NrO-AVANTGARDE AND CULTURE INDUSTRY Essays ON EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN ART FROM 1955 to 1975 Benjamin H. D. Bucutow An OCTOBER Book ‘Tue MIT Pars Cammrince, Massacti HTS Lonpon, ENGLAND© 20 Massachusetts Inet of Technology ‘All ighseeserved. No par ofthis book may be reproduced in any for by any electronic or nechanical mes Ginlaling photocopying, recording, or information rage anal retievl) withoue pers in wring fom the puller. [All works of art by Marcel lroodthacrs © Exate of Mawel Toatthoers/SABAM. Belginnn? AGA, NY, NY. ‘This book was st in Bembo by Graphic Composition Ine. an was rine and bow United State of America Libary of Congres Cataloging: in-Publiation Dats Buchloh, BH. [Neo-avantgarde and culture industry: essays on European aul American at fom 1955 40 1975 / Benjamin H.1D. Buchloh pen. “An October book” Includes bibliographical references snd index ISBN 0-262-02454-3 (alk, paper) 1. Avant-garde (Aesthetis}—Europe—History—2th century 2. Am European, ‘An, Modern —20eh century~Europe. 4. Avantatde (Acsthstc)~ United Stater— History—20th century. 5. Am, American. 6, Ar, Modern--204h century—United Stats 1 Tie, 1N6758 B83 2000 709" 04°5—ae2 99.05 940% N6758 .B83 2000 Buchloh, B. H. D Neo-avantgarde and culture industry : essays on European and American art from 1955 to 1975 Micuact Asner anp THE CONCLUSION OF Mopernist Scutprure Concrete material realty and social meaning should always be the primary criteria of specification. Before all else, we see in ideologi- cal objects various con body. This cor instance, the meat ections between Weaning and its material nection may be more or less deep and organic. For ‘of art is completely inseparable from all the details ofits material body. The work of artis meaningful in its en- ry impor- tance in thisinstance. Technically auxiliary and therefore replaceable The with all he uniqueness ofits features, acquires artistic meaning tirety. The very constructing of the body-sign has a prim elements are held 9 a minim je here. dividual reality of the ob A. AL Bakluin, ‘The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship" Firse published in Poe Par nsonpwrin: Rapport ot dscns debs Biennale ae Paris, wo, 3 (aris 19809, Fie F (Montreal Parachute, 1981), pp. 55-64, The ‘The Coen Lines othe Ae Isnt of Chia, ed, Sts Rowse (Chieays: Ant tnt ot Chea, 9), pp. 277-295, ih version in Panes Tests ad Paces, es. Chantal Potbrian resent enlarged version was fist publishedSculpeure traditionally lve trom painting through it semingly unquestion- able thtee-dimetsionaity, its physical and physiological comporelity, defined 36 a itera “embodiment” of subjective plastic concerns. twas determined as much by the historically specific aesthetic conditions of the sculptural discourse as by the peceatons' (of the patro) ability to recognize their own compareal being in the world in the sculptural embodiment. Or, as Rosalind Krauss recently stated The logic of culpere, i would sem, is inseparable from the logic of the monument. By vie ofthis logic a sculpture is eommem= orative representation, It sit it a particular place and speaks in 2 symbotical vangue about the me ngand the use ofthat pace ‘As we willbe deslingin the following essay with contemporary sculpeutal ‘works in general, and in particular with two works by Michael Asher conceived in 1979 for two museums in Chicago, ic seems appropriate to consider these ‘works—while perhaps not immediately recognizable a seulpture—in Krauss ‘terms 8 they doin fact “sit in a particular place and speak ina symbolical tongue bout the meaning and the use ofthat place.” The complexity ofthese works ne- cessitates, however, closer attention to the material and procedural transforma tions that have ten place inthe evolution of contemporary sculpeure, and we will have to recapitulate some of the erucal paradigmatic changes that define sculpture in the history of Modernism. Looking atthe specific features of Modernist sculpeure (thats, ies materi= tls and ite procedures of production) 2s well a a its changing reception, one could almost come tothe conclusion that sculpeure, because ofits more concrete “nacure™ than that of any other at practice, seems to lend iself co a particularly lobdurateaestheti: how can one—4 wer the conditions ofa highly industial- ined society continue atvistic modes of production (modeling, carving, ca- ing, cutting, welding) and apply them convincingly to semi-precious orso-called “natuea” materials (bronze, marble, wood)? Only ewenry years ago (fot more recemty) the works of Alberto Giacomiet and Henry Mogre could seem che pitome of the seulperal, when in fet their