PRl STIGIOI

S

I

\l ol

111

"i.ii

{GRIi I

S

,

THEATRli U PROJBt

AND STATU

FILMS

POR HOME, EST

is

TS

S

OR Ml

SEl

V)

I

FOUNTAINS IN LIQUID METALS

\w UBLl SOP CI R101 SOI TRAVELING M HIGH SPEEDS

I

VTE,

FOR nil MASS!

i" HI

SEES U

—NAimwi

llll

I

PARKS VND

ID A N T N 3 9 I

ING GARDENS

PTURAL

—

ARTISTIC DIVERSIONS OF RIVERS

It

the

seems too short, the

list

"the above

PROJi

the artist

At

modern expansion of

glance, the ad reads like a

first

or too

Leonardo's letter to Ludovico Sforza:

is

/

have plans for bridges very

defeat the enemy.

.

.

Also

.

kmd

mortars,

and light ordnana

shapes.

.

lay,

Also

.

I

humor, ridicule or

.

.

may

be necessary to pass

can maki cannons,

I

.

and useful

very beautiful

oj

Ipturt in marble, bronze

and also painting

Won

undertake the work of the bronze

uld

and eternal honor

swiveling wind thai blows

of the projects listed in the

all

ad are only mildly disguised characterizations

works

of

Morris had already done, proposed, or would have

And

less,

always

us anticipated course

Leonardo was the

MENTS"

"<

W't -mer

mk

hi

wlm

von Braun of his day.

ottering to function and, through the exaggerated

politic Kins

a narrative

AI.

mi

risis,

<

Kan up through

i

IRMS "i

ii

i

win

i

H

"EARTHWORKS" might be

the context

Leonardo

oi

but "DEMONSTRATIONS"

VAGI n in'isaniu

R

111

VAGI

the neatly expanding h

ion IB

appropriati ill

'

ins

si

nni\ ing in i

MASSI

ill

ei

Ij

i

MS" (an

and

or political?)

scientifii

transition to "pri stigious objects

i

<

ither

cai

ulai

ill-

j

in nil

I

os

thi

This leads

laims to en

M

botl

tn

.i

i

ham

UNS

IN

ol

IQl ID

I

metal" (that's oni better than Versailles), highway an orairlini an ("ensembles oi rioi sOBjEt is ro w ai hi si mi RAVI ING HIGH SPI DS"), N <

I

I

IA1

.

|

in|

diverting alitn liniai

4

Id 'lO

I

thi til

HI

and With

hi.

i

kivi ks," n turning in In-

I

AND HANGING GARDENS"

PARKS

Y, Mi.

om

again

to proceci

Italy

Isonzo), befori oflft

Mill

i

I

I

i

ol n,.

u

"

I

(evol

DIVI RSII IN

eonardo

from

thi

i

to the artist

'

lix

e

in trust to

dollars an hour

help finance

was

a m. ry

1SF0, ecjiiivalem then to lees lor

in

raftsmen. But the

(

mam

II

(this cimi

[url

others the

their

ot his or

diffit ulty

dreams The

her labor, for

ol

some

artists

others weeks, and

tor alt

I

ulating the duration

on future

artist tax

sales ol

had been proposed in complt ii seriousness im conventional an objet ts like paintings or sculptures, and perhaps Morris was In ing si nous here But K is hard not to see the tone

was not a

projects

mate

"aid

containing an element Irony

is a

w mk.

diffii

till

also

soi

'

I

iii

.i

no longi

[i

m

like

thing (

1

1

1

i

a

difft

i.i s

oi

Knoli oi tin

chemical

dubiousness and absurdity

figun to e

(

oni

rol, pi

rhaps

located in an artist's

is

us

bl

'

deep

ansi

ol

doubt

n in in

it

ovi

any

i

representation the artist makes i

m plow

i

simplt dog ownt

n rard de Nerval

finishing with a comically

is

threatens to appear everywhert within

it

and every assertion 1

ol

casting the possibility

it.

l

It

political systems" as

Onct us present

impossibli

1

novelty

an ad chat offered amon;' us projei

Mini

RAI PRI >U< Is."

pan

would mean mil roseconds,

tor yet oi

verify

ulated as

alt

tins

\\i>

"1 PI<

Twenty

ts

swamps" and

publii

ati

both

oi

ESTATE, O!

more purely "

s

i

up

sets

that are offered for ,

nunc

the pay

ol

computable wage labor, something difficult and compute it the artist's thinking time

activity as

chesi

political or both (was the 19 15 blasi ai

ir

Alamagordo

•.i

touch

obvious, though

nicelj equivocal

is

the handling

in

good working wage

is

i

a little

however seriously thej

art transactions,

be put forward. The ke\ elements involve

to

the owner-sponsor to be held

ot

to

can luggesi fortifications,

ii

funding these

the

tot

thrust ot the proposal was to characterize the artists

otters biotech disasters in

KM PHENOMENA

some question about

ironit tone also raises

skilled professionals or master

in

(Leonardo again?) After which the modern

in

and

lethal,

waj we are to take the advertisement's proposal

other projet

of the

SYSTEMS," or wash away

Leonardo prophetically

here.

perhaps

the owner-sponsor," and the fifty-percent taxation

response CO environmental

h the artist otters Snail) to

III

his dangerous,

materials, construction and other msts to be paid by

which we could

to "SPEECHES,"

"AMI K\AII POLITH

AGRIC1

to cast artist

from sales or tees, which the ad explicitly rejects, to a "$25.00 per working hour wage plus all travel.

In

swamps'' to

ai.

SEASONS," reads like

standard

seems

It

which the

ot the arena in

grandeur of his ambitions, claims, Mid doubtful

the slutt

W

reasonably characterize as "OUTDcmik SOI NDS FOB s

ofl

doubt on the nature

appear

comedy and

the ad both the

in

are contemporary. "EXPLOSIONS"?

The passage from

VARIoi

discourse now this way.

a

though sometimes more and sometimes

The

INI

it

artist as well.

But, at the same time,

not.'

[ere

1

a

occasionally quite trivial projects, on the role oi the

illustrious

house of Sforza

liked to do.

mode

a

is

that, and.

competences and

the auspicious

of

now

is

embue

horse, n hich fhall

memory of the Prince your father and of the

commentary

sarcasm which adopts

light

of speech, the intended implication of which

not

is

it

a sort

the opposite ol the literal sense ot the words

can ex

with immortal glory

that Webster's defines as

appears as an intermittent and variable force,

river.

too small

lar.

have ways of arriving at a

noise even though it

underneath trenches or a

.

and strong and suitable to pursue and at times

which

in is

and secnt winding passages,

I

certain fixed spot by caverns

made without

light

with which

easily,

project

the figure ot irony hovers over this text,

It

the simple

for carrying very

No

qualified to engage

is

assures us chat

.u\

but a partial listing ot projects

owning walking

doesn't hark

iii

r,

Ins

,i

different way

he mt ans

dog

a lobstt

pi i

rhaps

on the rue de

and knows the

set rets

The one of irony has

artist

most

clearly

committed

to the figute

been Duchamp, and, consequently, he

is

the artist about the significance of whose works critics

have found

it

Duchamp

that

Nothing

nearly impossible to agree.

made

ever

him with

The

others and

text of the 1970s stands is

Morris

tries to

connect with

All of the theorizing takes place in the

The

rest

is

Nauman."

first

four

experiences with

them and

their work,

Plague Year (1722), with which

and

None

artists,

Dayton

is

the most colorful

and he receives the most elaborate

personal description:

Dayton himself is a fairly unnerving personality. He keeps his

head shaved, which seems

to

accentuate the deep scars

and neck. He also wears a

monocle around his

He seems

to

enjoy playing up

abundance

thick glass of his monocle

a

to see

a

When

was with him he frequently squinted at me through

I

the

and would leeringly compare When he

the

venting systems of Buchenwald and Belsen.

of contingent detail.

far

of the three

certain sinister ambience that surrounds his work.

A Journal of the

shares an

it

alter psychic states.

detail or read a gauge.

has

it

Sacramento." After

neck which he occasionally peers through if he needs

a first-person journalistic

the plausibility of Daniel Defoe's

in a studio "outside

with liquid crystals and highly corrosive acids,

on his face

account of Morris's meeting with the artists and his

all

26

he has turned to working with gases in order to

Michael

artists like

Asher, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, and Bruce

paragraphs.

lower.

nearly blinding himself working to achieve visual effects

crucial in this regard.

"The Art of Existence. Three Extra- Visual Artists: Works in Process" seems like a straightforward account of the work of Marvin Blaine, Jason Taub, and Robert Dayton, three unknown environmental artists

who

was much

to

in one's ears

text culminates in the visit to Dayton's gas

chambers

sufficient reason to connect

Duchamp. One

all his

seemed similar

It

what one experiences when one hears ringing

or did, from the readymades

irony beyond his continued assertion of his

relation to

out from

is

which seemed to be inside my head. except the experienced sound

to his dining habits, could ever escape its effects.

In Morris's case, there

one of the circular spaces 1 felt rather than heard a sound

was so

of the projects of these three artists

removed from the work of other well-known

artists

showed me

first

the inside of the rooms he

shower heads as gas

inlets

would be

asked if I thought

unsightly.

of the period, or even from that of Morris himself. Blaine was constructing a hillside

chamber observatory Taub was

He

offers to give Morris a "retrospective gassing,"

to record the sunrise of the vernal equinox;

which proceeds from

designing experiments in extra-audial perception

iodine clouds, moves on to his "middle period fart

of radio waves; and

chambers

Dayton was making a

for altering sensory states.

Any

work with bromine and

his early

composed of various mixtures of butyl

series of gas

palette,"

of these

acetates, nitrobenzene,

and butyl mercaptan,

finally

projects could have been proposed to the Los Angeles

passing on to a set of gases that to Morris "presented

County Museum of Art for their 1967 Art and Technology show. But the unusual position of Morris

the most interesting and unfamiliar experiences." 2. as

audience and sole art-world witness of these works,

and

his uncharacteristic detailing of his responses

not only to the works but to

all sorts

of surrounding

contingencies, soon began to arouse suspicion:

Finally

had moved to a

side plank in order not to interfere with

the rectangle of light

now expanding down

the wall to

within about six feet of the center plank. I was feeling the

dampness and even a thermos light

and as

I

I

noticed that the top edge of the

was shrinking downward.

.

.

.

On

the

way

to the

airport the following day the extremely taciturn Blaine

revealed that he

had notions for several

might realize next summer.

other works that he

19

is

embarking on

Willy Reich's Orgone Box" because

"lincier than

up with

loads Morris

a

pack of scientific

and

effects of negative ions,

calls after

it

him

articles

as Morris drives off

in his Dr. Strangelove persona,

"Screw the MOMA, but see what you can do for

me at

Auschwitz." 25

We all had coffee from a

slight chill.

looked up

reveals that he

"Negative Ion Chamber" that would be

promises to get rid of "brain 5-hydroxytryptamine,"

on the /

Dayton

a project for a

So

it's

a fiction, a kind of parabolic fiction strongly

The question is, What The aims of artists like or James Turrell? Or of Morris himself?

marked by the is

figure of irony.

the target of the irony?

Asher, Irwin,

The

"dematerialization of art," a discourse that figured

so largely

among

the artists of the 1970s?

Or

all of

the above, which appears likely enough now, and was,

This

is

the rhetoric of what the French would call

classic fiction. artists"

And

the

work of the next two "unknown

becomes more and more

fantastic, leading to

increasingly trivial or disagreeable responses:

I

always thought, readable at the time'

Though

of Anforum denounced

unknown /

did not know what

this

"shaping of the perceiver" was

about until Taub turned on the equipment to

enter the framed up enclosure.

As

and invited me

soon as

I

stepped into

not to everyone. Because two months after

Morris's essay appeared, a letter in the

artists

Morns

tor

by presenting them

taking possession of their work

had created and given a name

March

ripping

in a

to.

by a Mark N. Edwards of Madison,

issue

ofl his

three

in his article

and

context that he

The (

letter,

written

onnecticut, in a

DAVID ANTIV

I

1

and produced

moment

its

works

Morris's

scandal (no. 125)

ot local

the 1970s didn't invoke ironic

of

Given the nature of most of Ins exhibitions, seemed little reason why they should.

readings.

there

But

1980s Morris's work took

in the

turn.

A

tunereal installation at

York

in

1980 called P

series ot proposals tor

a

stranger

Sonnabend

New

in

ttured a

cenotaphs crowned by death's-

heads. This was followed by an installation at Leo

m

astelli

(

\rk. later the same year, called V \

no. 101

Night)

i

Museum m Washington,

Mm rte

name

(the

w

Preludes (For

1979-80.

A. B.),

Italian

onyx, silkscreened text,

electric light, metal, plastic, paint. Collection of the artist.

inmate

hit h

D.<

L981 at the

{

1980,

Hirshhorn

called Jornada del

.,

the desert valley south of Los

of

Alamos, where the of

m

and an installation

I,

A-bomb

tirsr

a massively

st

both

tests took place),

aled and oln iously

emblematic meditation on death, the atomic bomb, and planetary extinction. low to take these works was I

who had

not very clear to anyone

tone somewhat similar to Smith's review

of the

on

oi a

retrospective, goes

accuse the .irust

to

t

np-ott going back to the Castelh Warehouse show.

in

which

him

Ins curatorial presence also assured

authorial credit tor ideas generated by younger artists.

The

intent oi the

dwards

I

letter

is

figure out, but the inflated, garrulous,

obscuring rhetoric

which

in

Was

was

letter written

Edwards

tin

omposed

i

from

tool

1980s, ilu physical .uk\ mate

subordinated to an overriding and graphically

sell

by Morris'

so,

It

.1

town

hi

(

denuni iational style

argument appear

the

in

mouth

ir

was

metaphorical sp.uc

oi

might appear to be

a fairly

Madison The

ailed

I

ulated to

al<

<

European modi

far as

Morris's answer?

mode

inauthenticity

ot

would

Edwards

\\i

distn

ii

evidently interested in rescuing damsels /«

:

\

I

ate

r<

urn

Possibly,

but to what trily

thai

Morris wroci

had

-..

such an

to construct

tnaj nOI have :

i

havi

effect

gam

eli

had the im lin.Kion ii

foi

truth

thi

ii.

ii |

1

and

..i

i

in

of

is

way in which suspicion Ai

i

1,

no

i

it

.

tv

and

is closi

hi

to

New thi

and two unusual

and

thi \

I,

i

i

inhibition

1

ii

kind

1

\ pi

i

ol

prii

ts,

i

s

S&M

It

us

oi

i

and a

rat

from

1

1

I

hi exiguous

dealei world starved for ts

rushed to

German

painting taste

Both deployed

In

junkyard

si

by

n. tins

ol

styli

menu ol

an expressionist i

and

And

in thi

a

muddy

chematics

rman and Ami rii an Neo painting had become i

"

1980, under the nam<

kind

iii

financially

rewarding.

was widely exhibited and written about

journals

more

assist the

American punk painting, which was

revived expressionism

ot

ss n a

the earlier 1" 'Os had

lil

urban decay, and, I

art oi

crude and emblematii drawing

i.iw n

worth

win

ml in

paletti ovei 1

mode

And, of course, one was

eptual

U marketable objei

a

a

appetites of tht few collectors willing

immensely populai and

no 88)

uriously

i

1

the

context setting that

employ ing

sufficiently successful to bi

quickly assimilated to a

a

continues to spread

(19

leai

i

i

al pi

om

(

in

problem

thi

developmem

i

Or

graduati

importanci than

IL.n:

nied the

4 2

oi

of]

126),

xpi

plus K

dw.udss n.ium

(Madison

ol irony

id. xhibicions '

I

him,

less

i

of buffoonery

pieci

to pay ai

ii

the

ol

j

noi Molii n

literary skill oi

tin

lioolediicatioii.uV.il'

Haven) But

he absurdii is

And

cleat

juiti I

Morris

ii

onstru ted

•

is

follow from

h<

1

exhausted

some

nt

<

or ripping of]

availabli

I

si

change

radical

to raise the

requires

It

primary

a

meaning making

hi

adapt

I'm not.

n.

i

more than

takes

It

mam

to position the

discourse

meaning making

ot

how

is

ask. the Roberta .Smith problem''

we might

\ni quit<

I

Western

traditional

and meaning making. The

interpretation here

in

tins,

Is

within the art -work context of its circulation.

i

Bui Ih.w mux h further does the ironj extend? As

ol art

artist in relation to this

hieve this

a<

to be read OUt oi

going

diffil ulty

the letter and us incoherent

oi

perft ctly

Any meaning that them has to pass through the some dominant emblem, which

is

an apparent

ot

properties are entirely

rial

presented metaphorical discourse

Or

to reveal the absurdity oi at in ulai it

the 1970s share

ol

easy enough to

there really a Mr. Edwards?

Sol lo slander by plai ing

the 1960s and the anti-

of

a mode oi meaning making derived from our response to the materiality of the objects and the working procedures used to fabric ate or arrange them. In the work oi the

lorm work

and

was written might

it

arouse suspicion.

The Minimalist work

Morris

pattern

followed Morris's

career through the 1960s and 1970s.

artistic

pn

isi

ol

Di mail

I

in all the

Kuspii

—

—

most

its

prolific

American

publicist,

was seen

it

as an

urgent philosophical engagement with the forces of '"

destruction and death. In 1980, Morris does Preludes, his proposals for

cenotaphs, at Castelli and at Sonnabend he exhibits his

Second Study for a View from a Corner of Orion (Night),

an extraterrestrial view of disaster with twisted mirrors

No

near the ceiling.

on the market

in

one could say he was closing Neo-Expressionist painting. But

for

the shows could be seen as establishing a claim

on the discourse with death. Then, Hydrocal

come

in 1982,

the

282-87), deeply embedded

reliefs (pp.

decorative molds prolific in body parts and skeletal

come

fragments, which, by 1983,

to act as elaborate

frames for Turneresque pastel, watercolor, and

oil

images of brushy and swirling color whose undulating

movements the frames echo and repeat in threedimensional form. By 1986, these works are presented in an exhibition at the Newport Harbor Art Museum, in Newport Beach, California, accompanied

Preludes (For

A. B.): Roller

Public Figure, 1979-80

Disco— Cenotaph 34

electric light, metal, plastic, paint,

35

86.4

artist.

x

17.8 cm). Collection of the

x

for a

onyx, silkscreened text,

(detail). Italian

x 7

inches (88.9

x

by a catalogue containing an extensive essay by Kuspit,

"The Ars Moriendi According

to

Such developments might seem

Robert Morris.'"'

But the context has

be drawn a

to

By the 1970s almost

Modernist paradigm as

it

wider than

little

generation of Abstract Expressionists

in the art

of the special and trivialized Greenbergian version

Modernism generally accepted within the

world, and partly

it

maturity by the end of

artistic

they had finally

confidence in the

all

was understood

world had collapsed. Partly this was a consequence

of

first

were adults before the war, but they

Smith reading. that.

The

to validate the full

was a consequence of Modernism's

came is

and Surrealism

—

to their

to say that

themselves from

to free

the particular forms of Modernist painting that had haunted their

—Cubism

work

through the 1930s and early 1940s, though Cubist

and Surrealist

art

managed

all

Which

it.

art

had long since

lost critical force

and

acquired the deadly status of connoisseur objects. 29

successes and the inflated estimation of their

And

significance. In any event, by the mid-1970s, the entire

paid handsomely by the successful and increasingly

project of post- World art

— by which

I

mean

War

II

American Modernist

to include all the

work of

if

the Abstract Expressionists were eventually

materialistic society that they were so critical of,

they were the

last

group of artists

Modernism

still

in the long

and the work

Abstract Expressionism, through Hard-edge painting

career of

and Pop

they made, as resolutely outside of and against the

the Minimalist sculpture of the

art, to

1960s and

continuations in the anti-form sculpture

its

dominant

a

its

own

terms, had

come

narrow museological space, walled

and power,

in

which

it

was unable

to

in

to

the generation of Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg,

occupy

by money

engage

significantly with the rest of the intellectual

and

social

was

War

largely

work,

The to this pass

different sense of its career

of World

Larry Rivers, and the Pop artists to the culture. If there

environment.

