art in modern culture: ‘an anthology of critical texts edited by francs frascina and jonathan harris ida i Ieon€ditions ‘An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublshersua 23 ‘Anna C. Chave Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power ‘Sowre: Anna C. Chav, Minimal and the Rhctorc of Power At Mazin, Wo. 20 SsJamuary 190, pp 4-63. Thi teat hasbeen ‘ited an footnotes reutabered according, “Toeve phtes have been omit [..] What concems me about Minimalist art is what Teresa de Lauretis describes as ‘the relations of power involved in enunciation and reception’, relations ‘which sustain the hierarchies of communication: .. the ideological construction of authorship and mastery; or more plainly, who speaks ‘whom, why and for whom." I want, further, to historicize those relations ~ {0 examine the thetoric inscribed in Minimalism, and the discursive context of the movement, in relation tothe socio-politial climate of the time during. ‘which it emerged. Richard Serra remembers that in the 1960s, ‘It was your job as an artist co redefine society by the values you were introducing, rather than the other way around.”* But did Minimalist art in any way propose, or cffect, a revaluation of values? And how are we to understand its cool displays ‘of power in relation to a society that was experiencing a violent ambivalence toward authority, a society where many were looking for the means of teans- forming power relation? [By manufacturing objects with common industrial and commercial mate Fials in a restricted vocabulary of geometric shapes, Judd [Plate 43] and the other Minimalist artists availed themselves of the cultural authority of the markers of industry and technology. Though the specific qualities of their ‘objects vary ~ from the corporate famiture-like elegance of Judd’s polished floor box, to the harsh, steel mesh of Robert Morris's cage-like construction ‘of 1967, to the industrial banality of Carl Andre's Zine Zine Plain of 196 [Plate 44] ~ the authority implici in the identity of the materials and shapes the artists used, as wells in the scale and often the weight oftheir objects has bbeen crucial to Minimalism’s asociative values from the outset. In one of the first Minimalise group shows, Shape and Structure, at Tibor de Nagy in 1965, ‘Andre submitted a timber piece so massive it almost caused the gallery's floor to collapse and had to be removed. The unapologetic artist described his ambitions for that work in forceful and nakedly territorial terms: ‘I wanted very much to seize and hold the space of that gallery ~ not simply fill t, but seize and hold that space." More recently, Richard Serra’s mammoth, curving, steel walls have required even the floors of the Castelli Gallery’s industrial loft space to be shored up ~ which did not prevent harrowing damage to both life and property.* 7 I43. ond, Untied, 2968 Baas, s59% 122 x94 em, Collection, The Museum of Moder Ar, New York. Gift ‘€ Philip Johnon 687 80.© 1992 Don fusd/ARS, New York, 4 Conk Ande, Zim Zin Pn pln 3.4 30.08 cm) Photograph by courery of Paula Cooper Gallery, New York {© Cal Ande/DACS, Lonon/ New York 19 ‘The Minimalists’ domincering, sometimes brutal shetoric was breached in this country in the 1960s, a decade of brutal displays of power by both the ‘American military in Vietnam, and the police at home in the streets and on university campuses across the country. Corporate power burgeoned in the USS. in the 19608 t00, with the rise ofthe ‘multinationals’, due in part to the flourishing ofthe military-industrial complex. The exceptionally visible vio- lence of the state's military and disciplinary establishment in this period met ‘with a concerted response, of course. Vested power became embattled on ‘every front with the eruption ofthe civil rights alongside the feminist and gay rights movements, In keeping with the time-honoured alignments of the avant-garde, the Minimalists were self-identified, but not especially clear- thinking, lefists ‘My art will reflect nat necessarily conscious politics but the tunanalysed politics of my life. Matter as matter rather than matter as symbol is a conscious political position, I think, essentially Marxist,’ said Andre, con~ tradictorly, in 19704 [-]Now, as in the 1960s, the dominant accounts of Minimalism do not portray i¢ as an instrument of social change but, on the contrary, as art that somehow generated and occupied a special sphere, aloof from polities and ‘commerce and above personal fecling. The language typically used to describe Minimalism employs a rhetoric of purity, primacy, and immediacy in focusing on the artists’ means and on the objects’ relations to the con- stitutive terms of their media. "The demand has been for an honest, direc, unadulterated experience in art .. minus symbolism, minus messages