archaic Keanogeaphy sod plastic steetures revealed their authors’ (and the public) convition chat seniprare had not lot any ofits historic credibility in the First decade of dhs entry. Even a practicing sculptor and sculpture historias—commenting on Redin-—seems to acknowledge the specific dilemma of his own discipline, without, hovwey coming to an adequate understanding ofits historical derermination “Thus, Rodin mature sculpture follows the effective nengence of ‘modern painting, moreover, in comparison with che direceess,smt= pliciny and objectiviy of the new painting: the statement in sculp- ture seems tentative, half-formed and weighed down by a burden of Romantic and dramatic subject matter of moral and public “fune- sion”, which the Impressionist had been able to jettison from the fire, The reasons forthe late artival and confised intentions of the new sculpeate lie parly in the physical character of sculpture and painting, parly in their relative development in Europe since the Renaissance, payin the specific conditions of patronage and pub- lic tate which obtained in ninercenth century France... .Seulpeare became an art in which the este and ambition of the public paron ‘became the determining factor, and vireuosity and crafsmanship the criteria of artistic achievement? A more rigorous reading of the history of modernist sculpture would have to acknowledge that most oft scemingly stable paradigms, which had been valid to some extent until the late nineteenth century (ve, the representation of indi= vidual, anthropomorphic whole or fagmented bodies in space, modeled of in= cere but lasting, ifnot eternal, matter and imbued with illaionary moments of spurious if), had been—in analogy tothe abolition of representation in paine- ing—defintely abolished by 1913, Viadimie Tadits comer-counter elie and subsequent Monument 10 the Thin Intemational and Marcel Duchamp'sreadymades emenged lilly from Syetic Cuban, and they ave coustcuted since then she extremes of culpa efection in Moderns: they recoymize the isletis of sculpture from now on to be operative ether asa mode for the ats tie procuction of reali (eg. sculpture’ transition toward architecture an design) lr as.an epistemic model thar investigates the tans and conditions of aesthetic ob {ject production (the radymade, the allegory, the fersh). © fore precisely: ar chitecture on the one hsnd andthe episemological model on the exuerare the two poles toward which elvan selpture since 1913 hss developed, each implyingthe eventual disolvion of “sculpeare” as separate discourse and category. ‘The precarious condidion of culpace, ifnoc the decline of the discipline, Ina been sensed as early a 1903 by the poet Rainer Maria Rulke in his study of ch category was indicative for him of the vanishing privileges and esoteric experi~ Rodin, conveyed, not surprisingly, in a cone of lament since the ring of the ences the autonomous art objec seemed to have guaranteed: Sculpture wasa separate ching 35 was the ease! picture, butit did not require a wal ike the picture. Ie did not even need a roof Te was an ‘objet that could exist for itself alone, and it was well to give it en= ‘rely the character of3 complete thing about which one could walk, and which one could look at from all sides. And yee it had t0 dstin= pis itself somehow fiom other things, the ordinary things which everyone could touch.* uw Sculpcural materials, even before thei iconic, formal, or procedural definitions, have tobe considered as pat of symbolic system chat is itself highly determined. For example, the “nobility” ofbrone and marble in the late nineteenth-centory work of Rodin was atleast in parca resul of his dependence on the cas of tour ‘geois amateurs. Symbolic det sinatons of sculptural macerss tesule not only fiom che author's profesionsl idioyyncrasies—whether his or her individual psychosexsl organiation ends more toward modeling soft and palpable masses, (like clay) or whether he orshe fel like cutting tone or ctving woont—bur abo from the audience's expectations whether dhe specific materials al dhe prod exallow f te viewer’ physical being i the word, In contradstinction to Rodin, the try sion procedy a projective identification ant seem in ict go embody radical modernity of Medasdo Rosso’ sculptures resisted this incorporation ina bronze in most of his works, and the sculpeural production process isell was ested and fragmented at the level of the was and plaster model: materials char bby their very nature quite explicitly reject any heroic or sublime connotations. Rosco often stated that he waned the materials of his sculpeues 10 pass w= noticed because they were meant co