Modernism had come II left

from

a very-

and mission. The end

the United States, which

undamaged by the

conflict,

culture.

Their successors within the Modernist tradition

and systematic Conceptualism of the 1970s successful in

to see themselves,

with a great

it

— were

firmly married

was cultural criticism

in their

took the same form as cultural promotion.

advertising image, the commercial photograph,

the film

still,

and the

TV

with paint. For a brief

image cheerfully mingled

moment

during the early 1960s

there was the illusion that art could enter into significant

communication

in tine

a

public sphere and

reservoir of savings, great productive assets,

that such a public space existed. For many, this illusion

large foreign markets, a near-total absence of serious

was fostered by the Kennedy presidency, with

economic competitors, and

image

a great sense

of confidence resulting from

its

victory over

what

looked, to most Americans, like the pure forces of evil. If serious artists

had no direct relation to

this

growing affluence, they were powerful participants in

the milieu of cultural confidence that resulted

from

it.

of a

("the best

government presided over by

intelli

and the brightest") and the promise

its i

tuals

i

,i

(JFK was supposed to have writt< n a book, ami Ja< kie had dreamed of me< ting the dan< e impressario Diaghilev), And die Minimalist .md the hip, high culture

systemic ami painters,

tei

hnologii

al s

and the Pop and

(

ulptors, tin

posi

Popust

i

1

lard

edge

figuration

ID A

NT IN

4 3

••

m Jornada del Muerto 1981. reproduction, mirrors, steel,

Hirshhorn

Museum and

Nylon,

felt,

human

photomechanical

skeletons. Installation at the

Sculpture Garden, Washington,

DC,

December 1981-February 1982

seemed, with

a

few notable exceptions, co parallel,

glamorize, and glorify the re<

i

intellectuals

omnium,

scum

who exen

who opposed

Hi a so. ial tain

civil-rights

lie

mail

i

1

ii

tearing

i.

movement

All

a

tins

l

Martin

Valerie Solanis

In 1973,

ft*

thi

o spei

splinti n

>l

uthi

i

Let

King, Rob<

tai

It

by

Harvej rt

Watergate unfolded

testimony

t.u

i

t

lor long

hams

ol

that could only be supported by

equally ot evt n more dubious memories respei cablt

e

looking

men w ho had been

ret i

ited bj

aught

in

t

theorists had been teat hing in the

academy

power ol language disintegrates where the unspoken sot ial treaties

that the referential

a

hom< ol

supposed

a soi ial

movement dominated

tin-

unrespectable circumstances, learned what the speech

when

was pun. mated by

I

watc hers, the fundamental

nam test Anyone who watched

at

even shot And) Warhol

the point

•!

The

was intensified

a p. in

John Kennedy,

iequenci of assassinations

Oswald, Malcolm X

If

no rational

disintegrated into

New Left

ims seceded from

ommissars

Kennedy

i.ir

1

Pbwec movt ment, and urban

Blai k

thi

nd as the 1

revealing

it,

power and the

ised

TV

hours, hearing dubious memories produi

a gap

ation could take plac< between them.

paratisms,

4 4

before millions of

separation between language and action became

tive

War gradually opened

the intellei tuals

..

prodiu

hniqui

hut the Vietnam

c

iety's

s<

setting

underwriting

its

uses are broken

It

wouldn't be

mm

in

h

of an exaggeration to say that Richard Nixon gave birth to

American postmodernism.

h didn't take lour

understanding to inn onlj politil

.

all

was there no then was no

loi artists to

signification

generalize tins

and to conclude

common ground

umw

rsall\

i

in the

niiimnii

that

body

ground

in

the

phenomenology of the human body critical theory was coming to see

much

The

socially constructed represention.

either,

which

essential failure

London

in 1971, while at least in part

museum

stuffiness of the English

due

supported by fragments

Salle, largely

of late-Modernist French theory. Both the performative

new

of Morris's interactive show at the Tate Gallery in

Sherry Levine, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and

even David

as also a

narrative

and the appropriations mode flanked

Neo-Expressionism, which had

to the

new

tradition,

common

in

with the

narrative intermittent attempts at representation

was also the consequence of the show's Minimalist

and, at least in

phenomenology, undertaken in a

and limited competence before whatever imagined

where an invitation

grounded

social context

to a conception of the

body

unified

seen by participants as an invitation to a

fun

most of the punk painting, bad painting,

graffiti painting,

While Morris intermittently returned

fair/"

confronted them. Because the one thing that

reality

mechanics was predictably

in its physical

to his

its

beginnings, a sense of a contingent

its

and Neo-Expressionist painting was

rudimentary technique, the near childishness

means, and the pathos thus evoked before the

phenomenological concerns throughout the 1970s,

of

they were simply extensions of his 1960s work and

apparent cultural and psychic disasters

found continually declining resonance in the art world,

weak instrument of painting

its

in

vantage point, the contest of texts presented

this

Hearing and Voice seem more

like

wished the

But Morris had abandoned performance by the

while he was already pursuing other interests. Seen

from

it

to confront.

1970s, his only experiment with narrative was

"The Art of Existence," and he generally avoided

attempts to

respond to those aspects of the breakdown of the

autobiography until the publication of "Three

modernist paradigm that nearly everyone in the

Folds in the Fabric and Four Autobiographical Asides,"

world would soon come to

art

post-Modernism, while

call

Labyrinth (1974, no. 119) appears to have had

origins in Morris's older Modernist concerns with

the physical

Modernism

body

world was a performative

in the art

that expanded to

fill

significance of the

the gap

left

extent, with their real

11

mode

new

and

November 1989."

in

In 1980,

a hugely amplified address

obvious property

suppose that

and, to that

is

on

in giant installations

a

whose most

magniloquence. Are we to

for a sophisticated artist like Morris

an

installation like Preludes constitutes straightforward

and implied performances,

discourse? Each focal point of the installation

both the Tate show and Labyrinth articulate a response to the

America

in

commonplace theme,

by the fading

autonomous object

Art

vast scale,

But the mark of post-

in space.

in

however, he turned to metaphoric representation, a

its

is

a proposal for a cenotaph. So consider the text

silkscreened beneath the skull presiding over

situation in spite of their institutionally

neutral settings. Still,

what the new situation of the 1970s seemed was an abdication from universalist claims.

to require

As the master

and

narratives of history

to replace

them. So the

earliest

The individual's favorite possessions

art history

collapsed, local and contingent narratives

and most

came

shoes, the tie pin, the Ferrari, the

effective

new

work invoked the most particularly contingent and

local in the

Roller Disco:

Cenotaph for a Public Figure

collection, etc.

—

are carefully

cross-sections of the objects

twin Modernist taboos of narrative and representation.

the cross-sections face

circular floor

in pieces like

Eleanor Antin's epistolary photonovel The Adventures

100 Boots (1971— 73), Jonathan Borofsky's dream

texts

and images, Yvonne Rainer's performance This

woman who

.

.

.

(1973),

and virtually

Somewhat

later, for a

have spent most of

its

ball, the

half.

The

art

edges of

which are then embedded in a

is

and a

poured as a finish

upward. The matrix forms a vast

top layer of smooth, transparent plastic surface.

over this floor, the building is

all

of

Laurie Anderson's early 1970s performance and text

works.

sawed in

transparent plastic matrix. The objects are arranged so that

These concerns were most evident

the story of a

the golf clubs, the

the cuts are filed or otherwise cleaned to reveal the precise

form of a floating and equivocal

autobiography and unique approaches to the

of

—

bowling

generation that seems to

childhood watching television or

wooden

elaborate floor.

trusses.

A

is

large building

is

erected

held up with a maze of

No pole

or column intersects the

The appropriate decor and sound system are

installed.

A

campaign

A

suitable

is

initiated.

name

is

found.

discreet advertising

Only the highest quality

roller skates

an

1

allowed.-

"

shuffling the pages of Cosmopolitan, Gentleman's

Quarterly, Playboy, and Seventeen, the master narratives

The

encoded

the Ferrari"

in literature

were replaced by a master image

reservoir located in the

the sense of an

mass media, which produced

immense

surfeit of

images having

no reference points beyond the manipulated desires generating them. This led to the appropriations

deployed by

mode

that was

much

most

artists as different as

overdiscussed

effectively

Barbara Kruger,

recitation of "the golf clubs, the shoes, the tie pin, is

a

broad parody of the contents of

rov.il

The

texts

burials like the Viking ship at Sutton are broad

I

and sardonic and displace the

loo

installation's

purported solemnity, just as the skeletons climbing the twisted

steel clouds, in

Second Stua

View from a Corner of Orion (Night), created disaster movie as they evoked the imag< oi

a S( i-h

tin drifting

DAVID ANT1N 48

ruins of a wrecked space ship. "\\

were they

li.it

looking tor out there. Scotty?" In Jornada

helmeted black skeletons

we

ride

Jet

absurd phallic bombs.

are looking at atomic disaster, we're looking

-it

expressed through nearly comic-book imagery.

works seek

to

engage with social

So they seem

more

these

It

propose

arises, thej

engage through the most obvious

to

cliches.

It

it

representational

of

themselves

to position

significantly in relation to the problematics

of representation tor

public art than they attempt

a

produce

mum

The

to represent anything in particular.

an exasperated ineffectualit)

of

thej

ot

communication carried over to the rest of Morris's work of the 1980s through to the decorative Hydrocal

become

rehets that

de

tin

frames tor the

siecle

sweetly colored Burning Planet paintings, which don't Untitled

63

x

1984. Painted Hydrocal and pastel on paper.

73

Sonnabend

x

15 inches (161.3

Gallery,

New

x

186.7

x

much

function so

38.1 cm). Courtesy

York.

as paintings than as

Sublime' reduced to the status

ot tlte

mere

the nearh ine\ itable fate ot this kind

exprt ssmn.

of

earned out here with the strong possibility Hut what do thej parody? There- are

Suue

possible readings.

much

so

as tin

ami

works on whatever

poodle

number ot gentlefolk walking own ambitions for a grandl)

bin Morris's

s.

even

d. representational public art are

,il>

Self-parody, then,

mb<

n mi

most probable, espei

is

Ins 197

is

urn Minis

S&M

i

n

Untitled

95

x

1983. Painted Hydrocal and pastel on paper,

9(

11 inches (229.9 x 241.3 x 27.9 cm). Private collection.

i

ho

1

1

produced

Smith review

thi

difTerem

ntirelj

v

m

(

1

In

one-

the combination

1990 are,

orcoran

<

however, in

encaustic paintings are

huge, often ten to twelve

rally

r

it

parody both.

t,i

iat

lose

i

iallj

The work, perhaps,

poster.

The- paintings and drawings in the

show

a possible

closes) to

it's

lobster on the rue de Kivoh shared

a

sidewalk with any

s<

becomes

essential!) banal paintings,

Nerval walking a

expansive

in its more-

Ansel m Kiefers large, decorative,

as in

target. Parod)

German

sie< le.

Neo-J xpressionism, particularly

moments,

parody,

ot

think two

I

the frames suggest nothing

h rm.m tm de

c

signifiers

decoration

of

fe<

high or long, but

t

images and texts of which they 'n

of

that discounts composed produces a rebuslikt tie their size and makes them operatt like oversize

diaw mi's

Because

on lang<

.i

image bank

the

t

:<

<

is

works bj Morris himself, even when obvious

lear; tins

i

emblemati) significance

its

mo

iiiinMs.

products 1

n

bj

is

no means

live

in

an often enigmatit

relation

the Hydrocal framed paim ings wert public,

these paintings an

1

is

and older

source

thi

further complicated bj th< elliptical texts

is

with which they [f

draw n from

history, populai magazines,

ot .ot

i

noi

nt

\

i

["hey

d( IiIh ratelj

ol a privati

mm

on

tcln

i

vi ii.

us metaphoi for

seem hermetit puzzling

emblem book, 1

1

hi

n mi

ii

dream

i

ill

oi 'i

is

like

in theii

the

analogues I

u ud

s

structure, analogues

1.

1

f<

moils n

die. mi

Tin Untitled

al

and pasl '

Hi

pi. i\

(1990, pp

hi

"''

of Witi

meaning

in

the Investigations drawings

95) seems somewhat i

nil

in

sp aks hke (

freer,

.in in. i.

Ii

where the

among

a

mix of media images

floating

—Jackson

Pollock, Ethel

and Julius Rosenberg, Marian Anderson, Bernard Baruch(?)

—meditating on

"to

I

go so

its

expression," or "But the exclamation

in a different sense

us

—

use language to get between

far as to try to

The

4

pain."'

from the report:

it is

significance of the language

so

is

not hard to

track, but the images are harder to read because their

more or

allusions,

less

obscured by time,

roles they play in a personal

may count

we have only limited

We may

have a

image reservoir

access.

fair

Or should we

to learn

is

"We

by heart,"

only learn

so on, through as long

and reasonably

clear for an audience

relation of the texts to the

images

as the pieces of text to each other,

work with a

Latin.

little is

But the

at least as variable

and

this leaves the

clear if indeterminate discourse.

so with Time

and Loss and Grief and the Body

(1990), a bipartite painting in which the image of a

spyglass in hand, his feet anchored in the

rigging of his ship and his body miraculously

of

Pollock would count for in Morris's imagination. But

what does Anderson count

we hunger," and

are fairly simple

sailor,

what the image

idea of

if

Not which

to

hunger

hunger,"

is

sequence as we are disposed to imagine. So the parts

a

than their ambiguous appearance or the

for less

learn by heart

that can check a source and read a

to

is

we

"All

multiple associations: "To learn

for

to hunger," "To

is

by heart

is

forced from

related to the experience as a cry

it is

hunger" allows

by heart

the difficult relations

between language and feeling and action: "For how can pain and

of connectives between "to learn by heart" and

cantilevered out over the water, scans the horizon for

ask what the image of the black, open-mouthed singer

some distant sight on the right half of the painting, which is repeated on the left half in a more blurred

with the closed eyes counts for? Passion? Expressive

image

in

head.

The

And

powers

which

is

really

the pictorial position of this image,

literally situated

is

for?

above three others

—one

of

which the

has become a death's-

sailor's face

center of the painting bears the repeated

words of the

painted over and under and

title

an earthwork, a second of a social grouping of people,

overlapping each other within an illusionistic space.

over a third of a group struggling in what looks like a

Sultan identifies the image and interprets

—

swamp

one of transcendance or distance?

And what

it

in a

reasonable way, writing that "the intensely athletic

relation does this have to Wittgenstein's ironic line

gesture of the leveraged figure of Buster Keaton, an

on the nonlogical power of experience: "Nothing could

image taken from the film The Love Nest (1923), represents an expression of searching and loss, a leap

induce

me

after all

put

to

it is

my hand

in the flame

only in the past that

I

— although

have burnt

into the void that

myself?"

The

is

also an act of physical prowess; to

those familiar with the source, paintings seem more simply structured,

employing clear binary contrasts and mirror imaging,

source of this image,

and sometimes they are much more obvious, as in the

simply in humor.

comic diptych Enthusiastic for

the Ratio (1989), in

which

on the right

a great beast in a panel

quietly reading a very small

book across from a on the left. Some,

Memory

Hunger (1990),

Is

The

film

earlier as

sits

"rationally" divided, colored panel like the quadripartite

in

Yvonne Rainer

originally published in the issue of

and poet Jill Johnston." Rainer's essay

Feast (1964)

and the four

figures,

The Colossus

(ca. 1812), a

somewhat blurred image

of a Holocaust victim, a slightly dissolved version of

Morris as he appeared in his

S&M

(given the outfit he's wearing,

it

poster,

might

and

as well

a soldier

be

Hemingway in his guise as the Great White Hunter). Then there is the title printed across all four panels,

is

a

and melancholy memoir of the two

women's intertwined

distributed one to a panel counterclockwise, as Goya's

resonance doesn't end here or

Les Levine's journal Culture Hero devoted to the critic

In her catalogue essay, the curator, Terrie Sultan,

quote from Ernest Hemingway's

its

of Keaton appeared eighteen years

still

nostalgic, comic,

memoir A Movable

also evokes a richly

an emblematic illustration for an essay by

spite of their simplicity, are, nevertheless, not obvious.

identifies the title as a

it

absurd humor."'' To those familiar with a second

lives, their

complex

relation

within the 1960s art and dance world, and their eventual separation.

It's

shot through with recollections

of dancing, art making, parties, breakups and reconciliations, accidents

them

flicker

and

relationship with Morris and of

illnesses,

and through

fragmentary memories of Rainer's

Keaton operates

like

its

ending. So the image

an image in a dream, evoking

not only Keaton's athleticism and

its loss

through

alcoholism but, through the association with Rainer,

above which are printed, partially reversed and

the loss of a lover, the loss of a lover's body, the loss of

inverted, the Latin words EDISCERE ("to learn by heart")

one's

and ESURIRE

athleticism, creativity, and

If

("to hunger").

the relation between the white hunter and the

dissolved image of Morris suggests a loss of power, and that between the Colossus and the Holocaust victim a relation

between power and powerlessness, the

title

is a meditation on loss and on the grotesquerie of both power and powerlessness. As for the text, the absence

own young

body, and the complex of youth, life

that was the past. This

painting, though fortuitously interpretable in the a

dream may

be,

is

other dream; and

I

suspect that then are

paintings and drawings like this

were exhibited

at the

So where docs

way

no more a public work than any

among

<

>r

In

r

the works that

Corcoran.

this leave tin quest

i<

DAVID ANTIN 47

authenticity.'' In spite of

my own

distaste

mode, the persona work is tairlv

for the biographical recuperative

body

that emerges from Morris's

—

consistent

that of a restless, ironic, and intellectual

who engages

artist

of

with whatever surrounding

discourses happen to interest

him and

soon as they

him. This kind of

persona

(.ease to interest

ajudd

very different trom that of

is

them

leaves

as

or

LeWitt, or even a Christo. whose works consist of a

a

single stylistic gesture that

wide

a

allowed to unfold over

is

The recurrence

field.

within

of the gesture

their art suggests a persistence that occasionally verges

on virtuosity within

narrow range

a

ot choices

trom the austere to the decorative. But

not as

it's

Andre orjudd or LeWitt individually arrived

it

some

at

idea of simplicity and elementary organization.

Because

was not an idea but

it

a sculptural discourse

about simplicity and the elementary that developed

communal

the Investigations

1990. Graphite on vellum, 18

18 inches (45.7

x

Gallery,

New

x

45.7 cm). Courtesy Sonnabend

York.

in

space ot the American art world

end

of the 1950s, a discourse that tor some seemed exhausted by the 1970s, though not most of those whose reputations had been

at the

tor

artists

made by

is

persona

a persistent

is

and

a nervouslj attentive

A nomad

mobile one.

why

hard to see

It's

it.

more authentic than

surely as authentic as a

homeowner. A

Roberta Smith,

I

The

Net.

/."...,

•<

1

No»

Hypersensitive

Kublt

irge

Smith,

i

New Gustons,

In

l

1978), p

Hilton Kramer,

"A Mand

Tht Nn.

m America 66

,'31

York Abbevillt

a

.

neral sociological its

Howard

distribution, set

mil

Press, 1981

Storr, Pbilip

ii, i,

win n

Decembei

Moms

in

i.i'

feel

1

x

si

in Ibid

2.40 m). Collection

paint

to

thai the

Green Galler] slum would be admitted to as

not

Notes on Sculptun

Pan

6);

Octobei 19

!