and minus personal exhibitionism,’ wrote Eugene Goossen in 1966;" with Minimalism, ‘the very means of art have been isolated and exposed,” he stated two years later* In the standard narratives, Minimalism forms the terse, but vveracious last word ina narrowly framed argument about what modern arti or should be. As it happens, the person most responsible for framing that argument, C extremes: ‘Minimal works are readable as art, as almost anything is today, complained in 1967, ‘including a door, a table, ora blank sheet of paper . it would scem that a kind of art nearer the condition of non-art could not be ged or ideated at this moment. That, precisely, isthe trouble. Minimal nains too much a feat of ideation, and not enough anything else.” But it was an account of the history of modern art that Greenberg had inscribed asthe crue history that enabled these objects, which verged on being non-art, to be lionized instead as art of the fint importance. Andre's metal plates and Morris's cage could only be regarded as works of art in the context ofa dis- course in which they stood as compelling proof ofthe unfolding ofa certain historical inevitability. Lay spectators only recognize such objects as works of art (when or if they do so) because they are located in the legitimating con- texts ofthe gallery and museum, installed by curators and dealers in thrall (as, the artists themselves were) to a particular account of history. Most of the artists and critics concerned would have agreed with Goossen that with Minimalism, “the spectator is not given symbol, but facts’ that it offers no quarter to ‘the romantic mentality, which fils co appreciate experience for its own intrinsic value and is forever trying to elevate it by complications and associations." The present account is concerned pre- cisely with how such patently non-narrative artis ‘complicated’ by ‘associa= sment Greenberg, finally disliked seeing his logic carried to its 45 Robert Mors, Unie (Cuk/ Cun), 1963. Painted wood, Leo Castel Gallery. ©1992 ‘Robert Moms/ARS, New York,46 Dan Fav, The Digna of May, 1963 fo Reb Rasnbhn) 963, Cook ‘white freon igh, 2438 952 Leo Catelh Gallery. top Dan Fivia/ARS, New York sions’, however, and is bent on describing those associations. Morris's Cock / Cunt sculpeure of 1963 [Plate 45], with its schematic image of sexual difference and coitus, demonstrates phinly that highly simplified abstract configurations may indeed be coded. A more characteristic example, however ~ one that i not literally, but metaphorically, “inscribed! — is Dan Favin's seminal and canonical work (I choose my adjectives advisedly), The Diagonal of May 25,1963 (o Robert Rosenblun) [Plate 46, his first work done entirely in fluorescent light. The type of power involved here is in the fist place, actual electrical power (with the requisite cords and connections hidden so that the power's contingency remains inapparent), but the rigid sass tube is aso plainly phallic. Ths is, literally, a hot rod, and Favin coyly referred tothe specific ange he poised the fixture a asthe diagonal of per- sonal ecstasy," alluding to the characteristic angle of an erect penis on a standing man [.) In Flavin's mind, his Diagonal was lesa reafirmation of the possibilty for spiritual experience in contemporary society, than ‘a modern technological fetish" —a fetish being, in Freudian terms, a talisman aginst castration and impotence, a symbolic surrogate for the female body's absent penis. Prom this perspective, Favin’s dependence on technological arifics for his work may evince the sense of impotence visited on the once sovereign, universal (read: mal) subject by the ascendancy of technology. "Disenffanchised by an independently evolving technology, the subject mises its dienfianchisement to the level of consciousness, one might almost say to the level of a pro- gramme for anistic production’, as Theodor Adomo observed" Flavin’s Diagonal not only looks technological and commercial like Minimalism generally ~ it ian industrial product and, as sch, it speaks of the extensive power exercised by the commodity in a society where virally everything is forsale — where New York Telephone can advertise ‘love’, fiendship’, and “comfort fr ‘as ile as ten cents a call’, for instance. Pusher, in its identity 4 objector commodity, Flavin’s work may arouse our ambivalence towardthose ever-proliferating commodities around us for which we have a hunger that is bound to be insatiable, as they will never fully gratify us. ‘Standard products, or commercially available materials, can also be seen to bear secondary meanings in Andre's famous Lever of 1966, done for the ‘important Primary Sutures show atthe Jewish Museum in 1966, ‘Artworks at theie best spring from physica, erotic propositions’, Andre stated. And ‘with is 137 fire bricks set side by side in a row 34% feet long, Lever manifess. his determination to put ‘Brancus’s Endless Column on the ground instead of in the sky. Most sculpture is priapic with the male organ in the air. In my ‘work, Priapus is down on the floor. The engaged position isto run along the cearth."