blend with dhe unity of the world that surrounded them, The acts fragmentation ofthe sculptural production proce- dure—whether deliberate or circusnstanial—correspondsto Roo’ fagiienta- con itself, His reluctance to fulfill ll he steps tion of the sculptural repreven requited by the traditional process of sulpeural production, (roms model ‘casting, indicate an essential evtical shift of aide. Te reveals the increasing doubts about artianally produced seulprut, namely thatthe completion ofan organic cycle of production, conceived and ex- cuted by one individual, had become obsolete. The fragmentation ofthe pro duction process coincided wih the phenomenon ofa heterogeneous materiality prefabricated elements alien to the craft of sculpture up to the nineteenth cen- tury, were introduced—or intraded—into the conventionally unified sculpeurat ‘body. The only sculpture by Edgar Degas that was publicly exhibited during his litetime and cast in bronze posthumously his Lite Dancer of Fourteen (181, as the fest to generate this modernist scandal. When ie was exhibited at the Expo- sition des Indépendants in 1881, Joris Haysmans hailed ic as follows: ‘Av once refined and barbaric with her industrious costume and her colored flesh which palpitatesforrowed by the work of the muscles, this state isthe only truly modern actempt I know in scolpeore.* Both phenomena —the fragmentation of representation and dhe produc- sion process and the juxtaposition of heterogeneous materale—would soon‘emerge asthe dominant tits of modernist sculpeure. they appeared excep= tional afin. sn che ease of Dey it would soon thereafer, ia Cubism and Fi jon, become the rule to combine individually crafteel seulpeural structures with mechanically produced objects and Fagments. Ultimately, im Duchamp’ readymades, the aesthetic construct would be displaced altogether by the mi chanieally produced object, These phenomena reccive a metiewlous description and precise historical analysis in Georg Lukics's attempt to define the conditions of reification in 1928: Rationalization in the sense of being able to predict with ever greater precision ll the results to be achieved i only to be acquited by the exact breakdown of every complex int its elements and by the study of che special nes governing production. Accordingly, it must declare war on the organic manufacture of whole products based on the tradicional amalgam of empirical experiences of work. ... The finished article ceases to be the object of the work proces... This destroys the onganic necessity with which inter relied special operations ate unified in the end product, Neither ‘objectively or in his elation to hi work does man appear asthe authentic master of the process on the contrary, he is a mechanical par incorporated into a mechanical system. He finds it already pre- existent and self-suficien; it functions independently ofhim and he thas to conform tote ave whether he likes oF not. Aslabour is pro- sresively rationalized aid mechanized, his ack of wills reinforced by the way in which his activity becomes less and less active and. ‘more and more contemplative. The contemplative stance adopted toward procest mechanically conforming to fixed laws and enacted independently of mass consciousness and impervious to human in- tervention, ie. a perfectly closed system, must likewise transform the basic categories of mans immediate attitude tothe world Ie re- dlaces space and ime t 4 common denominator and dyads tne ta the dimension of space m “The intrasion of aie materials in Degas sculprare established a very precarious balance between the conditions of jective aesthetic creation and those ofthe realty of production pointed autby Lukies, Bversince, and most defintely since Duchamp’s ready eve historical conditions have been forced to hele des, tos logical extreme. Duchamp’ work features most prominently the character ‘of sptalized time in the object shat Lukics talks abou, since the arrest of tem poral us and passive contemplation are the modes in which the melancholic perceives the world and his increasing estrangement from i. Thus, paadoxieally, 1 more traditional reading of Duchamp asthe artist who continued the nine= teenth-century tradition of the dandy, refusing participation in the collective production proces, inverting his role 3s procreatorinco that ofthe finer who ply designates found object as at, converges precisely with Lukics'sobser~ ‘ation. Inevitably, at cis point, Walter Benjamins observation on the ineraction bewween allegory, commodity, and sculptural form has toe cited: “The deval ation of the world of objec by the allegory is exceeded within the world of ob- Jess