I

in

Batti

or)

,

and

reprinted in

ock (Nev<

">

ork

i

Ann

ml Note 12,

i

1

II.

'

1 ,

w

1.

!

1968)

|

!

no 8

.ii.iii

•

,

|

.

.

69 no 10

.

1

1

><

•

mb<

<

10

Somi Notei ivati

\|.|il

'

i4

<

,

1

'-

Beyond Objeci

Part IV

Notes on s ulpi nn

i

Moi

foi iln

mi"

10

p|

...

Morris

i

I

Sculptun

Mon M'.i

i

-I

mark

of < tradi

Itwasonlj

of graj

.

M,. in-.

I

1981), pp 9

I"

u-.c

96

(April 1969),

1H

of

University ol

(Berkele)

rids

repeated Ins

i* rsistentl)

Critic*

\

Dun I

ol the

{rtV

Becker,

i

inches x

1

1986)

Press,

i

Notes on Sculptun

1

account of th<

account of art making and the networks

ame something

bet

it

9 Roberi Mums.

hes (3.64

full

Robert Storr, Philip

se<

I

had so

fanuar)

a inn but

1

For a

,/,

recognition can barely

Lucy Lippard, Six

of relevant activity through

and outside

remain anonymous

his maturity.

see Berger, Labyrinths, p. 121.

a

self through the unconventional nature presented by the three artists

explained by Morris, wish

it,

Avant -Garde

himself.

he attempts to

artists,

when he entered

Press, 1961], p. 217).

object, see

lift

seems intent on assuring his place in

the art of the '70s. perhaps unbuilt contributing

painter

very

is

of a late Cubist as well

For contemporary documentation of the declining fortunes ol

31

>

thi

the girls'

.illusion ioi is,

as Freud

toward

p. units

in tins

ihr.un became an obvious substitute,

thi

it

being married

Tins

pointed out, regularl) directed parents' sexual

life;

il

is

an

l>\

infantile curiosity and, so far as

persists later, an

it still

instinctual impulse with roots reaching far back.

Despite the general repression and sublimation

know about

later exacted (and the child's desire to

the

sexual organs and processes, not just to see them, is

an indication of restraint already imposed),

evident, as Karl

of scoptophilia,

phenomena owe

it is

Abraham proposed in his own study that many important psychological their origin in part to this process.

Among them would

be the impulse toward

investigation, observation of nature, pleasure in travel.

To these he adds "the impulse towards

artistic-

treatment of things perceived by the eye" and "the desire for knowledge."' It is

the conjunction of these latter two aspects

of scoptophilia that forms the core of Freud's study of

Leonardo da Vinci," his inquiry into the dynamics of the incessant, lifelong, gnostic pursuit across

mediums, techniques, and

disciplines

the artist in his Notebooks.

It is,

form

documented by

in fact, this

sublimated

of desire, the "epistemophilia," or desire for

knowledge, which

is

indissociable from scoptophilia,

that

we may understand

field

within which Morris's recurrent meditation

upon the frame

—

as generating the semiotic

his material, textual,

and symbolic

re-enactment of disframing and reframing place.

It is

—

takes

the field within which Morris's textual

production, his theoretical work, singular within his artistic

generation for

its

acuteness and steadiness,

is

produced. Morris's view of Rodin's The Gates of Hell, in sharp contrast with Steinberg's, extends the line of

Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, 1941. black-and-white 35

mm

Still

from

film. Private collection.

analytic manifestos produced in the 1960s, the

period of his Minimalist work.

The

discussion in his

essay "Notes on Sculpture" of strong gestalt or unitary-

type forms, for example, was directed at the logic of

Carl Dreyer,

35

mm

Joan

of Arc, 1928.

Still

from black-and-white

film. Private collection.

.59

related parts that characterized "retardataire Cubist

kind

aestheti

infini:.

1962 (the year

In

Pnn

after

made

Portal), Morris

of

open

frame his photograph,

to

in all

length, "naked and

lull

relation,

M

work

irris's

n does not.

grounded production that concerns me here. Such consideration would take account ot the precedents in

nude, in Francis Picabia's

(

performance Si

among

Belle Haleine,"

The

set,

i

,

and

to

claim that

pt of

h

it is

irttn

i

tntaneousm

and sculpture

ernist

defeat theatre.

censoriousness of this assault signals that the

a transgressive

symbolic articulation

ot desire.

channel and as

And

'

both his practice and

theonzation,

its

and

level

the individual work.

in relation to

The contusion

is

a

such was

undoubtedly the case both on the most general

others

necessary condition of Morris's enterprise, the

feasibility of

.

u ant

/

I

indeed perceived as

in

Rrose Selavy and

of

The

of

introduction of temporality into spectatorship was

(in the

I

photography, through the personae

to be for.

u irth noting that the concept

it is

of their pn

painting

awaits fuller study in relation to the voyeuristically

once again by Duchamp,



mails mir understanding

c

be coherentlj read as

(inn

ill

d by

h<

stablishn

had

p(

nt

ol th(

/ lllptural pi ffoi

s(

ami i

see as sustaining that

the frame that

ot

us multiple forms

earthworks

n enlisted as material

rei

ins within Morris's iilms

but one

as

si

of sculptural produ< tion, textually

nee essaril) in

theorized

ol

—

central to Morris's project,

promisi uous

"),

united spaa

a

and transgressions, sustained and

onfirmed— we maj now

whi< h app< an

.

establishment as

riti< a]

i

nee

problematizing

wider

infinitely

more subtle and complex.

a logi<

pra<

ent< rprise

Modernism an

tenet oi high

intr.n tions

extended through three decades

leared a space

and method, newly

task, discipline, material,

hi artistii

(a basic

(

I

|

ti

riz<

i

d

Ibid

B

p

Rodin,

"i

objt ct

I

bj

,,,

rM (New York:

in

t

htfbrd

•.

m

u. .in Hi.

Rodin Musi

urn,

i

'in continuous andentin the perpetual creation

80 loo

pn

tentni

oj itself,

ts,

this

spectator and sculptural object (the latter understood as not less important but as "less u//-important

(

—

infraction that was to guarantee the "co-presence" ol

through the formal and institutional constraints of

World. In so doing,

and

of that barrier of virtual space within which critical

in the

Harvard University's anachok chamber,

silence of

had,

epiphany granted him

response to the

in

Morris's violation

proscriptive aesthetic.

its

disc rete

amounting,

that on

./>

//

/.

u

•

from

i

./

\i

...

n

i.

inn

.1

il"

cot oniidi i

Rodin nil

Mum

urn,'

p

i

in

"Thru

I

Folds in the Fabric and Four Autobiographical Asides as Allegories (or Interruptions),"

A

in

America 11 (November 1989), pp. 142-51.

"Fragments from the Rodin Museum,"

10. Morris,

11.

Art

and Objecthood," Artforum (June

1967), reprinted in Battcock, p. 146.

The metaphysical presuppositions

that inform this view are analyzed in Michelson, "Robert Morris

p. 3-

thorough reading of these works, of the manner

theatre," see Michael Fried, "Art

in

which they

manifest a return to the Baroque as response to the threat of catastrophe

and

suggests, indeed, their function as Trauerwerke, for which the

Creuzer's "Mythologie," in The Origin of German Tragic Drama,

of analysis

century Tragic

is

provided by Walter Benjamin

German drama.

Drama,

trans.

12. Buren's place

me 13.

New

John Osborne (London:

Left Books, 1977).

helpful critical

Hugh Gray

whom am

with Rosalind Krauss, to

I

indebted for

What

in

Is

its

claim to "presentness," see Benjamin's discussion of Friedrich

pp. 163-67. 38.

There

exists a philosophical tradition, that of

Lacanian extension, within which time

is

Hegelianism and

its

linked to desire. For

explication of the Hegelian source, see Alexandre Kojeve, Introduction the

Reading of Hegel: Lectures on

the

to

Phenomenology of Spirit, assembled by

Raymond Queneau, ed. Allan Bloom, trans. James H. Nichols, Jr. NY.: Cornell University Press, 1969), especially "A Note on

comment.

Andre Bazin, "Painting and Cinema,"

trans.

study of sixteenth-

in his

See Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German

within this development has been pointed out to

in conversation

more than one

model

— An

Aesthetics of Transgression," pp. 19-23. For an analysis of the symbol

Cinema?,

(Ithaca,

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967),

Eternity,

pp. 164-69.

Time, and the Concept: Complete Text of the

First

Two

Lectures of the Academic Year 1938-1939," pp. 100-49.

14. Ibid., p. 128.

39- Sources for the concept of sculptural "virtual" space include Chapter

15. Ibid.

6 of Suzanne Langer's Feeling and Form

16. For an analysis of this aspect of Bazin's ontology of cinema, see

1953); Bruno

Annette Michelson, "What

and Adolf Hildebrand's The Problem of Form

Is

Cinema?" Artforum

10 (summer

6, no.

1968), pp. 67-71.

trans,

17. Jacques Derrida,

"The Parergon,"

m Painting,

The Truth

in

trans.

Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago: University of Chicago

and

rev.

Adnam's

(New York: Macmillan, 1977; (New York, 1943);

Problem of the Sculptor

in Painting

with the author's cooperation by

and Sculpture,

Max Meyer and

Robert Morris Ogden (New York, 1907). 40. See Morris, "Notes on Sculpture," p. 234.

16-147.

Press, 1987), pp. 18. Ibid., p. 22. 19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., p. 45. Italics are in the original. 21. Bazin, "Painting and Cinema," p. 165. 22. See Annette Michelson, "Robert Morris

—An

Aesthetics of

Transgression," in Robert Morris, exhibition catalogue (Washington,

D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of An, 1969), p. 39. 23. Ibid., p. 7. 24. Maurice Berger, Labyrinths: Robert Morris, Minimalism,

(New York: Harper and Row, 25.

I

have discussed these films

Snow," Artforum

9, no.

in

some

detail in Michelson,

"Toward

10 (June 1971), pp. 24—42; and "About Snow," 1-25.

October, no.

8 (spring 1979), pp.

26. Dennis

Young, "Origins and Recent Work,"

A

and the 1960s

1989), p. 49.

1 1

in Michael Snow:

Survey, exhibition catalogue (Toronto: Gallery of Ontario

and the

Isaacs Gallery, 1970), unpaginated.

27. Recent psychoanalytically informed film theory

pioneering study by Christian Metz, The Imaginary Britton, et

al.

is

indebted to the

Signifier, trans.

Celia

(Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1982). In the

following discussion of the framing process,

I

have drawn,

in particular,

on pp. 54-55 and 75-77. 28. Ibid., p. 55. 29- This statement of disavowal

is

formulated by Octave Mannoni in

Clefs pour I'imaginaire ou I'autre scene ([Paris: Editions

du

Seuil, 1969],

pp. 9—33) as epitomizing the fetishist's position defined on the basis of

Sigmund

Freud's 1927 essay "Fetishism." This latter essay

published in Sigmund Freud, Collected Papers, vol.

(New York:

5, ed.

is

James Strachey

Basic Books, 1959), pp. 198-204. This formulation,

although not uncontested, has gained fundamental status and

widespread currency

in the theorization of

cinematic spectatorship.

30. Metz, The Imaginary Signifier, p. 77. 31.

Sigmund Freud,

Library, vol.

1,

ed.

Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, Pelican

James Strachey and Angela Richards,

trans.

Freud

James

Strachey (London: Penguin Books, 1978), p. 258. 32. Ibid. 33- Karl in

Abraham, "Restrictions and Transformations of Scoptophilia

Psycho-Neurotics; with Remarks on Analogous Phenomena in Folk-

Psychology," in Selected Papers, trans. Douglas Ryan and Alix Strachey

(New York:

Brunner, Mazel, 1979), pp. 169-234.

34. Freud, Leonardo da Vinci

and a Memory

Strachey, trans. Alan Tyson

(New York: Norton,

35. Morris,

of His Childhood, ed.

James

1964).

"Notes on Sculpture," Artforum 4, no. 6 (February 1966),

reprinted in Minimal Art:

(New York: Dutton,

A

Critical Anthology, ed.

Gregory Battcock

1968), pp. 222-28.

36. Berger, Labyrinths, p. 36.

37. For this passage, followed by a statement of "the need to defeat

ANNETTE MICHELSON

6

1

WALL LABELS: WORD, IMAGE, AND OBJECT IN THE WORK OF ROBERT MORRIS

The appearance of Robert Morris's work in a major Guggenheim retrospective ought, one would think, to settle the question of his status. The label "Major Artist" may now be safely inscribed over the entrance to the exhibition, and the works may be safely labeled no matter how unprepossessing they

as masterpieces,

may

look. All that remains

work

in a

is

the packaging of Morris's

him

canonical history that will position

of his objects

m

provided by post-Strut ruralist theories of

aluminum) could hardly have been predicted from his pre\ ions work. Those who had defined Morns as a practitioner within specific mediums had grown used to labeling him as a sculptor, and (.more

my

wall label disturbed

entwined eyes.

was

It

Have

in

my

dreams begin

words

in

my

my

by bringing out his early exercises in

On

the negative side, he wax

The

merely being an eclectic

(as so otte-n before) of

of

prevailing fashion.

large encaustic paintings, with their enigmatic

d

lie

were seen as belated attempts to

xts,

te

capitalize

on

fashion tor image u\i composites

the-

pioneered by younger American artists in the

get up edgy.'

I

reaction ot critics to this

experimentalist and imitator

ste in

as the insomniac poet said.

responsibility,

of warning?

over

itself

as

was predictable. There was. on

to painting

Abstract Expressionism. 4

art.

wrapped

The

to those- of painting."

a painter

to threatening proportions, ear,

medium

saw his

not only distinct but hostile

the positive side, a rush to certit\ his credentials as

the terms

a tangled, suffocating shroud of seething in

had a dream

I

grew

It

around me, babbled

itself

dream. But

sleep.

who

importantly) as a sculptor expressing concerns

accused The

Mitchell

T.

slutt

Modernism and post-Modernism,

in the context-, of

and unpack the meanings

W.J.

late

1980s a tribute to

It is

both the intransigence of the

viewing public and the

Mornss

resilience- of

art-

My own insomnia

art

that the packaging, labeling, and securing ot both

Work and

the

the works

not likely to pn>< eed

is

untroubled. More than any American artist generation.

Morns

oeuvre) has

managed

and

classify,

had

(considered as the

hardly do better than Morris

m

about Ins work,

working across

artistic

a

all

it

is

too

mirror to the

a in

I

(

yet,

it

one

mi.

work both

Morris's Ii

nding

toany

itself to

singli

Ii

and

invites

Modern si

j'Jr

visual t

hi

.hi.

i

rhere

look

ot

I

\.i

work

in-,

made

in v<

labels

i

si

that look like

Holocaust paintings [nos

drawings [nos drawings; the a

.

.'•

UK KOMI

i.

in

II

I

147 \n\

I

Mill

>

18];

ttigaliom

obje<

ii

an-.

ii.

verbal se

image

or

t

program

|iist

as a

n>

will look

m

it

of

the

Moms

with the

behind" the

lor the objet is.

language,

ot art itself as

omplex interset and tin- palpable

.ii

..ii.

wuli

i

I

i

I

ike

ha

tion

a settled

.

causi

1

1

anxiety, -^^l disruption

a site "i play,

do not know what

W(

I

i.i

i

In

and consequence

lain ling, ilu

problem

of

ol

Mums v

isual style,

is

the difficulty

mustering an adequate,

Ins

language

foi

work

.vall

label disturbed

my

sleep.

raises

It

i i

I

and

a

no consistent

offers

late

>1]

te list

i

inn. h less authoritative, des< riptive

149

set

har.u

that lies

alloldmg or prop

without

paintings on

whole

writing and Ins an this intersection

in Ins

Inn as

is. la.

luoks

monumental paint ings 145 16] and Firestorm

drawings [nos

In

I

Morris

the third series of Blind

c

boundary between words and images, wools and

of

room, no way

His turn in the

an unusually large

has consistently been staged, not as

artistit

nis to appeal

i

ot a

art. as a theoretic al

Accordingly,

'a

want to

I

such an apt representative

he- is

ot the- seeable, the sayable,

nuns

identify

toss a

which

ot the- objet

lii

with any certainty what his new work

1981 thi

at

e>t

Mornss work and

but also with the exploration

lab

individual

no way to

appearand from

inviting ready

ill'

is

internal to

elaboration

ulpture,

01 si\le

resists

is,

reflects a

it

has consistently been engaged not

thegenerii labels endemii topost Modernism, whili refusing th< overall label of th<

Rather,

era tor

nition in

ii

management

the-

art ot its

onceptual

i

Morns

labeling

of

the slutting relation of art and language

imposites, Pro ess works) without use-It

concerned with

ot issues

art, land art, scattei pieces, felt

i

Ah, there's the

of supplements.

and diverse oeuvre

artist

works, painting, drawing, photography, readymades,

committing

excrescence, a

institutional

mere supplement 7

representative,

the genres of post

(Minimalist

prai tie*

performance

that

rat t, is

merely holds up

it

I

An

suggest, not merely a pragmatic orcuraton.il issue

)ne of the complaints

(

Beware

The problem

to

period of the 1960s to the 1990s, one could

lor the

tunc-,

rub.

terminology of

American

"representative"

a

<

What have previously ignored, not wished

wall label?

of a total

movements, and periods And

to produi

that

of Ins

name

begins.

A mere

blurt of public relations jargon, a

remain unpredictable, hard

to

difficult to label in the

styles, artistic

to think about?

essed status

annoyance

slithers

ai

and

linguistii

blurb

coils in the

Mi

tin-

Insomniac's cold

ambiguous ducat, refusing

litis institutional,

shadows.

It

tautological

begins to grow larger

—

"

than the works proper

in

my dream

Dadaism, Surrealism, and

galleries; a snarling, looming,

From This difficulty with labeling

Modern

consistently been labeled as the exploration of a

new

—

between art and language. Modernism Clement Greenberg's classic formulation

its

art, especially abstract

Museum

at

of

Modern

Art.

and textuality from the

of art, which has, after

the visual arts.

field of

not surprisingly, has been defined as

the negation of this negation, "an eruption of language into the aesthetic field."

From

Krauss

calls a "will to silence,

moved

goes)

s

what Rosalind

we have

history.

foil for his

would have

depurification

and

elite

dethroning of the notion of the

moment

artist as the creator

of an original image, a novel visual gestalt that bursts

and

and original image, post-Modernism

has offered pastiche, appropriation, ironic allusion,

an art addressed to spectators

who

are

more

be puzzled than dazzled, and whose thirst Like is

a

all art-historical

is

to

master narratives,

whose

actor, writer

and

who want

pictorialist

and expressive tendencies of

formal abstraction, there

is

no doubt that

and

this tradition in its search for purity

Duchamp,

it

its

Minimalist visual

continued aesthetic

art,

Minimalism

of Steve

artist.

'

of art.