* In terms of che artist's view of it, then, Lever is closer to Mortis’: (Cock/Cunt than to Flavin’s Diagonal, asic offers a schematic image of coitus with che floor serving as the (unartculated) female clement. Significantly 100, of course, a ‘lever’ is a long, rigid tool used to pry or lft, while lever ‘means to rise, raise or lift in French. [..] Like much of Morris's and Judd’s work of the early and mid-1960s, Kenneth Noland’s pictures ofien involved simple, repeated, geometric forms, his favoured schemas being those military emblems, the chevron and the target, realized on an outsized scale, often with bold, bright colours [Plate 29). But Noland’s reliance on comparatively weak and natural materials (loth and wood), not to mention his ar’s accustomed placement on the peripheries of space, made some problems for him within the Minimalist ambit. “Noland is obviously one of the best painters anywhere’, wrote Judd in 1963 in his guise as crtie and monitor of the Minimalist ethos, but his paintings are somewhat les strong than the several kinds of thrce-dimensional work. Painting has to be as power as any kind of ati can't claim a special identi, an texitence for its own take as a medium, If i docs twill end up like lithography and fetching. Painting now is not quite sfficicnt, although only in terms of pain power. Ttlacks the specificity and power of actual materials, actual colour and actual space. Judd continued to insist on the paramount importance of the ‘plain power" of art in ‘Specific Objects’ the esay he published in 196s that is often taken asakind of keynote essay for the Minimalist movement.” Minimalism began to coalesce as a vision in 1964 and 1965 when the first group shows bringing together the artists now regarded asthe Minimalist took place."* Historically, 1965 is also the year the first regular American combat troops entered Viemnam; the year the United States started massive bombings of North ‘Vieenam: the year Watts exploded in rots; and the year Malcolm X was assas- sinated. De Maria's Death Wall of 1965, a small sainles-stel plinth marked by a notch-like opening with the word DEATH engraved over it, makes an exceedingly discreet, but evidently directed nod toward the violence of the time, Here, however, 3s with Minimalism generally, the ar’s political ‘moment remains implicit largely in its acts of negation; it negated, that is, almost everything the public asociated with or expected from works of art, including a sense of moral o spiritual uplift. Some female critics, especially, pointed (though not in a censorious way) to the violence implicit in the47 Don Ju, Untied, 1966, Painted cold-rolled sel, ten rectangles. Over 121.53 $0483 30438 rs, Each rectangle 155130458 21.93 em. Colleton of Whitney Msseum lof Amencan An New York, i of Howanl and Jean Lipman, Diggs Don Judd ARS, Minimalss’ categorical refusal of the humanist mission of art: ‘a negative att of denial and renunciation’ and a ‘rejective art, Barbara Rose and Lucy Lippard, respectively, dubbed it in 1965, while Annette Michelson suggested in 1967 that negation was the ‘notion, philosophical in character, .. animat= ing [this] contemporary aesthetic’. The Minimalists effectually perpetrated violence through their work ~ wainst the conventions of at and against the viewer ~ rather than using their visual language to articulate a more pointed critique of particular kinds or instances of violence. Judd insisted in 1970 that his work had not had anything co do with the society, the institutions and grand theories. Ie was one person's work and interests, its main political conclusion, negative but basic, ws that it, myself, anyone shouldn't serve any ofthese things .. Ae may change things a litle, but not much; [suspect one seston for the popslarty of American artis that the museums and colectos didn’t undersand it enough to realize that it was against such inthe society. ™ But Juda’s work was not, as he would have it, aloof from society. And given the geometric uniformity of his production, its slick surface, its commercial fabrication (often in multiples), and its stable, classic design, those prosperous collectors and institutions who were drawn to it could hardly be called obtuse hein the society’, but as continuous with their own ideals [Plate 47]. Judd’s work can ing some of the values most indelibly asociated with the modern technoc- if they perceived ie not as ‘against m sly be seen as reproduc- racy, in other words, even as it negated many of the qualities