itselPby the commodity” "Ths, fom the first decade ofthe twentieth century onward this preci cous ambiguity between the apparent autonomy of sculptural constructs and the socially determined conditions of material production—berween aesthetic ob Ject and symbolic space on the one hand and real object and actual space on the ‘other—has determined th practice of sculpture, Aesthetic production, however, oes not always evolve logealy according to its own inherent lws, any more than i develops purely in response to the changing conditions of material pro- ction, Quite co che contrary, one ofthe essential features of aesthetic produc- sion-at leas in ewentieth-centuty at history-—seems to have been a reiterated ‘opposition to preciely a all too easy acceptance of those determinations. Butsince the contradictions originating in the organization ofthe means of produe- tion cannor be resolved by aesthstic means alone, every generation producing within an obsolete paradigm generates increasingly mythical structures. The hisory of post-World War I scalpcure is particularly sich with hese snythical orn, and only one shouldbe brief discussed 2s an example and asa link to the present dhe nye of postwae constuction sculpcure in which Construc- Aivin’s and Dada’ aticudes toward the mas-produced object seem to coalesce, a, for exaupl, in the works of David Smith and Anthony Cao I anything, the welding of met andj forving manner the blesnt contadiction between individual aesthetic nd collee~ tive social production, This contradiction is, however, myrthified by che work's apparentsynthesisof the gesture of constuction and the melancholic gesture of de~ ic sculpere in their work sents to resolve in a most com= nial In the same way, these arts, a public figures and biographical myths, com- bine the image of the proletarian producer, taming the elements and extracting wealth fiom dhe furnace, with that ofthe melancholic soller inthe junkyards of capitalist vechnology—an image that ha persisted into the present in figures lke (Carl Andre and Richard Sera The necesarly feishistic character ofthis work had already been adequately disgiosed inthe 1920s by the Russian productivis artist and theoretician Boris Arvatoy, who wrote in his esay “Art and Production” ‘While the totality of capitalise technology is based on the ighescand latest achievements and represents 2 technique of mass production (industry, radio, anspor, newspaper, scientific laboratory), bout .gevis atin principle ha remained on che level of individual rafts and therefore has been isolated increasingly fiom the collective so- ial practice of mankind, has entered the realm of pure aesthetics. ‘The lonely master—thats the only type in capitalist socery che rype ‘of specialist of “pure are” who can work outside ofan immediately utilitarian practice, because its based on machine technology. From here originates the total illsion of a's prposelesness and auton ‘omy, from here art’s bourgeois fesshstc nature.” Scrap mee ascmbblage scene andthe tehoique of welding conceetize the historic dilemma herweon obsolete meas of artic production ad the’ fecishizaton, on che one hand, and the stall existing meas of he social pro= {dvetion of representation on the othr. Tie illre to solve thie ier, nase smuuch as it becomes evident in the work itself isthe the works histori and er, who lad been tried as a stonicustes, World War Tad i= tegrated the experience he acquired from aliensted labor into his artistic pro- duction. Or, froma different point of view, one could anu that he alapted his aesthetic athe icity. Joli. Gon leamed welding in the Preach Renault cae Gotories di aesthetic procedures to his experience of collective production. This “modem- ization” of the sculpeural discourse was instantly succesfal because it yeented 60 respond to. deste within artist and public alike to achiewe at lest symbolic rec- oncilation 3 sculpeure's increasingly apparent contradictions, Peasea adopted this technique inthe easy 1920s and anew sculptural eatery and production technique was born. When David Smith “discovered” Gonzilez’s and Picasso’ ‘work through the mediation of the art magazine Chios at and inyported the technigue to North America, a further crucial step in the mythifiestion of sculptural procedure had taken place, me that had originated i Cubyam’scon= ‘ceptualization and representation of spatial relations. To enhance the myehif ‘ation, Smith, more than Gonzile, propounded the image of the proletarian producer by linking it the mythical Hephsistos/ Vulcan figut." ‘The next phase of mythifcation occurred when this modernized seulp worted” to Europe by Anthony