It is,

not the mass media, provides the model for

the hybrid visual/verbal character of his objects: It

"One

foot in images, the other in language, this

is

the least immediate and most discursive form of in

must be reckoned with, even by those who want to resist them,

or

United

However much Minimalism may have departed

the appropriate musical setting for Morris. Marcel

this

which Morris himself has contributed,

both as narrator and

after the

in the

Reich or Philip Glass. John Cage's "silence" provides

frame the production and reception

short, a story

Modernist abstraction

decorative, patterned musical

myth, a compound of half-truths and

a story to

we

II,

between mass

especially sculpture, seems quite antithetical to the

likely to

for visual

oversimplifications that, nevertheless, has a certain

power

to

purist avant-garde at

and times, both before and

of high

elitism. In this respect,

pleasure often seems deliberately thwarted.

one

States.

from the

artistic "seer"

fixate the spectator. In the place of this

art of the purified

of

culture takes on a variety of other forms

in other places

formed from the mind of the

most

for

moment around World War

to notice that this dialectic

of artistic opticality has been accompanied by a

to dazzle

been impure

broadly considered. If Greenberg's kitsch became the

impure negative

and

that either couple the visual and the verbal or erase the

fully

all,

A

more nuanced view, finally, would have address the ways in which the cults of both visual its

a certain cultural

The

im.

like the restoration of a basic condition

speechifying, characterized by impure, hybrid forms

difference between image and text.

language

of

less transgress

transformations in visual and textual culture more

(so the story

to an art of noise, discourse,

The "eruption

purity and visual/verbal hybridity intersect with

a gridlike art of

"purity" and opticality, expressing

painting, from

might seem

into the aesthetic field"

and look more

art,

and

temporary

like a

European context into the purified spaces of the

sought to evacuate language, literature, narrative,

Post-Modern

more

aberration, an interlude associated with the removal of

reflects a central

obsession of post-Modernism, which has itself

least in

work of the various

this standpoint, the cult of visual purity

the will to silence might look

moreover, not

is,

simply a problem with Morris but

relation

in the

other historical avant-gardes)."

hypnagogic presence.

art-making."

historical effects

to situate this story in relation to

more nuanced histories. A frame, for instance, would ask us

Now am awake,

yet the label refuses to shrink. Here beneath the dim

I

lamp

its

rectangulanty

larger, longer, or

larger

threatens. This blot of

historical

to consider

to a

menacing

seems

to pulsate,

its

language groans and

words screeches and sobs and

tell-tale tick

of

mumbling under the

finally

recedes

floor boards.

the relation of this (mainly American) story of art to

The

the fortunes of American culture in the era of the

War and the nuclear nightmare, a period that, at very moment of this retrospective, seems now to

Cold the

be clearly "behind"

us, replaced

by the quite different

concerns of a post-nuclear, post-Cold

War "New

World Order," and the

capitalism as

world system.

A

final victory of

is

sculpture.

seem

post-Modernism was not already basic forms in early European

0C<

urring in

.

about

the one hand, one

is

i

and

label,

Minimalist

of

confronted

deliberately

What can What

or Box say to us? them.-'

The

labels

ts

inexpressive," "deadpan,"

seem

objei i

is

labeled Slab,

an w< possibly

to say

it

all, to

s.i\

exhaust

the object and the visual experienci ofth< obj

its

Modernism (notably

On

and "inarticulate."

longer view would ask whether

the changing relation of art and language central in

and language. obje<

by simple, spare, elemental, usually "untitled" obje< that

a

relation of art

one of the principal paradoxes

in

The whole

situation ol

Minimalism seems designed

W

.1

T

to

MITCHKI.I. 63

defeat the notion ot the "readable" work

of art,

understood as an intelligible allegory, an expressive symbol, or

On

coherent narrative.

a

Minimalism

the other hand.

often characterized as an unprecedented

is

intrusion by language theoretical language

—

especially anneal

—

and

into the traditionally silent

space of the aesthetic object. As Harold Rosenberg put it:

"No mode

to

it

has ever had more labels affixed

in art

by eager literary collaborators.

.

No

.

.

has

art

mure dependent on words than these works

ever been

pledged to to see, the

silent materiality.

more there

.

.

The

.

there

less

is

Even worse than the

to saj

is

and the chatter of the ever-

"literary collaborators'

helpful intus. according to Rosenberg,

the fact that

is

became

the Minimalist artists themselves

writers. All

the traditional divisions ot labor in the art language

game were confused. The mute, inarticulate sculptor, who was supposed to make infinitely Card file

File

1962. Metal and plastic wall

mounted on wood, containing

four index cards,

(68.6 d'Art

x

26.7

27

x 5.1

x

10'

cm).

<

forty-

2 inches

x

Musee

expressive images tor the delectation ol the infinitely receptive (and articulate) aesthete, has been replaced

by the articulate sculptor

who makes mute

objects

National

puzzled beholder.

tor a

Moderne. Centre Georges

Pompidou. Pans. Then with a certain trembling "mere

me, there

strikes

it

no such thing as a

is

my

The phrase ratchets through

wall label."

feverish brain.

This label, this mutter of slurred information has a secret ambition.

doubt about

there on the wall.

from

aim

its

it,

is

hysteria begins to erode the encaustic

Its linguistic

my

panels.

In

one sense, (his paradox has now been

prematurely resolved by institutional canonization

Minimalism, the

oi

the succession

in

these mute obje<

seem

tull ci

m

those

lor

t

The

art history.

fixing ol

Libel

its

twentieth century styles, has now

ol

made

ts.

once so strange and

silent,

memorable asso>i

authoritj

thi

you don't gel the point,

of A-'

judgmi

Do

sleep.

I

must squeeze

hai

is

t

i\n

ol labels

must get a it

back

to

it!

it

is

.1

w<

present

In

they havi anj

system

The

quite different

no longer out Th< works hav<

is

fati

m\A myths?

grip

on mj

true ignoble

"

Untitled, 1984. Painted Hydrocal and pastel on paper,

84

3

a

x

65V2

x

8 inches (166.4 x 215.3 x 20.3 cm). Collection Sherry

Fabricant.

proportions. But like

it

is

atmospherics of

elusive as

it

gleams there

in

the dark with

its

Poe-

but in the depth of his intervention

in

Morris himself seems unsure on this point, noting already in 1981 that

Minimalism had run out of steam:

"As the dialectical edge of Minimalism grew dull, as it

had to

in time,

and

contexts or processes

dwindled

was only its

most

as the radicality of

its

imagery,

became routine, its options more space. n But Morris

to a formula: use a drop-in

Minimalist

in the first place, albeit

articulate spokesman. His interest from the

beginning was

much more complex and

general than a

desire to create a "look" within a style or

He had been

many

concerned, like

generation, with nothing task of art, the

less

as a hybrid grafting of

movement.

artists of his

than the philosophical

of sculpture

object

the vehicle for a reflection on art." This

unpopular and impolitic.

He

is

an

what Krauss

as

makes Morris

"artist's artist,"

not

aptly calls

its

"expanded"

field.

Morris makes philosophical objects that need not have

any visual family resemblance, no "look" that can be labeled.

What

they have

visible, not representable,

in

common

and

strictly not

is

difficult to label

is

except perhaps as something like "philosophy."

body of questions and

decisions,

some

It

is

a

rational, others

arbitrary; a series of concerns, experiments, concepts,

procedures, attitudes grid, like a card

file,

—

in short, a discursive field or

a catalogue of the considerations

and topics that might come up object labeled

— understood word, image, and —

employment

the basic issues

in

of aesthetics, particularly in the history of sculpture,

and verbal iconoclasm.

linguistic threat

his

work

is

Card File (1962,

hard to consume,

level of visual pleasure.

The

in

making ot an This means

the

much

less digest, at the

objects don't even do us

the courtesy of "illustrating" Morris's discourse Straightforward way. less as

art

no. 26).

One might

in

think of his objei

examples or illustrations than as

in the usual sense of technical, stylistic virtuosity

be opened, pondered, and (sometimes) closed,

word/image object assemblages

W

when

J

ts

cases to

(despite his reputation as a perfectionist craftsman),

that,

anj

T

spe< itn

successful,

Mil

80

the work "proper," not as a mere

exceed and explode (or incorporate) the labels thac

an equal partner

accompany them.

supplement or neutral setting

in

The

tor the picture.

Hydrocal frames, with their imprinted body parts and Show

yourself

the

in

Come

light, wall label.

leadenness of

institutional

its

post holocaust detritus, stand as the training

out of the shadows

of the works, trophies or relics encrusted

monster hides behind the

of the gallery. But this protean linguistic

past event, the catastrophe that

prose.

m

fossils

one actually has to do some hard

In short,

some

thinking,

serious talking to oneselt or a friend in

One

the presence of this work.

The

are.

oi

much more

objects take time,

is

past

Or

listened for three

reported that Cage

it is

and

And

no. 11]).

time

this

On

not a

is

n

a

apparent order to a labyrinth

ot knots,

an

emblem

Morris's Knots

1963, no.

<

with knots that displays

51

object as the "support" lor a various

measurement

U)

pieces (pp. 1st

<

ouples the

i

the abstrat

ot

to

produce

a "rational,

,"

art that

aims

"systematii

formalist

a relation

t

art history

documents

mention

oi

the scatter piei

ol

on

in

paint

a dialei

..nd "label,

and

on

annihilation in

Wo

.

1980s,

si

is

alt

\

isual

1

I

charnel house

1

pn>|e

present

in the

1981, not

oi

ted future:

i

1980s

thi

>>v<

r

r

J

•

«

I

v il

l

the objei

adi

thi

di

thi

final

i

with

mass

"/.'

rtain disgusting motion



contemplati his objects as

the short

essay,

I

the- artist

I

it.

destruc tion as an

comment appended

editorial

e

about the

lu< iditj

t

(not to

awake. Like Walter Benjamin,

ami form

act usee

tirst

Benjamin put

own

its

.

monuments and n tic a commentary in Morris's own essay, the editors polemic located the artist's

or at least

at perfe<

and history

possibility that art

order

gloom

he (and

scene

a

time beyond monuments.

to a

aesthetic pleasure ol the

Quartet,"

such

anybody else's art. which art would not

h, as

hara< ter

tradition with the relentless, corrosive ironj ol

Duchamp

monuments

monumentalizing

punsm

ot

possible future in

Morris's 1981 Art in

of rational measurement. \l irris

art tor a

An anonymous

thai display

the constructed, conventional, and arbitrary

a

realizes that this

They ( ritique a world in w hit e.m experience "mankind

mac hine-tooled

haotit tangle, or his

l

when one

arises

to survive a nuclear holocaust, but

.

notched wooden bar

a

),

a rational,

image as

to

is

remote future.

have- little interest in his or

is

exist,

As

es.

movement, one might consider

ot this

would Tins

unsolved

problems, conundrums, and disagreeable absent

frame

we) are well aware that survivors

movement from

a

it),

to a less

is

as

to

it

meant

were

[

process of interpretation and description that leads to

the hidden truth or meaning, but

about

to 1h literal

i

is

would be one in which these paintings could never exist Morris makes them look as they

Making 1961, hermeneutK duration,

oj Its

image

future

hours to the entire tape

a halt

loop of Box with the Sound

to

is

to the destructive element, as present

The "knot

and

sat

behind the

Frame

Someday, the works suggest, the past will be enframed in a present that makes these works look natural.

time than a label allows, certainly more time than got (though

lctt

enframed.

is

it

remote possible future

has to understand

the dialogue provoked by the objects in situ as part

what the works

body

whieh

present

around the

(

t

Edward

ornell's

|

environmi

ornami

ntal di strui tion

nts suitabli

foi

I

ol

Neo

I

III!

onfronts

thi

i

•

th<

i

I(

hi

lool

\

i

how< w

i

(pressionism framed within

painti

In thi i

in

ti

n

s<

works,

ing

on

thi

decorativi surrealism)

I

onsidered as a totality, the

model suggested hen has three

boudoii

"i this p< riod,

sculptural counterquotations .

w

>arth Vadi

ions

juotations

No

uppi

thi

liki

and orientations; whii

cht

frann as

grid,

i

1

1

id

1

1

.hi

.i

1

1

vi

form in.

thi foi

it

a

i

table top,

distinct

which

l<

vi

K

locates positions

paradigmatii lines

foui

k<

m\'\

boundaries as well as

dm H

i

is

ii

\

hi

i

it

c

(oi

nduring traditions;

"

and

we

at the roots of these traditions

pass into a

Even

Morris evokes the

theoretical realm."

tradition of the tavola

most patently unalterable property

its

not remain constant. For

and Condorcet's notion

of the

—

—

shape

does

in u er who changes the

it is the

shape constantly by his change in position relatix

t to

the

known

historical/conceptual tableau, the classic rationalist

work. Oddly,

device for spatializing a discursive totality, treating his

shape, the gestalt, that allows this awareness to become so

mimic

"polygon" as a stage for art-critical gestures that the characteristic gestures of

own

or "lodestones." Thus, his editorial

its

prose (as the outraged

commentary complains) "wanderfs] around

great deal," like the tracks of Pollock;

stuffs the virtual "box" of its

it

is

strength of the constant,

conceptual

a

six-foot cube.

mind but which

different from every side. So The constant shape of the cube held in the

Modern art manner of Cornell. Then it turns, in the manner of Duchamp, and deconstructs the entire structure as

is

the viewer never literally experiences, is the literal changing, perspective

known

views are related. There are two distinct terms: the

and the

constant

grid with fragments of the entire history of

works than previous sculpture.

in these

Baroque figurative bronze

an actuality against which

space of alienation" in the style of

artist in the "sealed

Hopper;

a

portrays the

it

much more emphatic

A

four "key points"

it is the

experienced variable. Such a division does

not occur in the experience of the bronze.

in the

"the ghoulish image of critics their

dead

mumbling and chewing

on the table of commentary." 2

artifacts

The terms

here go back at least as far as Plato's

division between the "intelligible" and the "visible,"

and the question raised

is

how one

Are you innocence, sincerity? Are you but a few simple guiding words,

provocative of thought"

a soothing "orientation" 7 Ah, but

Plato's

I

catch your sneer, your

thus provocations to dialogue.

agendas are always hidden.

object,

adequacy

Morris's ambivalence about the visible form, then, does not

of the

can't

to the labels or narratives

"American Quartet" it

run from the objects

provided by Morris' is

own

it

images, and objects to resist:

is

exactly

is

Morris's

work

image or a

tries

autobiographical."

Minimalism

The rude

beams of of

cultural totalities nor figures of Platonic perceptual

foundations-; they are better seen as something like

Mouse

hurls at Krazy Kat

its

must be taken

into account.

specific

—

Above

offers

all, its

norm of the human

confounded but

and small, not thus

as distinct entities." is

In Morris's

to explore the delicate intermediate

realm "between the

monument and

the ornament,"

space that Morris consistently associates with a "public

mode" of perception. Another way to define the delicate intermediate zone opened up by this sort of object is to ask exactly how valuable or important the object is, what sort of claims it puts on the beholder. It's clear, for instance, that Morris's polyhedrons are not unique

whenever K. K. utters some profound moral truism.

why

—

object itself

'

are, in Morris's usage, neither allegories

the bricks that Ignatz

The

and the private sphere of intimacy, an in-between

every delight

blocks and

obviously,

is,

between the gigantic proportions of mass perception

and oppression offered by that gulag called the B

provocation to dialogue.

terms, the goal

one which has

style, as well as

staging of the

a necessary but not sufficient condition for the

in Plato's words, "the great

to

refused every identity conferred by an institution, a discourse, an

impinge

body) invites "the intelligence ... to contemplate,

among words,

what

"The only authenticity

.

and an institutional

scale (especially in relation to the

image nor

would be better

say that the stabilizing of relations

The

insertion into a space

factors that

the word nor the object can be relied on to stabilize

experience or meaning. Perhaps

.

materials, facture, lighting, color, orientation

a self-devouring

eats itself alive. Neither the

its

context that invites aesthetic reflection,

imply either complacency

or certainty about the place of philosophical language

\bu

.

"'

triumph once again (endlessly and forever) over the imagistic. Your

image/text;

that "provocative things

—

strategies disguised beneath your platitudes. You wish to

writings.

is

"things that are

things that are not.

That upon the senses together with their opposites. that is, occasions is what makes them dialectical for the experience of difference and contradiction, and

twitching suspect words, your double meanings, your dominating

or critical discourse.

answer

—from

to distinguish a

— is

"provocative" or "dialectical" object

objects, but material realizations of three-dimensional

concepts, open to indefinite reproduction

Main

reward an analysis that looks for phenomenological

Minimalist objects of the 1960s have been

lost or

That

is

Morris's Minimalist objects don't really

of his

foundations as opposed to phenomenological process

destroyed, and have since been refabricated in other

and contradiction. The choice of extraordinarily clear

(often

elementary polyhedrons, executed

in specific

original plywood.

at a precise scale in relation to the

human

aimed

materials

body,

is

at revealing the disjunctions in the perceptual

more expensive and durable) materials than the

The

many Guggenheim

decision to recreate

these objects in plywood for the

retrospective, rather than to borrow the refabrications

process, not at establishing elemental foundations.

from the collections where they now

As the viewer moves

the peculiar chameleon quality of the pieces.

or the object

in relation to

moves into new

the object,

situations,

its

neutral" shape undergoes infinite variation:

"open and

of

hand, this choice would seem to

reside, illustrates

reflei

t

a

1

i

On nam

historicist nostalgia tor the "original" materials

W

.IT

one

and

ti

7

on another,

feel of tlu- objects;

cult

cheerfully flouts the

it

the original by substituting mete copies that

t

be fabricated by the hand of the

will certainly not

negating

artist,

tin-

world with his Skilsaw. The

and autographic identity

materiality, visual presence,

works

oi Morris's

everything

is

not unimportant, but

equal importance

c )i

reproducibility,

and textual

is

it

pictorial legal identity in

drawings, specifications, and considerations

The

"intellectual property

put

m

it

Notes on

of

Morns

itself, as

object

ulpture," "has not

S<

not

their mobility,

is

become

ss

l<

'

important.

become

has merelj

It

^/'-important

less

than traditional objets dart are considered to be.

~

An c

and

early

larify these

presentsat is

simple example may help to

relatively

work

Tin

issues

a literal object, a

an imagt

is

182.9

x

x

72

x

72 inches (25.4

x

solidity, not

hollowness; (3)

182.9 cm).

provenance,

title, a

and twelve inches Inch; label suggests gray, stony is

ii

work

a

a set of labels

ement, opt n

to

am number

emotional assm iation; the game

and

historit al labeling; the

meditation on the relation

words

v.

game

artspeak

philosophy

of

yet, k

al

images, and

of obje"< ts.

public in the sense that

is

form, beauty,

to

of

is

it

language games (and others as well).

si

open

Or

to all

better

liL a door into a publit sphere, on<

is

an be

i

a

refabrications anil

of

.w\A

that

with

of art

and descriptive terms

language games: traditional responses

tin

it

matin. tls. dimensions, construction, ami

tor its pla<

1962, no. Is)

i

hollow, painted

ol a slab, a

simulacrum whose look and Cloud, 1962. Painted plywood. 10

V'..

hollow square plywood box painted

gray, eight by eight feet wide (_'» it

ailed

^

three disjunctive identities (1)

least

Ii It

M\A labeled with

losed

I

look (like

a

room* or opened into a philosophical gaze and

a rest

maj have no determinate outcome, no

inquiry thai

systematii payoff

Read as a slab

than as a label,

text rather

the kej thai opens the obj(

is

philosophical provocation Slab

1962. Painted plywood, 12

243.8

x

243 8 cm).

x

96

x

96 inches (30.5

word

th<

as a

I

I

In particular,

,

it

ase ol

opens the

x

object to reflection

on

on<

most ancient and

ol th<

durable theories of the relation between languagt and objects,

theory thai Ian

In

i

ill

i

is

a system

of

labels, thai

iinlu iJn.il words in languagt

combinations

.ml

thai

San it to bi

u hi J'

1

1

1

1

s

1

a publii

howevi publii

\i

i.

is

n

iIh

ii

ord



am

won/has

is

Wittgenstein

(oi

attributes

it

What Slab does,

in materialize tins

Morris

It is

and pervasive

ni

ii

of

\\ ittgl nsli in

commonplaci

reflection

an

.

languagt



that

might be likened

to

employing Minimalist

sculptures as props in a performance piece. In Wittgenstein's language

imagined

are

1

artist's

"

ego, his autobiography, or even his objects, but

a decrypting of the hidden "creative process" that

game, the simple objects

parodies the cult of secrecy associated with Romantic expressive creation and the associated production of

as functional elements in a practical

cult objects.

activity:

Morris's Slab (as word, image, or object) does

The language

is

meant

to serve for

communication between

A and an assistant B. A

a builder

is

stones; there are blocks, pillars, slabs

pass the stones,

to

and that

building with build-

and beams. B

in the order in which

A

out;

—B

A

calls

call.

primitive language.*

us what to do:

its

grammatical mood It

unambiguous

to a straightforwardly

label, the

them

and things, language and the world. This work can be

—

Conceive this as a complete

is

slightest hesitation exposes

Wittgenstein then proceeds to demonstrate that the

expression in a language game, should

Augustinian model of the word as name or label

as "this

an object

is

radically incomplete,

and that even

in

a primitive scene like the one he has imagined,

the words do a great deal more than objects. in

They function

in a

name

or label the

are not given by the

in

what Wittgenstein called

me

"bring a

"a

It is

it

—

it is

game

(specifically, the social division

of

skill,

composed?

really

the simple constituent parts of which reality

— What

—The

molecules, or the

of a

are the simple constituent parts of a

of wood of which

bits

atoms?