the public most fondly associated with the fine ars, Though some of the Minimalists were alluding, by 1970, to a politcal ‘moment implicit in their work, it was not at all plain from the way th rep-resented their enterprise in the 1960s that they initially conceived it asa form of political resistance in keeping with the avant-garde mandate for opposi tional artistic practices. Some critics now point to the Minimalist’ interest in Russian Constructivism asa sign of their simmering political consciousness, but that interest revealed itself sporadically and not in politicized terms. In 1966, on the other hand, Brian O'Doherty was congratulating the Minimal- ists for conffonting ‘what has become the illusion of avant-gardism’, and developing ‘a sort of intellectual connoisseurship of non-commitment’. This antst-critic went on to claim that the ‘anti-avant-garde” object makers were successfully establishing a new academy. Comparing the ambit of contempo- ray art to that of show jumping, he continued: the latest work ‘its blandly within the gates, announcing that it isnot ahead ofits time (therefore arous- ing no shock) and that the future is simply now .. This is going to be a tough academy to displace.” (..] ‘Whereas Pop Art initially caused a collective shudder of distaste within the intelligentsia while being rapidly embraced by the public at large, Minimal- iam (in the same period) generally gamered toleration, atthe leas, from the cognoscenti, and either deep scepticism or unmitigated loathing from the public at large. That very loathing could be construed as a sign of this art at work, however, for what disturbs viewers most about Minimalist art may be ‘what disturbs them about cheir own lives and times, as the fice it project is the society's blankest, stecies fice; the impersonal fice of technology, indus ty, and commerce; the unyielding face ofthe father: a face that is usually fir more attractively masked, In ‘Specific Objects’, Judd adduced what he plainly regarded as a positive vision: that che art of the future ‘could be mass-produced, and posibilties otherwise unavailable, such as stamping, could be used. Dan Flavin, who uses fluorescent lights, has appropriated the results of industeal production.” In the final event, however, neither Flavin nor Judd would sacrifice the cachet or the profits that mas-producing their work would likely have entailed, Antists like Flavin and Andre, who worked with commonly available prod- ucts, took care to work in editions limiting quantities so as to asure market value and, in Flavin’s eas, issuing certificates of authenticity upon the sale of their work, If Flavin appropriated commercial lighting fixtures and Andre .on building materials it was not, in the end, with a view to stand= ing the economy, or the valuations of the market, on its eat. Collectors were ‘compelled to spend thousands of dollars to have 120 sand-lime bricks pur= chased by Andre — to make Equivslent VIL, for instance ~ rather than tens of dollars to buy the bricks for themselves. Though the artists depersonalized their modes of production to the furthest extent, they would not surrender the financial and other prerogatives of authorship, including those of estab- lishing authenticity ‘The thetoric Judd mustered in ‘Specific Objects’ to promote the new (non-)are pointed to its attainment of ‘plain power’ through the deployment ‘of ‘strong’ and ‘aggressive’ materials. Ata time when the call was going out for a reformulation of the configurations of power, however, Judd’s use of ‘used com8 Alber Speer, Arcade of Numbers Pande Ground, Di Dre Bast the term bore no inkling of its incipient volatility. For works of att to be powerful and aggressive was, from the Minimal’ standpoint, an unprob- ematic good, almost as it was once selfevident that art should be “beautifal. For an artis, ‘power isn’t the only consideration,’ Judd grudgingly allowed, ‘though the difference between it and expression can't be too great either.” This equating of expression with power, mither than with fecling or commu nication, may or may not strike a reader a8 strange. Some kinds of art are rou tincly described as powerfully (read: intensely) expressive or emotional, but Jada’s work is not of that sort: i his objects were persons (and I mean this strictly in a fanciful way) they would more likely be described as the prove! bial ‘strong, silent type’. In art-historical parlance, however, it has long been common approbatory language, even the highest level of praise, to describe works of art in terms of the exercise of power: a strong, forceful, authorita- tive, compelling, challenging, or commanding; and the masculinist note becomes even more explicit with the use of terms like masterful, heroic, pen= trating, and rigorous [Plate 48]. That what is rigorous