Caro, after his encounter with David Smith in 1960, during his frst, ‘url production procedure was “rediscovered” and" visit to North America, Caro’s overnight shift from figurative bronze casting to nonrepresentational welded assemblage sculptures made of scrap metal, and his subsequent step of investigating the decorative potential of gaudily painted arrangements of metalwork samples, accomplished historically the aesthetic fl- sification and “cultural” inversion of every single aspect that Consictvist seul core had originally intended and achieved within its limited resources and politieal possibiiies.Ww ation ike Andee and Serea Ietook atts ofthe Miia and pos-Minimal inthe mid to late 1964K to tery “decompose” these mytified construction es. The aesthetic shack and subsequent techniques and production proceds relief that their work might have caused originally resulted precisely fom ehe econstrnction of ype of sculpture, their persistent use of singularized, particular elements, ther clafication of the constituent forces within the scalp~ tural construct, and the transparency of the production procedures evident in their work. Ie is symptomatic inthis context that Serra referred tothe technique ‘of welding a “stitching” during the 1960s and that he nevertheless readopted that very same technique in is ater work in che 1970s, when he himselfrewened tothe mythification ofthe constructivist legacy in order co pursue a problematic project of seemingly public monumental sculpture Radical sculpture, ever since the first decade ofthis century, has not only increased the fragnientation of sculptural representation and, as we have argued, the fragmentation ofthe production process itself3s well, but ie as also intensi- fied the reflection on the constituent fictors determining this proces. Intemally, the material elements assembling the sculptural phenomenon have become in~ creasingly isolated, singularized, and specific; andthe procedures of is fabrics tion, a6 well asthe physical laws and forces (weight, mas, gravity specific material properties) generating its appearance in space, have become more and more the center ofsculprura invescigation. Externally, a result of the discovery of phe nomenclogicil thought, an analysis ofthe relations chat connect the sculptural ‘objec with the percepeual acts of che subject was increasingly incorporated into the very conception ofsculptute. A systematic refection ofthe interdependence ‘of the construct and its surrounding spatia/architectural container became again project in che 1960s, an integral part of sculpture Despite numerous and reiterated atimations by American critics and histo sane that Minimal and pox Minimal works are not be sen in the historical con- «ext of Modernist sculpture, the contrary holds true:too frequent are che references by the artists themselves, both implicit and explicitly expresed in works and Carl Anite, Cedar De, 1960-1964. Cesar, 72. 36 364 in, Collections cffenliche Kunssamelung. Baselstarements, that acknowledge the rediscovery ofthe sculpeuralpriniples and the- ‘retical positions that had been aticulaced in Declan’ work 2s wel asin that of the Constructiviss (fr example, Andee references to Rodchenko, Donald Judd speaking on Duchamp and Malevich, Dan Favin paying bute to Tadin, and Robert Morris scholarly intense Duchamp and the adapeaton of Duckman principle in his early work) This was precisely the part ofthe modemis radition thachad been ignored and eejetedby the neoformalise aesthetics of Cl bbergand Michael Fried (the key champions and promoters of Smith and Caro), To reconsider these poscions—in particular, to wansform the dislogue with the posi- nent Green sive legacy of formalism into alone pragmatism—provided another essential eb ‘ement ofthe foundation for the new sculprural work of the mid-1960s. Maurice _Merlesu-Pontys recently (1965) translated Phenomenology of Penpton added co the ‘paradoxical synthesis of philesophical legacies, ranging now from Modemismsem- piro-crtcal skepicsm investigating the epistemology of painetly and seulpearal signs, tothe ants’ discovery of logical positivism and serology. Frank Stella, in many ways the fis artist co integrate al ofthese elements, aculated this conden sation in his now Eious, apidary statement, “What you se is what you see” v The formalist concept of "sef-referentiaty” had been a theoretical prescription by which art until around 1965 had wo abide, What aiounted to pictorial or seulp- ‘ual asalogy to the semiological understanding ofthe sgn, and the self-reflexivity resulking from that analogy in artistic production, had been achieved by both Duchamp and Malevich in 