—

in

is:

to

it is

made? Or the

"Simple" means: not composite.

what

sense "composite"? It

speak absolutely of the simple parts

chair.*''

The "work,"

and

The

intellectual

rejection of "composite" objects, the

construction of a sculpture without syntax, that

form of public

is,

with no internal relations of parts, in favor of simple

elementary forms

an invitation to transform a curatorial

label into a perceptual

work.

But what are is

turns "slab" from a

labor between a master builder and his workers). is

what names

'

"work"

Morris's Slab

(whether type or token)

are "simples"

1

an imperative declaration in a form of life we

call

and

makes no sense at all

if a

surely not the elliptical sentence: 'Slab!'

Wittgenstein's language label into

refers

it

unique individual work or a

this object

And here the point

has not the same meaning as the like-

of our language."

might

word,

If a

sounding word of our ordinary language. But sentence,

Is

really "simple,"

chair?

social relationship: "Is

the call 'Slab!' ... a sentence or a word? surely

it

Slab a proper

Is

the object

Is

an

form of life." Slab

a token in a system of exchange,

command, an index of a

Slab"?

is

translate

designate? 45

not just the object but something like

a slab."

is

we

concept to be replicated in an indefinite series of objects?

objects they designate but by their practical use

signifies, then,

or a generic label?

to a type or a token, a

language game, one

which the meanings of words

name

a slab" or as "this

is

is

the label, perfectly coordinated,

end of story. But the

1

and reassuring: there

invisible, effortless,

the object, there

the beholder to a labyrinth of knots. If Slab

for

is

invites the

Augustinian model of the relation between words

brings the stone which he has learnt to bring

at such-and-such a

tell

interrogative, not imperative.

contemplation of a simple, primitive object in relation

has needs

them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of the words "block," "pillar," "slab," "beam".

not

is

generally taken to be the central

program of Minimalism. The program, however,

is

of this

real point

not to reify a notion of the

absolutely simple but to explore the complexity and

therefore, does not encrypt its

time, and effort in the traditional model of the

compositeness of the simple, to crack the atomic

common

whose inside/outside structure unites the "work of art" with the commodity fetish as a container of hidden value and meaning what Marx called "congealed labor power" and Freud diagnosed as the

structure of both

fetishism of objects concealing the labor of the

yourself," or as a series of Wittgensteinian questions:

unconscious."

"How do you see this object? What do you see What does the name have to do with what you

"case,"

—

It is

better described in the terms of

Freud's "uncanny," that

is,

as a "case" that

simultaneously strange and familiar."

is

We do

not stand

in fixated

admiration of Morris's "work" (either his

object, or

its

find ourselves placed in relation to the

object as a coworker, a potential collaborator.

work (both the object and

made

its

making)

is

The

case, the

work

is

Own

disseminated,

Making. In

"

sense and rational

Perhaps, then,

we should

translate the

simple word "slab" as a Wittgensteinian imperative like "look at this slab

and say the word aloud or

In either case, the "translation" of the label

or allegory.

game the

exoteric and public, even "broadcast," as, for

example, Box with the Sound of Its

1

is

to

it

as}

see?"

clearly

not the end of the process, not the solution to a puzzle

significance as a trace of his skill, time,

and labor) but

positivism.

this

not aiming at self-reference to the

It

is

only the opening

move

in a

language

that has no determinate outcome. (Cage

show where Slab was

first

went

to

exhibited and reported

that he didn't see any works of art in the gallery, just a slab on the floor.) Wittgenstein urges us not to be

troubled by the simple, primitive, and incompli character of this kind of ,i;ame:

WJT

MITCH KM 89

want

•

shows thtru

say that this

to

ask yourself whether our I

pedestal

incompi

to bt

"iplett:—

andthi notation

.holism of chemistry

— which

ptak. suburbs

our

of

\ndhow

lai

man) bou

ins to

an am..

as

old and

>f

and of

bou

from

surrounded by a multitude

houses

game

the language

ol

as primitive building blocks deployed in

its

from

and boredom

m

(at least

with scandal, fraud,

relation to traditional notions

and aesthetic

propriety, authenticity,

interest). Insofar as the label

"Minimalism'' provides a

way

enframe

to stabilize the object, to

deny boredom and demand

to

oldest

skepticism and compel conviction,

about

1

radical renunciation

.m>.\

flirtation

its

of art, or

districts, provocatives to rhe ancient questions

b

1

eloquence, wit, and

to, its

rational purity

Its

are inseparable

of artistic

An- Morris's Minimalist objects better seen as the

post-Modern suburbs

Odyssey

machine whose shuttling aspects can now be switched on. Its simplicity, blankness, and muteness are inseparable complexity.

and this

arious periods;

i

Perhaps, like the monolith in

A Spaa

an extraterrestrial teaching

is

from, yet antithetical hot

neu boroughs with straight

oj

and uniform

new

sculptures equivalent of a frame

Stanley Kubrick's 2001: Morris's slab

Of th:

is

put on display.

itself

is

.

ideologically,

it

interest, to defeat

dulls the edge of

it

the dialectical image presented bj tin object, and

words, images, and objects posed by Plato and

bmk

[gnatz's

misses

mark.

its

Augustine' Such questions might also be thought of

what

a translation ol

.is

means

it

to sav "slab?" in

attempts to divide the

by using categories like "literalness" and

of art

and "objecthood" versus

"figurality"

more

to look

the new

and the

same terms, with

in exai tly the

Both the indictment

ed

by defenders

arc expressed

valences of value

hi

t

Minimalism

of

Art and Objecthood

In Fried in

new

I

and

its

with the past, an undialci "tradition." This

t

u a

but that

111

lie

In a

I

merely

newness might best be

and are not

Modernism

in .u tin iim

aning as

thi

i

provocativeness today cannot be what 1960s, though

11

ii

annot

'

1

ion oi

rical situation

of

I"

mi

(hat

in. il bloi ks

m

would si

1

rh

1

uh

on

ie

in. i.le ob|<

.

c.

inns

Anothi

1

n

70

ii

l

it

1

mil In

.ind the

1

kind

wi

'In

.how. w

'

o, burst various ol

1

11

1

importan

1

ol

Inn' thi 1

ilptun

il

1.

finds the

at

Has

t

ol

al

"<

is,

in

appropriation

1960s to bandage

of tht

stylt

n

I

the Vietnam

in

YYM

so offensive, for tin

a

ol

wound

ould there ever be

been

political criminality evet

In

will ol the critical? lias there ever \ilii

Minimal mask placed

mon

wound

been

a

ovei governmental

ulpabilit)

H.mss own duns both

work

has, in general,

been devoted

unmasking, which means

ol

onstrut

(hat

and n rnovt various kinds

1

oi

10

has 10

11

masks

the labels affixed to objects, tht fetishistii charactei "

ami

.

1

a

substituting private grief tor

mask

v

1

si

1.1

oi tht

pleasure,

1

"objei

1

1

1

1

10

-nil

1

itself," tht I

lis

veterans of World

lii

;

and (most fundamentally)

irreducibly elemental thing

notion

proposed

Wat

II

ol tht si

ulptural

was a piece

of ready madt Minimalism, the casings of thi atomii

il

ol

bombs droppt

and hand

in tht

bast

hospital

lool

indled to a formula: use

n

the

kinds

languagi garni

in. 1.

nor

1

dw

win Morris

repressed than In (Ins weeping

tivelj

1

ii

ither.

their position within thi history bit

In

from

w.i\

Me

is

Minimalist vernacular

of a

bin guilt?

1

th

i"

1

nod

from

blo

.1

0111 inui

pi 1

Ins

I

imagery, contexts or processes

options

would better be kepi open

ill. 11

was in the

it

.dl iln

.1

ioiind.il

In

its

view, a one sided, nondialei

Ills

produi tion and reception

its first ill

p.

.1

played with Slab and Us bn

hi

reflect

<

parati d

i(

\!,ii

dnhitioii will

11

oi

1

t

word

that

it

ion

1

1. ti is

1 1

somewhen

themselves

I

of its

routine,

more ingenious

to

historicist recapitulation of

awa

became

the vanguard

Tin objects themselves an now in a new

of history

nj

h us

to uii|inr\.

a certain

Minimalism came, in his view, when now here to go but up and out "As

of

the radicality

Yi

1

the 1960s and the so-i ailed "vcrdu

lies ol

ion,

whn

open

re still

re lied

Minimalism,

iui

on

his insistence

is

to have

employment

break

.1

seemed

more spact

was nothing

not to say thai there

is

n tins

tin

ol

gation

n<

I

new. original, or

am

(chieflj

canonization

are condui ted in the language ol an absolute

exhaustion ii

American 1960s avant-garde

of the

the shuttle in motion,

to

keep

trine, to

work, the intimate and the monumental. The

the old, ami both

of

refusal of the

of Morris's desirt

Minimalist dot

Ins objects tree of

intermediate scale between the private and the public

the history of art.

in

defined as a negation

is

ptanci

tt

to appear luminous with the innocence of your cogent facts.

Perhaps the best indication

keep

begin

"artifice"

temporary rhctorn.il Strategies than

like

durable categories. As so often

1

You wish

in

your crisp paragraphs.

in

Morris and the Minimalists from traditional

of

forms

small there on the wall and straightforward

your brief rectangulanty and nearly prim

In retrospect, then, the

work

seem so

the light you

In

the presence of this object.

In -H

1

hi

the plinth

01

plaza "i

evocatii

w

1

1.1

1

mon

I

In 1

d on .'

I

|.i|

Ion.

tan, I.i

\i

w ii

I

in 1,

1

1

ins

wi n in be installed

Administration

pioposal was dollblv di tradition

1

01011s in

Us

and populist American ideolo

appropriate wat

memorial than the weapons

Scvlptukit

Urns 8* Wit

Proposal

-

t^-rew/s

JommstwicW

HOSfxTM

3*r Rms, Floriim

-

*>-«>.<

> fc

31

3

§

£ z

$»

*

_^

Ol

£**Wf*4*

r

.

1

J»^

Sculpture Proposal

— Veterans

Administration

Hospital— Bay Pines, Florida, 1981. 42 inches (96.5

of the last war

lawn)?

(cf,

What more

the cannon on the courthouse

ask,

appropriate image for a veterans

American

lives" in

World War

II?

There fit

is

object as

what

example or

I

mask

revealing the merry

too easily,

memorials to erase guilt and Sculpture Proposal

Bay

—

historical

bomb

just waiting to

Morris's early Minimalist pieces

the space of a retrospective,

gone

off,

—

remains in the archive of

rejected proposals, a time

bombs

may now

go

off.

be, in

or that have been defused by the labels of

"gets the concept" of Slab or

Beam

(1962),

the

it?

learn by actually

Own Alakmg

Sound of Its

We

its

label

can certainly understand this

parodying of the expressionist Action Painting

aesthetic without ever actually seeing

The occasion of a

Once one we must

know

that

and what might

retrospective

is,

a thoroughly experimental event, for

that have already

canonization and art-historical explanation.

What might we

already contained in

be inferred from

memory.

on

Why do

to look at these constructions to test or confirm

that knowledge?

object's

its

Veterans Administration Hospital

Pines, Florida (1981)

different appearances from different angles?

isn't

wink and the death's-head grin

beneath to representatives of a public that wants

made

as a staple of everyday

sense, that simple polyhedrons take

beholding Box with

But these cases/casings all

common we have

habit of treating the

that can slip off

there actually to look at the pieces?

them? Don't we already know,

even a

of these hollow

have called a "case" rather than as an

illustration.

offer the sort of

own

is

on Mylar, 38 x

of the artist.

superfluous by the welter of discourse that surrounds

casings with the traditional hollowness of Minimalist sculpture, and Morris's

what need

Ink

106.7 cm). Collection

Hasn't their material and visual presence been

hospital than the objects that (we are told) "saved

certain ironic aptness in the perfect

x

it.

in Morris's case,

we cannot

the answers to these questions beforehand.

Insofar as the blockbuster

show has become

a mass-

cultural spectacle in recent pears, an occasion tor rapid

consumption of vast quantities of visual pleasure, these objects will not

feel

comfortable, either with

themselves or their beholders. What's to mi

W

.1

T

'

\\ hat's

r

MITCHKLL 71

dialectical image/text that

materialized in a specific

is

human

constructed thing, with a relation to specific

bodies in a particular situation. This delicate situation

something

like a public sphere, in the sense

is

also

ot

an open, relatively uncoerced speech situation. The

know

only way

I

openness

is

of conveying this sense ot Morris's

to dwell

on

few

a

perhaps typical

specific,

common

objects in a relatively

language.

(I've

suggested that Wittgensteins vocabulary and his willingness to pause over the obvious

an appropriate,

is

though by no means exclusive, model.) I-Box

1962, no. 25), for instance, activates an

1

among

infinite, labyrinthine circuit

What

questions:

What

an

is

world, and

its

assemblage: a /,

image

The

door.''

without

is

pipe

plywood cabinet covered

view). Painted

J

with Sculptmetal, containing photograph, 19 x 12

4

x

3

'

1

inches

8

(48.3 x 32.4 x 3.5 cm). Collection Leo Castelli.

maker

simpler.

It

of the short circuit,

opening

pi/u (1928),

The audience has

do

CO

work can

And what it

expe< red to do, trooping through in busloads, listening

Libels like so

many

simply serve as di\ ides

(

a

lite

m

us

1

of the auslerc elitism that

an Irom mass

ertain kinds ot

t

As

feel repro.u In d, tin

nt

I

(

l

>o()s that

of gentleness as

you

tell

You

totalizing.

linguistic

them what

grenade. You footnoteless,

iconoclastic epitome of generic advertising.

to think.

You

I-Box as a case

elements

fatal

the WOrd

nh

I

LIhisIit

I'll"

hi

fetishes

image

You babbling triumph and washed and

show

is

in Illation

thai

is,

supposed

thai

beholdi

intimae 1

1

\

>

01

Ha. in

,

through then .,1

mass

(

1

consistently steers betwi ih.

78

delicati

IIOBI

thi

j

i

1

1

monumi

ill-

n tin

quite

gulag of thi

autobiography (the soun

i

.11

<

1

111

artist's

ol fetishistii

realization as the

Minus's work 11

alti

1

nurse,

that there

is

willing to invest

is

situation of thi philosophical object,

ol

lost

in a

that

"I

bo\

name?

1

is

then' not

as min.li

one takes

It

It

it

the

ol

sell

relirem e

tin

i

it

1

to

someone' body

to the in

whu

is a 11

h

it

tins little

Hi (he

i|iii\iii al

1

photograplni

image

to whit h tin

scr\es as a door and

label, to

what does

the reference of the "I."

assemblage Construct? I

I

beam

does to the box It

is

BMC,

/

1

image, to the box)

The

01 to

ie\e.ilc d as

ol

hai.li tel ul its rctereiu

"I" has

he invisible "self " 01 visible it

apply?

it

between words, images,

lation

in the artist, i" the artist's

1

is

makes sense used in this way? make 111 tins ase' Does ,k (uallv

straightforwardly illustrates tin impossibility

than

one

"),

What

labyrinth ot questions.

might begin by interrogating the

noting that •

il

it

Morns, or

model

\\i

in

rnatives, seeking

also like is

meditation on the fundamental

something, or

propei

>

aura"

Everything

.

is

isolates tor attention (not tncrclv as

and objects does

to provide

an be inserted

oli|ei is that

through theii incarceration in hi

1

tor

liters, or to the a

club of "education" to the head.

and totems

ol

sense does

to

1

\\ hat

artistii

it

being

\\ hat

illustrationless,

of the information byte. You, labelless label, starched

swinging that swift and

answer,

as an observer

mote

an example to be labeled "artistn

proto and pre-cntical patch of writing. You totalitarian text of

.

.

but I-Box

concealed."

is

You don't

it,

before

something more?

risks

You are the paragon

know

didn't

Magritte's pipe in insinuating a hesitation:

The



much

as

'

liy,lit

reflects

Ft

8/7/62, 8:45 pm

Discovered in black brief case:

blank cards, 6

3

cards with the following categories: Considerations, Future, Locations, Changes, Responses - Actual,

Responses - Predicted, on one card the scribbled note: "Role of ideas - make the work not self-contained, refer to, stand for,

sign" and further

down on card the notation: "Sign Form"

1

t

(See Loses)

.

over its A card from Card

In these words, one

might hear the echo of a very

File,

1962

(no. 26).

pursuit of the contradictory, be

being as an effect of saying. Shamed from the time

making,

of

its

saw

condemnation by Plato and Aristotle (who

in

it

the empire of pseudos,

kingdom of the

reality."

false

and of falsehood), sophism has, nevertheless, been

The

intermittently resurgent.

discourse of sophistry

refuses to be submitted to the law of noncontradiction; it is

the

latter's

for the

A

part of

connected to play,

it is

in

capacity to produce reality. Morris's taste

a

profoundly sophistic

artist,

an oxymoron

"fiction," in

He

which there

is

is

zfictor, as in the

sculpture), pretense,

and

In Morris's 1978 essay

word

(as in

the history of art

"I"

"The Present Tense of

here is

"art

within

its

seen as a kind of latent

material, something like the words in a dictionary,

awaiting a narrator to propel a narrative.

of his love of rhetorical

Morris's unhesitant reliance here

is

on an

— understood

in a sense exactly opposite to that proposed by Michael

on Minimalism." So much

and

for the

for

America art by

for the clarity of the

comprehension of future

"American Quartet," published

in 1981,

it

debate

scholars.

Art

in

in

presents itself as an essay on the

American contemporary

in

Joseph Cornell, Duchamp, Edward Hopper, and

Morris's text

is

editorial "we"

followed by

five

"Commentary,"

presumes

long paragraphs in

in

winch an

to dissociate itself

from the

foregoing analysis:

and an aesthetic of the "me,"

— meaning —

history," not the discipline

"Make

themselves

italics, entitled

novelistic invention.

Space," which tries to establish the difference between

an aesthetic of the

symptom

Jackson Pollock. In an uncustomary manner,

an etymological

superimposition of the notions of modeling

typical

founding roles played

reminiscent of Ravel's description of himself as "artificial by nature."

A

and of arguments that turn against

entirely theatrical notion of "presentness"

As

palimpsest, the mask, and the palinode

make him

reversals

sword-

in art or in

rhe only basis for perceiving dialectical

is

2 ''

it

Fried in "Art and Objecthood," his famous attack

not sustained by truth, but by contingency

and appearance.

"The

"contradictions"; or, as the essay concludes:

ancient principle, that of the Sophists, which posits

Claim

a

them

into motion:

development

in retrospect.