and strong is valued ‘while what is soft or flexible is comic or pathetic emerges again and the Minimaliss’ discourse, as it does in the everyday language of scholar, (Terms that might, but do not as readily, serve as high praise for art include, for instance: pregnant, nourishing, pleasurable.) The language used to esteem work of art has come (0 coincide with the language used to describe am ‘human figure ofauthority, in other words, whether or not the speaker holds that figure in esteem. As the male body is understood to be the strong body — with strength being measured not by tests of endurance, but by criteria of force, where itspecially excels ~ so the dominant culeure prizes stength and power to the extent that they have become the definitive or constiutive descriptive terms of value in every sphere: we are preoccupied not only with physical strength and military strength but with fiscal, cultura, emotional, and intellectual strength, a if actual force were the best index or barometer of'successin any of those spheres. Foucault has written at length about the power/knowledge paradigas that underwrite the master discourses, the “True Discourses’ of the succesive regimes of modern history, and has pointed ao to the ‘will to power/knowl- edge’ through which ‘man’ has historically been shaped and transformed. In Foucault’s scheme, however (as de Laurets has inciively observed), ‘nothing exceeds the totalizing power of discourse, [and] nothing escapes from the dis- course of power.” Foucault admits no possibility of a radical dismantling of systems of power and undertakes no theorizing or imagining of a society oF world without domination. Balbus points perceptively to ‘the blindness ofa ‘man [Foucault] who so takes for granted the persistence of patriarchy that he is unable even to see it. His gender-neutral assumption of a will to power (over others) that informs True Discourses and the technologies with which they are allied, transforms what has infact been a dsproportionately male into a generically human orientation, and obliterates in the process the distinc tively female power’ ~ my own word would have been capacity ~‘of nurta- rance in the context of which masculine power i formed and against which itreacts™ A persuasive case can be made, afterall, that the patriarchal over valuation of power and control ~at the expense of mutuality, toleration, or nurturance ~ can be held to account for almost all chat is politically repre hensible and morally lamentable in the world. The case can be made as well that what is most badly needed are, atleast for a start, visions of something different, something else. ‘The Minimaliss’ valorization of power can readily be seen asa reinscrb- ing of the True Discourses, the power discourses, found in art history asin the society at large, Received art-historical wisdom about what makes works of art ‘powerfil isa quality of unity, with effects of dissonance or dilference succesflly efced or overmastered such that an object’s or image's compos ite parts are manocuvred into a singular, coherent totality. Unity is associated with identity and a successil work of artis understood to requite a whole identity no less than an integrated person does. Crudely speaking, the task that an artist is conventionally said to have undertaken is one of balancing the rmuifarious elements of a composition until they are harmonized and tified. The canny Minimalist started a the usual end of that task, however, by using configurations that were unified or balanced to begin with, such as squares and cubes, rather than engaging in the process of composing part by part. Thinking about what the society values most in ar, Judd observed that, finally, no matter what you look at, “The thing as a whole, its quality as a‘whole is what is interesting. The main things are alone and are mote intense, clearand powerful. They are not diluted by .. variations ofa form, mild con- trasts and connecting parts and areas.” In the best of the new at, Judd con- cluded (using Stella a his example), “The shapes, the unity, projection, order and colour are specific, aggressive and powerful.” [..] Like Judd’s boxes, Morris's cage-like construction of 1967 does not intrude aggressively on the viewers’ space due to its moderate scale and its transparency. Unlike Judd's boxes, however, Morris's construction, with its steel materials reminiscent of chain-link fencing, evokes not corporate but carceral images, of discipline and punishment, that intrude aggressively on. sensibilties.""A fenced-in quadrangle surrounded by a fenced-in corridor evokes an animal pen and run, both without exits. Made during a year of African American uprisings in Detroit and elsewhere, and the year of the siege ofthe Pentagon ~a time when masses of ordinarily law-abiding cit- zens