1913, a least in principle ifn in an explicit theoreti- cal projet, One of the fist Minimal works to considerably expand the notion of self-referentalty was Morris Minored Cubes (1964). It was aginst this back- round of a Minimal and post-Minimal aesthetic that Michael Asher’ work was developed in the 1960s, When Asher went ro New York fora year in 1963-1964, the became very interested in Faviis and Judd’s work, and, upon his return to Cal- fornia in 1966, he contracted several tipered wedge pieces that follow a similar logic ofsuspending the sculptural object berween slfreferentalty and contextual Alexander Rodchenko, Spaial Coutcion No 12,1920. Plywood and wite, 83.5 443.3 em, Coase Collection, Athens1. These wedges were insted flush against the wall and painted over With a color identical tothe wall that supported them. As in Morris’ al Larry lls mirrored cules, the most prominent charsetertic of Asher’ early work ‘woud be its analytical approach to the eadie condition of the sculptural plicnon enon to fametion asa autonomous aesthetic /spatal sgn to be constituted with a lager architectural contest, which may or may not purpor its own and diferent ‘ord of sigs and to be activated only through the spectators individual acto pe ception. The sculptural sign itself at last in Morris early work and in Ashe: wedge pieces, negates any inherent sculprurl value and merely demareats the di ference between subjective perception and objective spatial conditions Dan Graham, later to become a close friend of Asher’s, underwent a sii- lar development his work, Jeading gradually ou of formalist and Minimal acs- thetics. He described his conception ofa sculptural structure as follows There isa “shell” placed between the external “empey” material of place and che interior, empty material of language: ystems of infor- ‘mation exit halfway between material and concept without being cither one." In chis critique, the formalist notion of sef-referentiality was replaced by an increasingly complex analytical sytem (Gemiological, sociological, systems- analysis) that would make the work operative rather than sef-reffexive. The idea of a“siuational aesthetics” (a term coined by the English anst Victor Burgin) implied that a work would function analytically within all the parameters ofits historical determination, not only in its linguistic or formal framework. Three concepts would become crucial forthe definition of “situational aesthetics": fist, the notion of material- and site-specificity; second, the notion of place; third, that of presence. A similar transion had already occurred inthe shift fom Russ- sian formalist methodology toward a new materials semiology and productvist theory.” “When Judd defined his understanding of material specificity by almost it- cerlly sranferring 2 key term of Russian formalist criticism to sculpture, his Donald judd, Untied, 1968, Galvanized ion, 10 «27 « 24 in. Collection: Mr-and Mrs. Eugene Schwarez. Courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery, New York Photo: Geoffiey Clements,{etic sill sounded with the impact of Modernism’ positivist pragmatien, He wrote, for example, in his 1965 esay “Specific Objects" "Materials vary greatly and are simply macerials—formica, aeminun, cold-rolled steel, plesi= ss, red and common brass andso forth. They ate specific. Also they ate usally Ad set our to prove thar materials are not simply materials but ae procedaraly and ‘contextually determined. For exaraple, Kal Beveridge and lan Burn argued al aggresive Shortly afterward, Mic x anda whole generation of artists ready in their early critique of Judd Arenityou saying you want the asoriation tobe restricted or localized Alone, ronomous form ofa, you wanted a more autonomous art ar objects ae asociated with other art and art history by way oftheir materials and by being + conventional ¢ype ‘wool, suppose in your words be specific. But this was the ls thing ‘you wanted, The autonomy you developed for your objects had to fanction in respect to your presupposition of an ar (historical) context ‘othe object oritsimmedate(.e. architectural) environ with an object, what you would call more objective. Traditional bs x i at object. Such asaciations and hence you sill needed a means of associating the objec with that context. Since the objectitelf denied ny associations, the physical sit- ‘uarion became a more important vehicle. That isto say, the object had toe circumstanilly associated with ies art comet," ‘The second concep, that of place (s opposed to objector anthropomor- phic representation), was developed mainly by Andre and Flavin" Pointing to ‘he spatial specificity ofthe