Invent history," without worrying about the inevitable

We always

enjoy reading Morris's articles. But

said that, like reat deal.

his art. tin}

Wt cannot

havt tended

let this

to

it

mu

wander around

one pass without noting

certain gaps, stretches of muddy prose,

wmt

extremely

questionable assumptions, constructs which jn rhaps exist mostly in Morris's mind,

etc.

85

Some time

the Editor appeared

later, a letter to

Robert Morris,

I .

n:

Some Afterthoughts after

Doing Blind Tr

Commentary.

that protested this "unsigned editor's

.t:.m 19,

m

(summer 1993), pp 617—27 A

i

To which came the rip

Davidson's test.

ised version of

originally published in the catalogue tor the exhibition ol these

id no oni u uuld ask

an

although most

drawings (Allencown. Pa

—

appears in the

fine Duchampian hand behind the unsigned Commentary. And

Writing with Davidsoi

iris,

1976

4.

that

.'

.

The Third Man.

initial double

Mori

ert

Frank Martin Gallery, Muhlenberg Colli

.:

sai

is

the date given, tor example, in the exhibition cataloj

it u

-

ot Art.

l

complex essay published by Morris

Robert Mori

Jonathan Fineberg,

i

Sepi

Without question, the most important and most ol the

in recent years is

(oil.

unpaginated

)SJi.

l

Williams

(Williamstown, Mass

I

Museum

B

published interview specifies that

An

Back

pp 114—15

'80),

it

A

i

Interview,'

end

note ai the

took place

1977 Ivkti

in

an audieni

"Three Folds

the Fabric and Four Autobiographical

in

dates From 1989.

Its

epigraph places

who

authority of Michel Foucault,

This occurs

6.

Asides as Allegories (or Interruptions)," which

in a

commandment,

made of Da'

there enjoins one

Morris intercuts his reflections on the

state of current art with reminiscences

The opening meditation attempts three contemporary types

Modernist abstract, with

B

on Ins past.

linarli.nl. ;:.

to distinguish

ol aesthetic

footnoti

M

discourse articulated;

insistence on purity and

its

\\

rii mil'

it

u

arlimlati ith

transcendence; sotiopolitK.il. with us desire lor truth and rationality; and Anally a third, char.it terized

oth pervasive and submerged" negative discourse

much

h< lias

under the

it

of oneself." In order to reply to this

get tree

oi

note relating to questions raised b) Morris

concerning the use

a part of

—

"It's a

proposal

some ways. Negations are The second

in

The form of self-accusation, and

kind

It

as

i

oncerns his childhood

beginnings as an

and

artist,

time (with the work

of

in

Kansas

(

Ins

icy,

makes the

a

flag

m

whole catalogues about the way

those

"art stones'

of art

take shape.

that

we end up

in

ol

open

>

and then

to inn rpretation,

While Morns makes

commentary

writes II

numbi

r

ubiquitous and questionable unanswered question) none sends up

at

whi< h

quicker than this oni

["h<

threatens to topple onto

art

telling than

kings

follow ing

by Morris in Ins desire to

A little farther on Morns human behavior, an as wi

ol

questionable assertions throughout this text (not CO mention the

Reinhardc): the accounts arc funny, intense, or both

moral thai are

ot

self-mockery, that floods this

borrowed

ol voices

our search to make sense

murder

as rlu

Ins encounters at thai

Duchamp, Newman, Ad

-apologues without

"m

ol

whose importance should not be underestimated

highlights the plurality

that

meditation

a tro|x

is

escape an) fixed position, anj thesis

as assertions."

it

Davidson," p

a fed

suggestion of wanting to 'makt sms,

him

the wi ighl ol a vasl

rilual

,

nn

i

,.i

rpiisi

thai dismisses such an urge as not only naivi but impossibli

calling the histor)

Lawrence Alio way,

Artists as \\ riters,

Inside Information

I

I

Notes on

Morris's early texts an

Arboi

i

Mil h

Ml

l

D

oi; l

Dana

Mi,l

/>

art

and evil?

>od

It

can

and does

worst moral climates. Perhaps because tlval

with



\,,n

sustains the contradit tor)

..

i

ili

aim tit

Form

pp onthi

i

hi

its

,/(//)

modernism

constantly onci

it

became a I

ilt /i t

mil

i/r

nl

am

not avt rlooking the

ii

from

mi ihi

pan

in thi

ipai

li

I

iln

vi i\

»i

i

Noti

thai

on

& |

win.

li

ii

ul|

i

vii

an evocation of thi Minimalist volumes then

N

ili>

its

i

bloi ks float in tin

si

mon

|

hi

Mans,

Fact thai

It .a

\rt

little dij

in i

fai

thi

hi

tlity

(pharaoh, pope, nobility, capitalism).

1

///i

upon and tervedone

ith littlt

Motivated

to relj

lished rules that rationalized a procedure, a a

196

B [April I9i

is

in

momeni

whi I

|

ii

In.

li

he had lead

a/way propaganda i

i

Iranslati d

HI,

from

chi

Pr< n<

h by Rosalind

Km

...I.

l\

idi

nniii

.1

III

—

Morns, "Some Notes on the Phenomenology

10.

of

Making,"

makes most suggestive reading. For dissimulation (and

p. 66.

"The Art of Existence. Three Extra-Visual

12. Morris,

Works

Artists:

in

lineage of Strauss,

13. Ibid.

L'Eiuperetir Julien

interesting to recall that one of the

the turn of the second century A.D.,

is

by

raised

famous collection of ekphraseis edited

Philostratus's Eikones, the

in

main problems

reflect

on the

fact that the ekpbrasis

founder of the genre

—

considered as the absolute

the description in Homer's Iliad of the torging of

Achilles's shield by Hephaistos

—

the

is

work of an author known

in the

is

t!

the short and fascinating text by Alexandre Kojeve,

ton art J'ecrire (Paris:

dose of sprezzatnra, has something in

Fourbis, 1990).

Morns, "The Art of Existence,"

it

is

accompanied by

most bizarre and perverse examples

Age

One

French by M. Blanc-Sanchez

De

as

I'honnete dissimulation (Lagrasse:

Verdier, 1990). In his prologue, Accetto explains the shortness of his as follows:

in disguise has

18. Ibid., p. 33.

what

I

"But

my work

17. Ibid.

wrote

Moms,

I

should be pardoned

for

having been made to

in its present, partly bloodless state,

meant that

at the outset

I

because to write

dissimulate and that, to this end,

had

to

much

"Three Folds in the Fabric and Four Autobiographical

19. Ibid.

30.

Asides as Allegories (Or Interruptions)," Art in America 77, no. 9

"Some Notes on the Phenomenology of Making,"

p. 63-

22. Concerning Pessoa and the dizzying proliferation of his literary

personae,

I

refer to the collection

Malle pleine de gens

of essays by Antonio Tabucchi, Une

Para [Paris: Christian Bourgeois, 1992;

(trans. J. -B.

(November 1989), 31.

"No

art

of

be amputated."

20. Ibid.

21. Morris,

of the

the treatise by Torquato

Accetto, Delia dissimulazione onesta (1641), recently translated into

publish

p. 30.

is

a large

of that of the secretaries,

from Machiavelli to Baltasar Gracian by way of Castiglione.

work

classical tradirion as blind.

16.

often urgent

counselors, and courtesans of the Renaissance and the Classical

at

whether the paintings described

such minute detail actually existed. In the same line of thinking, one

might

its

Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of

Morris's form of dissimulation, which

14. Ibid., p. 29. is

is

Writing (London: Free Press, 1952). Less known, but in the direct

Process," Artferum 9, no. 5 (January 1971), p. 28.

15. It

work

necessity), the classic

LI. Ibid.

p. 148.

comes without

prescriptive text

its stories.

which imposes

rules

An

art story

by which

its

is

once a

at

participants learn to

play a certain kind of game; a genealogy of certain events and of

1990]), which contains in an appendix the astonishing "Letter to Adolfo

certain sets of enduring, often conflicting desires; and a concatenation

Casais Monteiro on the genesis of the heteronyms," written by Pessoa

of traits, tropes, obsessions and historicized accounts by apologists

in

my

1935: "The origin of

hysterical tendencies.

found

in

my

Mark

23.

.

.

heteronyms

The mental

is

located in

origin of

my

my

profoundly

heteronyms

to be

is

organic and continual tendency toward depersonalization

and dissimulation"

on

.

1-20. Jean Starobinski provides a remarkable commentary

5,

story

is a

seek to legitimize an ideological position. In short, an art

discourse particular to an enterprise which pretends to

revolve around the producrion of a certain unstable class of

individually produced

(p. 145).

this passage in "Le

who would

Combat

avec Legion," in Trois Fureurs (Paris:

32. Morris, "Notes

handmade

on Art

as /and

more

or less

artifacts" (ibid, p. 143)

Land Reclamation,"

October, no.

12

(spring 1980), pp. 101-02.

Gallimard, 1974), pp. 73-126.

"Some Splashes

24. Morris,

in the

Ebb Tide," Artforum

1

1

,

no.

6

(February 1973), p. 43. 25.

On

the

first

(thar of Protagoras, Gorgias,

and others, which was

denounced by Plato) and second phases of Sophistry (which crystalized in the oratorical art

Rome

of second-century

and played a

role in the

contiguous development of ekpbrasis and the novel), see the two volumes of anthologies

assembled under the direction of Barbara Cassin,

and Le

de la sophist ique (Paris: Vrin, 1986);

Positions

Plaisir de parler (Paris:

Minuit, 1986).

"The Simulacrum and Ancient Philosophy," Gilles Deleuze's text on the "reversal of Platonism" and acceptance of the power of the

continuation in the modern

its

false, first

and foremosr

in the

work

of Nietzsche, remains a fundamenral reference for thinking about these issues in relation to recent art practice (The Logic of Sense, trans.

Mark

[New York: Columbia

Lester

Universiry Press, 1990; 1969],

pp. 253—79). In addition, Clement Rosset's

L Anti-nature

(Paris:

PUF,

1973) usefully summarizes the principal oscillations between natural and

Not

artificial

thinking within the development of Western philosophy.

surprisingly, one notes Morris's recent quote, in "Writing with

Davidson" (pp. 622-23), from the seminars of Jacques Lacan, one of the great contemporary sophists: "I

make

a distinction

between language

and being. That implies that there could be word-fiction starting from the

word"

(Encore,

Seminar

XX

[Paris:

—

I

mean

Le Seuil, 1975]

p. 107).

26.

Morns, "The Present Tense of Space," Art

in America 66, no.

1

(January-February 1978), pp. 70, 80. 27

Mi< hael Fried,

Art and Objecthood," Artforum (June 1967),

reprinted in Battcock, pp. 28. Morris,

1981),

p.

1

16—47.

"American Quartet," Art

in

America 69, no. 10 (December

104.

29- See the letter, signed "Donald Hoffmann," in Art in America 70, no. 2 (February 1982), p. 5.

There

is

considering Morris and his writings

material in this letter for in the light

of the history of the

counterfeit and of literary dissimulation. For the former, the book by

Anthony Grafton,

Forgers

and Critics:

Creativity

and Duplicity

in Western

Scholarship (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. L990)

JEAN-PIER

!<

'

87

CATALOGUE

COLUMNS,

nning

in 1954,

1961

Robert Morris, a young San

own

began their own workshop

the hollow

what we

pioneering work

San Francisco

in

Halprin repressed.'

felt

use

games

to structure

tor

own development

Morris's

of

New

Morris visited

York City

the spring

in

column during

occupied

ot his

unbuffered

using an offstage string

of

Morris

the group of dancers, choreographers.

composers, and visual artists associated with the Judson Dance Theater, which included, among others,

Beam

/.

1

1

1965, nos. 2-

by Merce Cunningham, the dancers brought certain

time, drew

conventions with them, such as partnering or turning

Forti's

own body

as if "on poini of

>,

the positioning of bodies

its

of one's

this

first

(

1961

all of

ot his

no.

,

w

1

in

>

allude to the

hit h

emphasis on

lust as

space

developing

and the

the anti-

cxpressivc reduction ot the column-as-perfbrmer, with

that the spectator

onventions were critiqued trom the poini

5

the years

in

original Living Theater performance's

Rainer, and Robert Raust hcnbcrg. Previously trained

i

made

Columns

In

Lucinda Childs, Alex Hay, Sieve Paxton, Yvonne

around the tenter

marked

that

"abstract" sculpture continued to characterize the

!

Minimalism:

These

a result

the final performance.

in

The anthropomorphism objects that Morris

(it

the piece.

ot

led to the necessary expedient

tall

I960, returning to California tor another of Halprin's

part

the performance and,

during the rehearsal

it

summer workshops. He moved permanently to New York with Forti early that tall Soon after, became

of its

The subsequent head injurj Morns received as

and sculptor.

as both dancer

move

to

accord. He, therefore, had planned to be inside

in tact,

— her improvisational development sequences, and her props and movement — was formative

of voice narrative rule

order to

in

Forti's

seem

"expression." the object should

of Ann Halprin's dance workshops; soon, the two

"explore

body was reinforced by

the dancer's

of

Morris's intention that, although stripped of all

dancer and choreographer, attended a number

Forti, a

surrogate

a

Francisco Absrract Expressionist painter, and Simone

naked relation to gravity and us requirement

submit

Morns

to the conditions ol real

closer to the ideas that were to

Dana Theaters

and the Judson

mark

task-oriented

dance vocabulary; that vocabulary was to reverberate

withm

evoh ing

Morris's

st

ulpture, with

body-

its

John Cages musical ideas, understood as examples ol how to break with traditional composition

related stale

The

olumm synchronousl) restage column in the Living Theater performam e, but the self-const ious doubling ol the column set ins as well an embrace

view

ot

was the development

result

ordinary, in whit h "the objei

and

lived time, repetition,

abulary ot the

of a vo<

ation of

tint

movement,"

task- or play-driven

gestures prevailed. Forti's ideas, again, set the ag< nda

most

tor

what was developed

of

—and

as

\oi< e as text

movement <

sound

the Judson Dance

at

games with

contact, improvisation,

rheatei

dam

in

i

Jan,

issisik

and

r

|

based on prolessHni.il training. All d singlehandt

Forti invt nt<

importanct

Voko

.n

It

ol

1

(

In

ot

hambers

(

m

first

ing

i\

I

In ati

1

in

1

a

In.

h cimi

and

ii

hall

11

n

foi

m

toppli

hi

maim '

l<

u

concentrated into

1

[j

<

and it

'I

prom

'I

(

the

chre<

p<

a

.1

["hen

minuti

s,

afti

sn ing from

anothei three and rformi

vo po itions

chei

1

st

F01

painted

graj

no rol

with

foi a

1

a hall

b)

as 1

11

mptj

BO

ralizi

tin"

It")

'I

I

tin

waj

leu tin

.

tni

which was developed book //'< Sbapt

in his influential

is

an autonomous

the luminous strut tun

ol

ondut

1

it

ol

anj given

Thus, for example, he saw the

landscape as

ol

d In the mural painters

ot

1

[ere

ul.uu uni and

Boscoreale, then In seventeenth centur] artists, and,

Clzanne as successive stages

problem, ont whosi internal parti)

the

it

apit ulatc.l

1

ol a single

must be grasped,

logie

wishing to

b\ ,nn artist

.

Tins notion ot

form-class furthei

morphological sequence played an important Morris (

in Ins

lunti

I

1

onstantin Bram usi 1

1-,

role foi

ollege master's thesis on

<

In

keeping with Kubler's

logii

subs, ribes to the notion, interchangeable with

formal sequence, thai "the entitj composed In

ofTsti

chi

a

olumn

anding am

olumn was undi

the "form-t lass,"

historn.il context.

Mm

1

I

l\

the multitudi ofpossibli danci gestures

liti

ot

For Kubler, a form-< lass

'.<

ing l

down

1

George Kubler

develop

Ni « Vbrk

event, he positioned an unadorned

olumn

the non 01

ol

and even

ulptural obji

in

onlj does Twoi,

finally, bj

1961

in

lofi

si

Not

stud)

these chinj

then adapted as

whi< h h<

ili.

1

stood erect

ol tin ks

Morris emphasizes the

.\

the ready mad.

of

haped Happenings, which had begun to appear it.

New York

by

1959,

ine\ itably

it

Yet Morris

insistent aggr. ssiceness

and

upon an hanged the

well as to draw

i

episodic,

their desire

rei alls

Morris

i

inipulati

had

CX(

theatrical form, with

..

I

i

t

i

re< ills

thai

><

I

lapjx nings

ini ludi

hi

was

th< onlj

linn

I

si

>in<

.

implications, and thi expressivi textun of the Fluxus >

petson

."

Kaprow

s

.an ndance

Bail

I

I.

us

(

60),

•

Building i\959), All.m

narrative

its

times

.a

i

!fl

Red //...'

lldenb

Dads rhen and Now,

\rt

IntmuUmul,

I.

.mm

which may be seen as deliberate!) continuous wit

sionism

I

Of IMi|

work

ing the

si.

.

h

ai

.

,

.

spatial

a

would

audi,

ni

.

b.

twi

work prod l

I

•

n

\.

p

>l'

in. al

in:'

th(

.,'.

l

in

.

Alll An.

.

e p.

is

i

L961 .

i,

ai .

in.

ly

no

i

lai

a

thi

u

.

Now

;//..;/

'

Amk

:

.

i

i

.1

bruan,

i

Gregorj Battcock

I

K.'m

\

.

I*

\"

<

m.

..ii

October— Now mix

li

i

'I

s.

ulptun

Octobei

Pai

k, pp.

2 28

is

d. illuminated.

called results,

i

an'i

l><

rgj

analyzed

to

facing page top: 12

parts

onm

with the question

no.

17

with only on<

gnitiveem

parati

(Halifax

Bui in reducing

ies

what he

in a w.c\

M

'•

s,

making them op< rati as Morris was abl< todelivei

provi

cl

form

i.

proper)

ol

pun displacement of spaci

...\

i

exl. ndl d, I

t ..ill. rii

din M

to bring into

impossible thing

visual detail of his works,

them

the

ol

I

[aitford

printi ! in

isually, hut

\

impossible sinci anything wi perceive

a

I

1

singularly unitarj

Minimalist work

logical!)

given t0 us as

"In ch<

1

ih.

short, as

and

but one

meaning." determined by

"public

what Morris asserted was the

ol Ins earl)

rh.

is

lis

pieces an minimal

1

exist- in

m

object

DmuUJmU: Compltti Writings, f An and Design,

h„uU J nit,

ant he read

c

just a rec tangle or a triangle"

is

n\e

In. ii

I

)rder, in the old sense,

ambition

it-,

ot

I

|udd,

the hanging version ot Slab,

12),

that

an experienci

pi op.

The

else ot Morris's early

Donald Judd,

reprinted in

i

.

replaced by

is

ot space, light,

the newer aesthetic. Clearly, the desire

in

an idea

much

by so

ntal upright positions of the

iwerful spatiall) to

composition function

arc- "a

and the

exist

the body." Because

refusal ot the Abstract Expressionist aesthetic signaled

feet,

this position

to see the value ol pressing

the work

ol

which they

in

use rather than private intention, was part

/

Judd was

Space

demands placed upon

terms

of the

to lorge

pie< es

1962, no.

i

the relationship between the objects

ot

literal

relationships that

1

ud)

addressed

more interesting than the vaguely

the floor are

other three

is

ulpture,"

relationships between aspects that are

the viewer's held ot vision.'"

expanse

its

it.

you are displaced from sixty-four square

which you look down upon

one

supported a lew

"The space below

floor:

Si

clear that a large, "public" scale for

ot this, the old notion ot

"only

'ntitled (S

no. 13), an eight-foot-square plinth

inches

of the

making

stop

kinesthetic

being exhibited." Rather

it is

emerge from the features

to

meaning by the public one

of

internal to a given form and. instead, focus on the

simply by being

itselt as art

"purposefully built," saying:

or his or

sculpture, such as that ot Slab, will torcc the viewer

Hat, unevaluating

made

as having

of the

in this text,

second of Morris's "Notes on

where he makes

nothing to tak

is

Indeed

).

first

by publicly executed use.

in place

conception

Identifying Morris with tins

)^ s

This question of displacing the private, interior

ot

Rauschenberg's quip: "If you don't take there

1

one of the

games fashioned to reduce linguistic statements radically enough to separate the idea of privately established meanings ot words

Robert Rauschenberg's white canvases, quoting it

is

her individual memories or feelings) from meanings

anyone would build something only barely present,"

and he compared the

pointing to the shape"

(maintained by an individuals "intention,

to look at."

following year Judd continued to "wonder

1

in his Philosophical Ini estigatiom

ol

cted this

how

Untitled (Cloud) "3

to

idi a

..i

4

x

182.9

x

I'M..'