became subject to an exceptionally pervasive and overt meting out of discipline and punishment ~ Morris’ sculpcure suecinctly images contain= ‘ment oF repression. Ifit does not refer in any more pointed or pointedly crit- ical way to the events ofthe day, by representing power in such an abrasive, terse, and unapologetic way, the work none the less has a chilling effect: this is authority represented as authority does not usually like to represent itself, authority as authoritarian, ‘To judge by Morris's writings, his success at realizing such authoritative and oppressive images owed more to his infatuation with power than to his interest in finding strategies to counter the abuses of power rife and visible at the time. In cerms fitting a military strategist, Morris wrote in his ‘Notes on Sculpture’ of seeking, ‘unitary’ or ‘strong, gestalt’ thae would “fil to present lines of fracture’ and that would offer ‘the maximum resistance to being con= fonted as objects with separate parts’ Separate parts could become entat Bled in internal relationships that would render the objects vulnerabl because they lead to weak gests, ‘intimacy producing relations have been gotten rid of in the new sculpture.” An elimination of detail is required in the new sculpture, further, because detail would ‘pull it coward intimacy’; and the large scale ofthe work is important as ‘one of the necessary conditions of avoiding intimacy’. There is plainly a psycho-sexual dimension to Morris's trenchant objections to relationships and intimacy, to his insistence on dis- tancing the viewer, as well s o his fisation on keeping his objects discrete and intact.* In his pathbreaking study of male fantasies, for that (Last) matter, Klaus Theweleit has described how the population of ‘soldier males’ whose writings he analysed. the views free up, become icicles in the fact [sof erotic femininity. We saw that it int «enough simply to view this asa defence agains the threat of castration; by reacting in that way, in fact, the man holds himself together aan entity, a body with fixed boundaries. Contact with erotic women would make hi cease to exist in that frm, Now, when we ask how that man keeps the threat of the Red flood of revolton away from his body, we find the same movement of stiffening, of closing himelt off to form a “discrete entity." nmMorris declared in 1966 that “The better new work takes relationships out ‘ofthe work and makes them a fanetion of space, light and the viewer's field of vision.” He referred not to a relationship between viewer and work, that is, but only to relation between the work and the viewer’ ‘eld of vision’ 1s ifthe viewers’ sight were separable from their minds, bodies, or feelings. ‘The relation between art and spectator that interested Morris became clearer lover the course of the 1960s and early 19'708 as he made manifest an atitade ‘toward che (embodied) viewer that was ambivalent at best, belligerent and ‘malevolent at worst. The public, a times, retumed the artist's animosity: his exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London in 1971 had to be closed after five days allegedly co protect the public, but aso to protect the work which the public was battering, Some of that work invited viewer participation simple tests of agility, for instance ~ but with work that engages the public, as the artist discovered, ‘sometimes it’s horrible. Sometimes you just can’t get people to do what you want’ The following year Morris retaliated, a8 it ‘were, against a different audience with a work called Hearing, a gallery intal- lation that consisted ofa copper chair, a zinc table, and a lead bed (stil exe ccuted in a Minimalist idiom). The chair contained water heated almost to the boiling point, and the bed and table were connected with thirty-six volts of clectricity, while loudspeakers broadcast a (mock) interrogation lasting for three-and-a-half hours.” Later stil, to tout another show of his work at the Castelli Gallery, Morris exposed his bare-chested body clad in sado- masochistic paraphernalia [Plate 49], thereby equating the force of art with corporeal force, where what prevails or dominates is generally the greatest violence.