sculpeural work (as opposed to the material specificity ‘hat Judd talked about), Andre's definition aso originally implied (as did Flavins practice) subversive assaulk on the commodity status of works of ae (given that they were movable objects, contextes, offering themselves to every kind of ‘ransaction). Sculpture as place was supposed to integrate into its actual forma- tion the spatial conditions into which ie inscribed itself constituent elements, Graham observed with Incdity: Cart Andre, 144 Copper Square, 1969. Copper, X 164% 144 in, Collection: The National Galery of Canada, OxawaDan Flavia, view ofthe installations in the Green Gallery, New York, 1964. Cool white Auocescent light various dimensions Photo: Rudolph Burckhardt 1 ike that asa side effet of Flavin’ oorescens che gallery walls be came a canvas, The lights dramatized the people dike spotlights) in 2 gallery, rhrowing the content ofthe exhibition out to the people in the proces of perceiving; the gallery interior cube itself beca the real famework," Independently reflecting on similar swe, dhe French artist Daniel Buren wrote a perspicacious critique of Duchamp'sreadymade concept in 1970, lrread slong with Grahams description of Fhvinis work, the essay reveals che hitherto vunrefected aud problematic points ofthe minimahst concept of place, in partic= tuber its unconscious indebtedness to Duchamp, Furthermore, it identified ex= actly those isues on which Asher would focus, and the esays almost itera cortespondence to Graham's statement points to the objerive nature ofthese atstic concems ofthe post-Minimtal generation: ‘The Museum/Gallery for lack of being taken into consideration is the framework, the habit... the inescapable “suppor” on which ar hiwory is “painted.” Wishing to eliminate che eableau/support, on ‘he pretext that what i painted can only be ilsion, Puchanyp ‘rorduces into 3 new famewosk/tableau a rel object, which atthe same time becomes artificial, motiveles, ie. artistic." ‘Temporal specificity is defined as the third condition for 9 situational acstheties—presen hich i closely interrelated with ite spatial and mare- sal counterparts. Again, the term refers not only tothe face that an installa tion is di mined by the specific temporal circumstances into which itis introduced, but equally, ifmot more, to the fact that i obtains within these c= cumstances a temporally specific, limited function, and that the work might become disposable after its appearance in time. Again, it was Graham who pointed this out when writing about an exhibition of Flavin’ work in Chi- cago in 1967:‘The componentsofa particular eshibition, upon is germination, are replace in anager situation perhaps pot t0 a non-art use a 2 pate fof a diferent whole in 2 diferent fiture." vw Asher i ‘both spatial and temporal specificity. Ie had become faily clear by 1968 1 adopted the term “situational aesthetis," integrating che concepes of che Minimalists had abandoned the orginal implications of these aesthetic strategies bby adapting their work increasingly co the needs ofthe art market. Iehad also be- come evident that these stategies would hive to be radically modified, if they ‘ro maintain their rica faction of investigating the social and insicutional Fiamework that determines che production and te reception of at. Thus,on dhe ‘occasion of his fit exhibition, atthe San Francisco Art Institute in 1969, Asher applied che Minimalist principles ofsel-refevenility and specificity with a new leraknesand immediacy tothe architectural container ofthe exhibition space ivelé. Thereby he aos only revealed Minimalism’ latent formalise heritage, but ity: also defined a new understanding of sculptural mater ‘The presentation at San Francisco was clearly diceated by every ele- iment which was availble and it suggested a way of working for the future: using just elements which already existed without a great, modification to the space™ I. Ashers work overcomes the Modernist legacy (ie. the neopositivs for- nals originating inthe Constructivist legacy and embraced by the Minimal faa) then the work of Broodthaers and Buren critically transcends the limitations ‘of Duchamp’ concept of the readymade, which had kept almost all object- oriented art in is spell" Both positons-—the constructive andthe allegorical— seem to coalesce and henceforth determine the historically relevant work in ‘contemporary art production, Ie is therefore crucial to comprehend firs ofall thae the two critiques are fased in Michael Asher’ installations at the Art Michael Asher, Caloris Tol, Milan, 1972, Sand-blsed gallery walls, Couey of the ais.Institute of Chicago and the Maseum of Contemporary