Painted plywood,

182 9 cm).

.,

poini i"

ch(

tome thing raised b) Ludwig Wittgenstein

13. Untitled (Slab)

(30.5

x

243 8

x

1962 Painted plywood, 12

243.8 cm).

x

96

x

96

Ini

hes

14

Untitled (Frame)

vood.

1962 I

I

OH

<

30.5 cm).

15. Barrier,

(200.7

x

1962 Painted plywood, 79

228.6

x

x

90

x

12 inches

30.5 cm).

EARLY MINIMAI ISM 109

Untitled (Fiberglass Frame). 1968

16 72

x

96

x

18'? inches (182.9

x

243 8

Guggenheim Museum. New York, Panza

lio

x

Translucent fiberglass,

47 cm). Solomon R

Collection.

17. Untitled (Fiberglass Cloud), 1967

and nylon threads, 18

x

96

x

Translucent fiberglass

96 inches (45.7

x

244

x

244 cm).

Tate Gallery, London.

EARLY MINIMALISM 111

THE DUCHAMP CONNECTION

Duchamp in the Morns encountered the art means or Robert Motherwell's book

early 1960s by

.

Duchamp

Robert Lebel's

monograph (the first to appear), and the two Duchamp-inspired members of the rk avantind Jasper Johns. Duchamp's v

program

—

his notion of art as strategic operation, the

declared symbiosis between theory and practice clearly affected the

development

own

of Morris's

modes

linked theoretical and artistic

closely

of production.

Accordingly, in her catalogue essay for Mori

1969 exhibition

Corcoran Gallery

at the

of

Art in

lington, D.C., Annette Michelson associated a

body of

his

Duchamp's

work with practice:

six

themes drawn from

transparency, translucency,

found object

reflection"; "the reconstructed, revised

";

"subversion of measure"; "framing'" (and unframi'

money and ecology as order and or char The theme of reflection appears in Morris's second mirror piece Pharmacy (1962, no. 19), named after in Duchamps assisted readymade Pharma, art as

;

.

which Duchamp had merely added

and

a red

green

a

dot and his signature to a kitsch print of a winter landscape. Morris's work consists

two circular

of

mirrors on posts facing each other. Stationed between

them

on one side

a square of glass,

is

painted a

of

which Morris

the other a green one. These

rer

it

23), in

Ivl'i

know

desire

i

r/ir is

>

h\ virtue of

its title

openly hails

l>u<

a steel-ribbed trash can

den armatun al

pump

noisily

and neo Dada

lumps nun

ol

Fountain

Independeni Artists exhibition

<

i

ri

.

inside

ulates wat<

sensibility, th<

nded urinal submitted as an entry

nonrelational

and permutation

Morn

suspended from a pail ket a mi hanii

in

<

1917), a

sigm

d,

to th< Society

New

York

r

work

Bui

beyond

that, Morris's reinterpretation of the earlier

object through the concept of circulation lends itself to a

discussion of the transmission of artistic,

and commodity forms, and the ways in which signs are pressed into the service of systems linguistic,

of meaning and exchange.'

The

dialogical relation

between these fountains was reasserted

Hans

in

Haacke's Baudrichard's Ecstasy (1988), in which a

gold-painted urinal (as

Duchamp

is

displayed on an ironing board

once recommended be done with a

Rembrandt), from which housing a

pump

the urinal.

The

suspended a bucket,

is

forcing water

up

into the

bowl of

circulatory action in Morris's version,

as well as in Haacke's rendition (portraying the

readymade

as

humorous

critique of structural-systems

theory), recalls the cause-and-effect narrative

elaborately posited and thwarted in the Large Glass,

where the circulation of erotic gas

is

held forever in

check, fulfilling neither Bride nor Bachelors.

The deadpan

eroticism and the affectless

treatment of the body evident in Duchamp's Large Glass, and his later cast

body parts (Pnere de toucher

[1947], Female Fig Leaf'[1950]. Objet

EW

[1951],

Wedge of Chastity [1954], With My Tongue in My Cheek [1959]), as well as his Etant Donne'es (1946-66), distinguish reliefs

and

numerous works by Morris

as well: lead

enframe embedded imprints of vulva, hands,

feet; cast brains are overlaid

with dollar

Hans Haacke, Baudrichard's Ecstasy. 1988. Mixed media,

45

x

x

14 inches (114.3

Gallery,

New

x

137.2

x

35.6 cm). Courtesy John

York.

bills

and 42); ruler and yardstick pieces, which, while signaling the "subversion of measure"

and

54

Weber

silver (nos. 41

A

third work, Litanies (1963, no. 21),

of which

is

a lead-

enacted in Duchamp's Trois Stoppages etalons (1913),

covered box, on the

include matter-of-factly crude sexual allusions

twenty-seven keys, each inscribed with a word from

(for

example, no. 34). Likewise, Morris portrayed

the

Duchamp

lid

The work,

text.

exhibited at the Green

the alienated body in performances such as Site (1964,

Gallery in Morris's

and Waterman Switch (1965, no. 69). The Large Glass also informed several works by Morris that

was acquired by Philip Johnson.

no. 63)

derive their titles and

momentum

from linguistic

elements in Duchamp's work. In 1961, Morris executed Litanies, a

drawing that combines delicate scrawling

with the words of "Litanies of the Chariot," terms elaborated in the Green Box (1934), a group of

Duchamp's notes notes,

for the

a bachelor machine,

symbolic circuit as LIFE,"

Large Glass. In one of these

Duchamp remarked was

it

that the Chariot, itself

to glide

back and forth in a

recited the litanies:

"slow

"VICIOUS CIRCLE," "ONANISM," "HORIZONTAL,''

"ROUND

late in

paying

first

for the

follow another

a key ring holding

is

New York, When Johnson was

solo exhibition in

work, Morris decided to

Duchampian

strategy, the majesterial

conveying of aesthetic significance, by withdrawing his aesthetic seal from Litanies in a

work called Statement

Withdrawal (1963, no. 22), an act of reversibility that Michelson reads as "unframing."

of Esthetic

Benjamin H. D. Buchloh has discussed this rev< real terms of legalistic language and administrative snl< calling

it

a

Duchamp-inspired

shift

toward authorship

effected through legal contract and institutional discourse.

The right-hand

snl< of

Statement

side views of the disputed work, delicately

WHEEL," "BEER PROFESSOR." Morris's lead Untitled

being claimed.

(Slow Life Plaque) (1963, no. 20) bears the litanies

typed, notarized "Statement

emblematically on

its

front.

\OTONOUS FLY TRIP," "FOR

in .

to yield a

shadow\ present

The

<

embossed

evo< ative ot the

left-hand

snl<

oi Esthetit

In 1969, Morris created a

absem

i

en< loses the

work

Withdrawal

entitled

Woney

THE DUCHAMP CONNECTION

1

1

3

facing page: 18. Fountain, 1963. Painted wood, galvanized steel bucket, hook, circulating

14-

%

inches (91

Frankfurt

am

x

32

x

pump, and water, 35

37 cm). Museum

fur

'

s

x

12

5/

8

19. x

Pharmacy, 1962.

36 inches (45.7

x

29.2

Painted x

wood and

mirrors,

91.4 cm). Collection

18x11

of the artist

Moderne Kunst,

Main,

THE DUCHAMP CONNECTION

1

15

tor Anti-Illusion: Procedurt

i

Matt

an exhibition

rials,

of contemporary art organized by Marcia Tucker and

James Monte Art in

show,

New it

Whitney Museum

at the

\ork. Like

many

American

of

of the other objects

The

involved a lope of process.

in

the

piece initially

consisted ot a contractual agreement and related

correspondence between Morns and the trustees of

bank check.

the Whitney, as well as a canceled

documents

sum,

invest a small

prices profit.

it

on the European market

to

by the museum,

to be provided

blue-chip art and then to turn

It

which was

Morris's original proposal,

around

in

at inflated

museum's

tor the

Because the trustees refused the proposal unless

the project could be guaranteed as risk tree, Morris

was limited

to

performing modest and sheltered bond

investments on Wall Street, these carried out under the supervision of the trustee Howard Lipman. The no. 24) contains expanded version ol Mom additional documentation of these financial transactions

Morris's strategy of

making

procedures of investment clearly relates production ot bonds

from the

art

Duchamp's

to

system

tor investing in a

to

win

at

Monte Carlo Casino anil to Ins I tanck an art work that Due lump issued as

roulette at the

Check (1919),

payment

tor a

dental

bill.

Money also

category of Duchamp-influenced usi

under the

tails

legality

ol

in art

as discussed by Buchloh.

I

Robert Motherwell, The fork

Wittenbom,

imp, trans

2.

G

Dtii/ti

'' I

rris

An

..'lit

rially

i

umption

product

ilogui

thai

we

i

\\

ashington,

timl in the

in m.c:

produ

M Ill) Bui

hloh,

'

oncepcual

An rsion ol thi

iii,

Press,

Aesthei ii

ol

An An: L

Hamilton (New York: Grove

ird

Am

Paintcri jiiJ Poets:

Schuitz, 1981; 1951); Robert

20. Untitled (Slow Life Plaque), 1963. Lead over wood panel painted with metallic powder

8 x

3

/4

inches (25.4

x

20.3

x

in

synthetic polymer, 10 x

1.9 cm). Collection of the

artist.

THE DUCHAMP CONN

117

21

Litanip-.

.-ad

over wood, steel key ring, twenty seven inches (30.5

6 4 cm) The Museum

1

|

H

ROBBR1

Ml '

ol

Modern

Art,

New

x

18

x

York, Gitt ol Philip

7

22. Statement of Esthetic Withdrawal. 1963. Typed

and notarized statement on paper and sheet of lead over wood,

mounted (44.8

New

x

in

imitation leather mat,

60.4 cm)

overall.

''-

1

The Museum

>

x

of

23

-

*

inches

Modern

Art,

York, Gift of Philip Johnson.

THE DUCHAMP CONN

119

23 Proposal

to

"Re-do Chicago Fire of 1871," 1968

Telegram. October 21, 1968, 5 Collection Ella Venet,

i

ao k

1

New

York.

•-

riches (14 x 21.6 cm).

4UM

IN

UNM

**

«

HIM1 MURIUM

Of

AMtlAU Mf

^r ~*~

24. Money, 1973 (expanded from 1969 version). Fifteen sheets of typed office stationery and two certificates, 36 x

96 inches (91.4

New

x

243.8 cm). Courtesy Leo

Castelli Gallery,

York.

THE DUCHAMP CONNECTION 121

I-BOX

1962

,

Green Gallery

In 1963 at the

New

in

among them

objects,

York, Morris

made small

exhibited a selection of recently

own

of gray-painted bottles containing his

(EEG) (1963, no

fluids; Self-Portrait

sculptural

Portrait (1963, no. 43), a set

bodily

work

14), a

based on his electroencephalogram; and the related

and enigmatic l-Box 1962,

no. 25).

(

perhaps because

most

irony, that attracted

many

itself to

It

was the

lasc.

unassuming

of its impressively

critical attention.

registers of interpretation,

Offering

is

it

an

whose simply articulated format gives way

object

to

an unexpected complexity

Through the external form door

shape

in the

the "I" of

the letter

of

maker,

its

chalky pink

of a

the work literalizes

/,

door opens

tor this

to reveal a

photograph of the naked Morris, another, more personal"

posed

self,

in front of a wall,

standing

with his head tilted back somewhat derisively, with

and a

a twinkle in his eye

However

partial erection.

nontraditional and surprising, the l-Box was,

on

therefore, thematically consistent with the tot us

works

self-portraiture of the other

marked by

Indelibly

the exhibition.

in

selt-consuous disavowal

a

the artistic conventions associated with Abstr.u

moment

ressionism, the

prodm nl was

in large part

in

of

t

which the l-Box was

oiuhtioned by the work of

<

Jasper Johns During the 1950s, Johns had developed devices and strategies lor undermining Abstr.u Kpressionism's

I

onni

t

th(

to be

of

ital

i

isii.i

s

being

disinterestedness, whi<

cii

promoted

In abstrai tion

brushwork and

new banality

u

t

Modernist aesthetit

of

immcdi.K

I

was thought possibli

it

tion to the

i

onflueni e of

i

those

us. partii ularly

i

through which direi

ontinuation

i

of li

to

\.

obtain

a

the maker, and

was understood

By slutting the onograph) toward

a

the expressively individual "stroke"

applied now to mass produced objects such as targets or

maps

DOdj as

as well as rellgurillg th(

work

of interest, Ins

momeni

formalisi

century an

in ch<

reception of twentieth-

Tat tt with Plaster Casts Johns juxtaposes a painted targi with a row woodboxes with doors thai wh< n opi ni d, rt vi al

For ins tan

1955),

(

of

t

ii

plaster body fragments;

and voyeurism, disino

i.

of

1«

1

1 1

r 1

1

to "|

-

<

i

I

»

w.e.

a a

I

t"i <

i.i.

ii

iln

tin

\

arrangl

wing

v'u

ironj

rati

V\ hi n \i.n\

d

in

lh>

it

a site

ontradii ted tenets linked to the

reft

rring to peepholes

ment

jusi as

ii

(lies in tin

demonstrated

i'

"Ii fori

ol

/-Bw was

desigm d

baj

at

'I

th< I

|

dn am

in

against thi grain "t Abstrai

la

la.

also holds thi

d an alena .

•

I

also

xpn ssionism

I

pressionists thi in

w

undi rstood as

ln<

Ii

thi

Co siti

.<

I

i

.

anvas .\iu\

of thi

25. l-Box. 1962 (closed view). Painted plywood cabinet covered with Sc ui|>tmrt.il.

Is

i

iiiit.iiimi>x

photograph,

19x12

5 cm). Collection Leo CastHii

(]

inches

I

BOX

1

23

inscription, the 1-B".\. in an inversion ot terms, openly

such heroics, at once refigunng the

trivializes

making

associated with art

terms

in

self

mechanical

ot a

process (photography) and subverting the notion of

experiencing an

an intentional

.is

totality, the action

painters heroism here transcoded in raw sexual terms. In the case ot I-Box, the physical self is

encoded

through the camera; and, from the vantage point of

we might argue

today,

that the self

both hidden

is

and revealed through the convention of the box

manner

in a

that invokes a history ot hidden and disclosed

pornographic pictures. In any case, the work entails

moment

a

contusion

momentary

of recognition as well as a

—

the subject ot masculine artistic mastery,

namely the Abstract Expressionist,

unveiled, undone,

is

made comical. Such a reading would imply that

this

same

"I"

and thus anticipates and internets

signals the eye,

a

viewer seeing and apprehending the object, the implication at

being that the work

first

of a peephole. Through the

movement

a variation

is

of ellipsis,

however, this reading breaks into two alternate and noncoincidental meanings, doubly centered on the image, yet invertible and shitting Jasper Johns. Target with Plaster Casts. 1955

and collage with plaster casts, 51 (129.5

x

111.8

x

x

44

x

3

1

?

Encaustic

reference

the

lere.

I

not to the viewer, but rather to the

is

inches

8.9 cm). Collection Leo Castelh

unaverted

the artist, grinning knowingly at

>:a/c- ot

the camera, with his penis partially erect. These facing page: l-Box (open view).

features insinuate that the pleasure in the image least in part. Morris's

pleasure

own Thus

the voyeuristic experience

ot

confused: whose pleasure this picture'

at

and

split

is

being reproduced through

is

The work seems

to bear witness to the

notion that the pleasure in the

once Morris's

"I," at

and playful disruption

nari issistn

is.

the (abjecting)

viewing and,

ot

at

the same time, the viewer's uneasy pleasure in looking at

on

relics

it,

the

fere,

1

a

I -Box

operates as

a

double capture

emerges as

Ik

i

Strui

ure

it

ided and

issues ol genre addressed

reference

te>

through

eil

tine

power on the other

subject's constitution

tin-

utterani

the-

e>t

interrelated ihsc ourscs ot subjet tivitj

around language on the

el

the sexual bases

sell

the-

dh

work, Meirns undertakes the interposition

omplex and i

insofar as a

between sculpture

in the interstices

and photography, Beyond

i

am

hinge between tonus as

dividing pleasure,

in this

same image

the

ol

signifit

also unitary, whit h join

<

te>

t

che

1

combines

le

a

eit

and

I

signal

hand, and

unified

to the phallus,

notions

the-

oneness

e>t

and on. iht

;

i

..!..,

! 1

•

list

uuion

1

!

strategy of ellipsis referred to hen

IK,

ma 1

1. .|il«

1

1

in

(Minneapolii

publish) d in French as di

1

It

4

M

1]

inn

h,

lohns and his importana to Morris's «

<

\thloni

Pn

I

is

described by Gilles Deleuzi

[ugh

md

i

1986) p

Barbara

162 original!) (Pari

Edii

/ I

HON 185

CARD

The

FILE, 1962

game

locus of the "Caucus-race," an absurdist

described in Lewis Carroll's Alict in Wonderland

which the players start and stop as they wish, move more slowly when trying to move more quickly, and mysteriously end up where they began, is that of in

systematized senselessness.

this held that Morris

It is

entered from time to time in order to disrupt, or

make

movement and

self-conscious, the

An example

generating a work of art.

Dada Card File (1962,

no. 26), a

is

process of

the early neo-

wall-mounted, vertical

containing a group of alphabetically indexed

flat file

cards that record the steps the artist followed in

conceiving of and making

work

is

Like Carroll's players, the

it.

guided by an absurd logic of disclosure

that,

supposedly hidden progression

in explicating the

that leads from "creative" intention, to the act of

composition, to the

work

final art

itself,

comments

on and rethinks that process.

shown

first

in

Dwan

Gallery in

New

1963 at the Green Gallery in

York, and subsequently in Language, a

New

York,

show

at the

Card File operates

according to an internal system of cross-referencing that drives a step-by-step procedure for the viewer to

mapped by

follow. Traveling the circuitous route Is,

one moves,

ironically,

the

through the intentions

and process by which the work was elaborated. Archival orderliness

—

or so

it

seems

notices the "mistakes" and lost cards

work assumes

that this

in

The

;s

forty-four

tal

•

"<

>,"

among diem

i

the

in

ards, gathered

<

"At

-

onsiderations and

n

i

i

its

lii

the

lit

,



ii

ly is

the mi'

1

ior

ol reduplii

inet

abinn

A

representation maj

even apture

image

the infinite

,

ation put into plai

works to question the

the

1

frustrates the im lination to believe that the

th.it

a

is

it

its

allowing

en affixed

In

ond?) with an open door, The

se<

abinet's interior ibinet,

opens but only

nother cabinet (or

perhaps, the

gray, plays

ontainer but, instead,

of tin- door. Its portal

photograj 1

1

that

is

the object.

ot

wood painted

sealed

ond door, on whit h has

photograph

or,

oi

se< rec> ot the-

on the mystery

1

bj

possibility chat

referent

its

In

27 Photo Cabinet, 1963 Painted wood cabinet containing photograph, 15

x

1

'

«

inches (38.1

x

27.3 cm) Collection

the artist.

us tonn.it, Photo /

/.