Artin Chicago, and to read hein a¢ the sane tie fio che historical perspective of sulpmure rather har mercly within se contest of “conceprual art” or, worse yet, 60 align then ac has een suggested, with a Dada-eavironment tradition. Asher’ sculptural installations seem eo be constituted solely by conceptual gestures and directives, deploying “found” objects and materials of, tore cor- rectly, the “given” conéitions of a particular museum/exhibition context, The I or its production process is now totaly speciticixy of sculpere’ mater negated. The consequence of Asher’ contextual orientation surpasses even the ‘most ical conceptial definitions ofseulpural processes outlined in Lawrence Weiner Statements rom 1968, where ane can sil detec remnants of traditional sculpeuralconcenns asin, “A field cratered by structured, simultaneous TNT ex- plosions™ Rigorously denying spatial and temporal transcendence, Asher’ works are constituted first ofall within their own spatial, institational context, and they become the performative articulation of their actualy iver hiorical dime, the allocated exhibition period itelf™ Ashers work atthe Art Institute of Chicago bracketed three diferent sit- uations of display with three diferent experiences of perceptual discontinuity. Te first phase of his contribution to the 73rd American Exhibition consisted of the muscu the removal ofa bronze cat after Jean-Antoine Houdon's marble representation cof George Washington from 1788), which had been installed at the main en- trance of the Allerton Building—a late nineteenth century neo-Rensissance building—on Michigan Avenue in 1925. The resulting work ruprared the mes- sage of aesthetic authority and national heritage that che sculpture had conveyed ‘san integral par of the museum's Fade, “The second step of the imtalation was to place the bronze within its orig- inal art historical context in a periad room (Gallery 219) featuring European paintings, furnitare, andthe decorative arts ofthe eighteenth century. The cast ‘vas placed in the center of the gallery on wooden base, identical in height and color to che other wooden bases in the gallery, while its “original” marble pedestal was putinto storage. In thissecond display situation, a reconstruction of an imaginary eighteenth-centary interior, che contextualized sculprure caused a ferent rupee: even thos el is bright grccn-Bhoe pati alont mate she urquoise of dhe patted walls and sone of de silk covers of the eighteenth ceneury fare, the patina wade tall he wane biow tha the sculpture ad been pe roa differen use in the pase and Id therefore acquired materia fo tres that conited with ts deinition as. an object of high art in a well warded smuscum interog. Is fmetion asa monument made self felt in a way hae Proust hhad once described “sl the gazes that objects have ever received seem to reaain with them as veils ‘The third clement of the work consited of plexiglas box inside the sallery co tothe 73rd American Exhibition, and they directed the viewer to this show of | les that identified this installation as Asher’: contribution ingle comtemporary work inthe Morton Wing ofthe muscu, Dawntairs, at the en trance to the exhibition, another box contin leaflets (4e appendix A) that {gave a description of the work but directed the viewer upstairs to the eighteenth ‘century period room in Gallery 219. ‘The visitor who had been cincuating nthe survey of contemporary work doplayed in the 73nd American Exhibition, experienced the thd rupeare in Acher’s piece when confronting the sculpure contestuaized in the setting of | Gallery 219 in tandem with the installation method in he Morton Wing, This pa sage through history juxtaposed a more or les stylistically homnogencous group of | concepeval ana painterly work with che equilly homogencous group of artistic ob {ects from the eighteenth century. The confrontation historicized the actuality and ‘dynamic immediacy that con porary works generate in the viewers perception and emphasized, by cones the hioriity of thle present aesthetic experience. A second work by Asher ws coincidentally installed atthe same time at ‘the Muscum of Contemporary Artin Chicago. In their modus operandi, the wo ‘works were clearly simile: both dismantled a given architectural display system ‘embodied within the elements of fade. Ifthe Art Insitute had appropriated an eighteenth-c tury work of sulpeure (or more p bronze replica) for its fcade, then the architects ofthe new Museum ef Con ely atwentieth-century temporary Are had appropriated what they believed to be the stylistic idiom ‘of Minimal sculpture as a reference for cheit design of a modular system of