(

abinet invokes asso< iations with .

ii

a photograph 11 in ih.it

ISO

1

.1

11

1:

miniature representation of all or part of the larger whole

play within a play in

in a specifically post-Abstract

moment. As

rwo works look

1,

\...

Duchamp's

of

which had also informed Box with ressionist

j

and Information.

d to -peak ol those visual or literary work', that contain within

an attache case, and With Hidden Noise

Waking ( 1961

"An \

refers to j

Box

relevant here are

(1941), the miniature in

lXnid Antin,

1

1963, no. 28) and

(

hit

h similarlj

pun on the inn Morris himsi

if

1

1

il

on tains within 11

it J

ol its

facing page: 28

Untitled (Leave

Key on Hook)

Key, lock, and patinated bronze box, 13 x

(33

x

19.1

x

8.9 cm). Private collection.

/

1963.

nches

of

1

:\

I

METERED BULB AND LOCATION,

—

which what

in

If

self-reference

is

the very structure or terms of

support

— has been one of the

Modernism,

mocking

work represents"

a

own medium

its

has also provided the means tor a

it

machine

Duchamp's conception

literalizes the logic

thereby parodying

it

of autoreferentialiry,

"The bachelor," he was famous

enclosure.

grinds his chocolate himself."

self-

for has ing

1

Various works by Morns from 1962 and L963 explore this notion of self-reference-as-autism, but

Metered Bu/b (1963, no. 29). Consisting

work seems

to invoke the bachelor

Ban

apparatus of The Bridt Snipped

known

also

.

Suspended,

from

like the Bride,

IL

by

as the Large Glass

r

Bachelors,

1915—23

(

armature of white-painted plywood, the bulb,

in

porcelain pull-chain socket, hovers ovet an electric

its

meter mounted on the back face

Wired

armature.

ot the

to the bulb, the meter, in the position ot

a<

though

lear (hat the

it

is

(

And

partner."

tivity oi its

a

mordant expression

m

Duchamp,

li

energy source powering this

fashioned

lost

1

red

irtiStil

Johns s & ulptmi thi

1.

1

in

1

.m arrangi

*l

on n

<

had

wen

;<

bronzi trompi

hrough

lati

["hi

thi

early

cangular slabs,

recently

Jaspi

double

layen

~\

<

ord that has In

n twisti

t

anting

.

to

past terms which had. u itbout

round duality

tl

Johns took the background out of painting

a} representation.

and What was previously

ackgroum

I.

"../Hon

which

in

i

1963, no. JO)

self-reference

which

,1

pictorial

Modernist discourse would have

as the

ly,

the work establishes that

autoretereiiti.il,

bound

object, for

flat

onsist of four little adjustable counters that, set

i

middle

into the

each edge, indicate the distance

ot

tlat.

to indicate

an actual

ot tin

-us 1h.1t

alphabet

pi(

mn

In tins

>.<

n

•

with an ironii in ady

would

ms

s\sn

s

[ohns a*

1

product liki

1

"ml

1

1

!

ol

once the tlu

corruption

high Modernism.

ot

\1.1i.

1

1

1

Mich

ed

1

in.

ii.,i

s

tiilli

1

linn

.m^l

Pei

r

Hi

•

Mori

Noti

<

"ii Si

iilptun

Pwi

Beyond

I

.it.

68 t

Ibji

<

li

in.

111

i

.11

',!

1

:.

rnin

I'.uin

1961),

[rts 1

't>i

Batci

ock (New

>

.

>r

k

Due ton,

cht

01 tin

n ady madi l>\

Metered Bulb. 1963.

facing page, top: 29 socket with

and

pull chain, x

8

x

8'

elei

trii Ity

inches (45

4

1

*

Light bull

meter, mounted on painted

20.3

x

21 cm). Collection

ps) to play ai

(tat

Jasper Johns.

Modi

rn

mt

of

painting

1

dimi nsional

30 Location

Notes on Sculpture, Part wuli chest n in. 11 mi [ohns

Morris opens his 1n

isa

I

<

)li|<

1

cs

1.-,

ot

>l

ount of self referenci

object

work

a

\

the disembodied and atemporal

placelessness

wood. 17'. flat

ontingent

and

ot

Thus,

wo

ounting tint

t

stresses at

irj

found thro dimensional object to includi

dimi nsional

-relict object.

works position and sue,

viewing

empties

pictorial convention,

ocation, undersc oring the

/

tun

ot self-reference

them the material conditions

three-dimensional, low

tlu

certifies the pi<

it

site in real spat c

out the tormal conditions

tin

as

bending

tins strategic

ot

given wall's Boor,

a

and corners Yet even

ceiling,

piei e

notion

so ndi

elements

and

>l

Du ham]

1

a wall-

is

it

"representational

its

it,

Manifestly

Hamilton (New York: Oxford University Pre

beyond

n ady madi

Johnsian machine,

a

explode the

to

conventions of painting instead of resecuring them

I

of thi

such

is

used

is

irregularly shorn ,u both ends. Johns's read in

thi

.ill.

.

neutral becamt actual, wbili uh.it

an imagt

u.i' previously

bulbs

I'oeil

1960s,

their S0< kets or with the SO( ket and, perhaps, ot

nt.

1

ither without

<

so

I

possibility nt infinite redefinition

nurse, ones with a perspi, uoiisU

ilis(

impossible relation to energy

from

Metered Bulb

In tins, thi

ther light bulbs that

I

I ...

.

tudult

exception, operated within

sin h as

resoun es

all tin-

readymade

.1

dtp:.

substituting tor

in uitry

1

represeiit.itK.ii, Morris's l<

I

.1

Glass, had elaborately

/»

/

mai him In using

'

of illusionists

may work n

ol

tin

I

•

ridiculou

surt.ue as

even

bachelor machine comes from elsewhere, the result is

tin

depictions as copit

the rectilinear surface from

lamp's Bachelors, measures, records, and signals

the electrical

anyom

this

non-

"into their area of competence

'

inverted /.-shaped

.111

much

:.

and painting had not done

paint:

tuiik

depiction than

the self-

of

absorbed dialogue between an electrical meter and a light bulb, the

Johns

.

[Johns 'sj

case.

's

Duchamp

none are as specifically connected to as

than in Pollock

'...;'.

I

bachelor

of the

masturbatory, autistic

as

\

looked at rather than into

great tormal resources

critique of high Modernist ambition. In this

sense, Marcel

said,

or

1963

1.

1963

I

''.id

over composite board, aluminum

-.21x21x1

lettei

.",

,

ml

inches

CKILIMG

m

-'EET

WALL FEET

LOCATIO

lOH

^1

METERED BULB AND LOCATION 133

MEASUREMENT,

Looking

1963

"machine that would make

for a

divested of expressiveness and. therefore,

meaning,

who had become

artists

mark

and reducing

intrinsic

sheathed

a

of"

by his work was

Among

many

the

precedents offered

L913— 1

Troii Stop}

assemblage that attacks the idea

measurement. Using chance

of a

measure from something that has

unit of

images

a

shrunken

three of the artist's

a reusable

through one

peered at through the other end, a reducing lens

standard unit of

transformed the

each end. houses a

at

wires. Peered at

opening, a magnifying glass projects an enlarged ruler;

produce wildly

to

Duchamp

disparate "metersticks.

an

1),

suspended from

ruler

small plywood box,

modeled, extremely textural

Sculptmetal, with an opening

self-consciousl)

anti-Abstract Expressionist turned to the example of

Marcel Duchamp.

A

measure.

a basic

in loosely

ruler. In Tbret Rulers

approximately three

R«/er(1963, no

homage were in

feet, are

suspended

to

and

set

—

tirst

1963

in New York d Ruler with

exhibited at the Green Gallery In

another work,

ruler appears to projec

edition,

28.2

x

1964, number 7

50

of 8.

x

•

dimensionally

11x9

inches

At

first,

1

anomalous w

Katharine Ordway Fund.

wooden

being

a unit thai signifies

—

into

empty

sigi

context an

While,

[

what the

"inch." for example,

the

same thing

'•

and Out

';

assume

every

used on the idea

dysfuni tional ruler, whi< h, reused as

smearing paint, became

a

spatula

i

ham

e

foi

seamless,

ommi lown

scali

from

i

standard mi asim

some

h in

I

i

thai th( I.

i

tins

i

COCK

the back

oil he

like

itself

e

t

threads onto a canvas from a height of oni meter, gluing

random shape

in iln

lates

Each

i

ii

li

assumed

(oi

I

were used to draw

ni linguistii

.i^

il

Its")

fell,

thi

empt) sign

sign called a

and then

ul

i

them down I

from thea disparate

both

lines in

mi. iiimIim notion of th<

in relation

neci ssarj to a

j

and

i

ni.H linn

oi

rclii fliki

pronouns

profiles

I

In

I

is

used in relation to » hit h,

"si

words

oi

.

like

k.

nl) in relation to their specifii isth

i

M.iiiiK intimate in

iim in

I

In

manj variations

on the n

i

im.

rsii

'

"i

Mi. inn

lit) i,

i

of enunciation

r.ms

I'ii

«,

\|.in I

"

I

I

',

on Sec

lixabi

1 1

Emili

Mi

pp

chesi

im

thai Morris

ification indii ati .i

.nu

i

t

quantify phi nomi na, ma)

B) provid

i

CUNT—and

embrace

the work, stamped

of

pervades us measured and pre< im framework.

both cases, detached

in

ai ih

ases largi

'-I

i

name

of problems thai build on

rangi

Duchamp's exampli to I" ai

dr\ and arithmetic,

it

in ai tual ruli

estimated from memory, but,

thou

hinged

engagements with deadpan erotic ism. in work, too, a ool and removed, \e raw sexualit)

ii. il

i,l

ot

Morris's later

i

mi

seems

1)

5

side bj side,

lie

nut immediatel) obvious in theobjeci

the k in

oi the interval

no

rulers, insinuates a copulatorj discourse

wooden templates

nsui

and arrangi d in disparati frameworks

bears dividing marks,

1')('\

1

ohercnt group

e

was produced by dropping threi metei long

I

produi ed in im

"mounted"

produi

Ins guided th< L963 iremem as an works he made using manipulated ot assisted ruler-

identified objects

ise

Morns was

the painterl) mark.

making

oi a

contextual machini

a purelj

interested in the idea of

is,

a

The patent!) vulgar

later call

Window Number

tht

foi

unt)

nfe/l

l

together along their top edges; closed, the rulers

paintings (for

irclt

(

that trails at an angle across

otherw

itlnn an

on the base-

1962]), Jasper Johns had

or devici for

in

would

strut turalists

in his various Devict

/'

li

Tun

—an

shadow (rendered three-

a large

works. Open, two rulers

ruler

and consistent meaning

shadows and

pla\ ot

surfac e of the support.

ntitled

I

t

wood)

in

wooden

the squared

New Haven,

22.7 cm). Yale University Art Gallery,

x

— an

Duchamp's King and Queen Surrounded NI2) engraved in has-rehet above it.

Morns drew on the

Schwartz

from

\

s

which bears us name

$2),

of

vertically

perception; lure, a gray-painted, small

(129.2

rulers.

painted gray and measuring unequal lengths

small metal hooks. This tripartite

Marcel Duchamp. Trois Stoppages etalons, 1913-14.

(1963, no. 3D,

custom-made wooden

/

,

with us endless bi

las

i

halli n i

id

tern for enl

R

d teed

31

Three Rulers, 1963

>

>d

and metal hooks, rry

N Aiirams.

i

k

V

r :

J

J

\,\/ 7

(

[,J/

J

\ L

Lr_ri

I

i t

J_LlUH 'i!

4

3

facing page, top: 32. Swift Night Ruler. 1963. Sliding and wood, painted, 10

x

28-2

x

1

inches (25.4

x

72.4

5-89

5

x

,

.

i

I

t

34. Untitled (Cock/Cunt). 1963 (closed and open views).

ruler

2.5 cm).

Collection Leo Castelli.

Two painted

ru'ers hinged together and

base, 5

16 5

1

'?

x

a

x 1

'/j

Inches (14

x

mounted on painted wood

42.2

x

3.8 cm). Collection of

the artist.

facing page, bottom: 33. Untitled (Breakage Rejected

.

.

.

Accepted), 1963-64. Glass case on wood base painted with metallic

powder

glass case on rulers, 3

New

J

4

in

synthetic polymer, containing cracked

wood base, stamped

lead, mirror,

inches (9.5 cm) high. The

Museum

of

and two metal

Modern

Art,

York, Gift of Philip Johnson.

MEASUREMENT 137

35 Untitled

1964

Lead over wood and cast lead

'

rale University Art !

I

IK

Brown Baker, B A

I

Ga

36. Untitled. 1964. Lead over wood,

and wire, 33

1

/2

North Carolina

x

6 3 /ie

x 2

Museum

1

2

hook,

ruler, spring,

inches (85.1

x

15.7

x

6.4 cm).

of Art, Raleigh, Gift of Rhett

and

Robert Delford Brown.

MEASUREMENT

1

39

1

1()

'

facing page, top: 37. Untitled, 1964. Lead over wood and cast-lead ruler, 21 x 15 u x 1 'a inches (53.3 x 38.7 x 3.2 cm). ;

Private collection,

New

York.

facing page, bottom: 38. Enlarged and Reduced Inches, 1963. Ruler hanging inside wood box covered with Sculptmetal, two openings with lenses, one magnifying, one reducing,

5x8x6

inches (12.7 x 20.3

x

15.2 cm). Collection of the

39. Untitled, 1964. Lead over wood and cast-lead

12

x

34

x

2 inches (30.5

M. Benjamin,

New

x

86.4

x 5.1

artist.

ruler,

cm). Collection Mrs. Robert

York.

MEASUREMENT

141

SELF-PORTRAITS, 1963

Duchamp

In IV 10, Marcel

Andre

humour

wasted energies such

as:

.

.

that

noir, a proposal

I'

designed to utilize the

for "a transformer

and of the

the

nails,

dropping of tears.

laughter,

tor

->

.

no

composed

13), a "self-portrait"

of bottled body fluids, operates somewhat differently

it,

small, gray-painted milk-bottle-shaped containers

and feces are

machine could be

a

196

framework

of blood, sweat, sperm, saliva, phlegm, tears, urine,

Like everything

."

.

Duchamp, such

(

to construct a

self.

from the more technologically oriented pieces. In

movements of fear, astonishment, boredom, anger conceived by

was possible

Portra it

urine and excrement.

tall of

it

representing the

slight,

the exhalation of tobacco

.

the growth of a head of hair, of other body

smoke, hair

contributed a project to

Breton's Anthologie dt

set into the

compartments of a horizontal

display box. Unlike Joseph Cornells use

similar

of

considered a mechanism, however unconventional, for

receptacles (as in his Pharmacy [1943]). in

producing works

containers reinforce the idea of inferiority, subjectivity,

Duchamp's

ot art

machines

ironic

production

tor the

of

which the

and memory. Morris's insistence on the definition

some ways

the art-mark outside the conventional channels of

of

aesthetic feeling were formative

straightforward commentary on the complicated issue

Duchamp's machines from the

the

idea that the

first

from the brute physicality Abstra<

Expressionism,

t

produced by the painter was thought

New Dance

the

machines

The

to

<

The

ireumvent

d

produi

a

i

any

to be, before

registration

a

task-relat< d gestures of

expressionism

this

Morns produced

in

1963

problem

of

how

to

stand the idea

of

"self-

relation to tins

ill

mark

wool,

il>. ii

I

expression on us head, materializing and met hanizii S

went

P

.

(EB

rtrait

w rark

to N(

44),

i.

Mt di

niversitj

I

Morns

Center

al

to have

the activity of his brain waves recorded, concentrating

on himself

tor the

length

halograph to

He

height

mv

ond

si

I

<

I

p

ct

m

was

time when then was of

differ* nt

to

an

.mas

mi asurt 1

1

nli

tin

n\ of

Bj

m l

EEG developed

ing

the skull

l

as wavi i,

,i

i

in

Morns used

iln

involved, as well as in .ul. hi

i

tivit)

i

i

In

is •

tht

plaint)

al

cht

i

')

apat

>ught

brain,

s

normal ould

i

fi

would appear

mat hint \

ol

itj

patit nt

ti

ruditj nt tin

to underscort

a

mt asuring

av

absurd

technologj

at

ah/anon

hnolo

tet

and

hnological

i.

nt

lot

trades on

elei

I

.ii .1

the

in

medical

at

it

Hearing (1972,

the possibilit) n

i

ive analysis;

an work, but

as an

strong belief

electrit al

an. mm.

I4fl

um d

mi lua (usually "pathologii

m. null

that

ver

latet piect

a

brain luin tions and .

mparat

I

hnolog) of tht

i

lines equal to Ins

ording of the brain waves

was mentioned in the no 88) The

took for the

it

ribi

alsoobtaii

presumablj this

time

of

iinglt

reductivi

Marcel Duchan

in

a verj

function of consumption and

rj

minded and notion

x-

:

(New York Oxford

mark

explored In Morris were conceived as

ironic self-portraits

wen

1

emotional turmoil, his heroism

artist's self, his

in the face of anxiety.

a

is

'

r,

cd.

Michel Sanouillei and Elmer Peterson, trans George Heard Hamilton

forged in the context of

other representational consideration, of the

re-mental"

can be differentiated

whi< h every

in

sell as "exc

expenditure.

the second. Morris's

of

Duchamp was

connection to

body, thereby

artist's

the

of subjectivity as

often relocate the gesture's site

artist's self to

mocking the

tor Morris;

examples

I

niversii

,

191

40.

Wax

8

10

x

5

/8

Brain, 1963.

Wax over

x 9'/ 8 inches (20.3 x

27

plaster cast, x

in

glass case,

23.2 cm). Saatchi Collection,

London.

SELF-PORTRAITS 143

41

Brain, 1963. Eightandone half one-dollar

plaster cast,

in

glass case, 7 /?

x

6

l

.

x 5

'

.

bills

over

inches (19

x

16 5

14,6 cm). Collection Leo Castelli

facing page: 42. Untitled (Silver Brain), 1963. over plaster cast, 1

in

glass case, 6

x 7 x

5

7.8 x 14 cm). Saatchi Collection, London

144

1

?

Silver leaf

inches (15.2

x

x

43. Portrait, 1963. Painted bottles containing body

fluids,

and painted wood frame, V't x 18 J'4 x V'i inches (8.9

47.6 Art,

x

4.8 cm). The University of Arizona

Tucson,

Edward

Museum purchase

G. Gallagher, Jr.,

Museum

x

of

with funds provided by the

Memorial Fund.

facing page: 44. Self-Portrait (EEG), 1963.

Electroencephalogram and lead labels, framed with metal and glass, 70 the art

iii.

>/*

x

17 inches (179.7

x

43.2 cm). Collection

of

KT RAITS 147

MEMORY DRAWINGS,

1963

Memory Drawings, executed in September (nos. 45- 19), were accomplished

Morris's five

and October 1963

context of his interest in the physiological states

in the

(EEG) (1963,

he had recorded in Self-Portrait

(EEG) shows

Just as Self-Portrait

of memory, exploring variations of physiological

Memoi

that consists of a

primary text

ing, a

summary

(or

"drawing"

>

and "those which seek

ol the brain cells"

explanation

changes

in

to the

ways a "cultural memory

models, pictures, maps, sequential

Jungian notion

that has to do with a

kind

specifii

ultures

(

an hive would

of a larger //

197

ri)

which

to reprodui

of niacin in lone lines.

knowledge.

major

role in

wj was

91416

from memory

i

ilcse

In

Somi a

ribing

it,

Morris

form and

the

vhich mati bed