* [.] ‘The paradigmatic relation between work and spectator in Serra’ artis that between bully and vietim, as his work tends to teat the viewer's welfire with contempt, This work not only looks dangerous, itis dangerous: the ‘prop’ Pieces in muscums are often roped off or alarmed and sometimes, expecially in the process of installation and deinstallaion, they fll and injure or even. (on one occasion) kill. Serra has long toyed with the brink berween what is simply risky and what is outright lethal, as in his Skullracker Soves: Stacked Stee! Slabs of 1969, which consisted of perilously imbalanced, 20-10-40-foot tall stacks of dense metal plates. Rosalind Krauss insists that ‘It matters very litle thatthe scale of this Work... is vastly over lifesize’, but Serra's ambitious ‘expansion of the once-moderate scale of the Minimalist object was, together ‘with his fascination with balance and imbalance, central to his work's concern with jeopardy, and crucial to its menacing effect. Judging by his ‘own account, what impelled Serra to make even bigger works in ever more public spaces was never an interest in the problems of making art for audi- fences not fluent, let alone conversant, in the difficult anguages of modernist art, but rather a consuming personal ambition, a will to power. ‘If you are conceiving a piece for a public place,’ he conceded (while avoiding the first person pronoun), ".. one has to consider the traffic flow, but not necessarily ‘worry about the indigenous community, and get caught up in the polities of the site Serra’s assurance that he could remain aloof from politics proved49 Robert Moti, Poser for Apa 6-27, 074 Offet on pape, courtesy of Sontaend Calley ©1092 "Rober: Morns/ARS, New York fallacious, of course, as the public returned his cool feelings, most notably in the case of the Tilted Arc of 1981 [Plate 0} Ic has been argued about the Are that its oppressiveness could serve in a politically productive way to alert the public to its sense of oppression, Though an argument can be made for Serta similar to the ones I have made here for Judd, Mortis and Stella— that the work succeeds insofar as it visual- izes, ina suitably chilling way, a nakedly dehumanized and alienating expres- sion of power ~ itis more often the case with Serra (as sometimes also with Morris) that his work doesn't simply exemplify aggression or domination, but acts it out. In its site on Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan, Serra’s ‘mammoth, perilously tilted steel are formed a divisive barrier too tall (12 feet) {o see over, and a protracted tip (120 feet) co walk around. In the severity of its material, the austerity of its form, and in its gargantuan size, it served almost as a grotesque amplification of Minimalism’s power rhetoric. Som ‘hing about the public reaction to that rhetoric can be deduced from the graffiti and the urine that liberally covered the work almost from the first, as ‘well as fiom the petitions demanding its removal (a demand met lin 1989) A predictable defence of Serra’s work was mounted by critics, curators, dealers, collectors, and some fellow artists. At the General Services Admin= istration hearings over the petitions to have the work removed, the dealer Holly Solomon made what she evidently regarded as an inarguable casein its favour: I can only tell you, gentlemen, that this s business, and to take down the piece is bad busines... the bottom line is that this has financial value, and you really have to understand that you have a responsibility to the financial community. You cannot destroy property.’ But the principal arguments130. Richard Sera, Tiled An, 1. Corten ee, 5.76% 3657.6 96.8, Photo: ith rah, Sun Swit and Are Chauvet by courtesy of the Pace Gallery Ital Federal Pa, New York, dros by U.S, government r5 March 1989, ‘mustered on Serta’ behalf were old ones concerning the nature and finetion, of the avant-garde. Thus, the Museum of Moder Att's chief curator of painting and sculpcure, William Rubin, taught a hoary art-history lesson, “About one hundred years ago the Impressionists and post-Impressonists artis whose works are today prized universally, were being reviled as ridieu- lous by the public and the established press. Atabout the same time, the Eiffel Tower was constructed, only co be greeted by much the same ridicule Truly challenging works of ar require a period of time before their artistic Janguage can be understood by the broader publi.”” ‘What Rubin and Sera’s other supporters declined to ask is whether the sculptor really is, in the most meaningfal sense of the term, an avant-gurde anist. Being avant-garde implies being ahead of, outside, or against theddominane culture; proffering a vision that implicitly stands (atleast when i is conceived) as a critique of entrenched forms and structures. ‘Avant-garde research is functionally... or ontologically .. located outside the system,’ as Lyotard put it, ‘and by definition, its Fanetion is to deconstruct everything that belongs to order, to show that allthis “order” conceals something els, that it represses." But Serra’s work is securely embedded within the system: ‘when the brouhaha over the Arc was at its height, he was enjoying a recro~ spective at the Museum of Modem Art (in the catalogue of which, by a special exception, he was allowed to have a critic of his own choosing, Douglas Crimp, make a case for him).” The panel of luminaries who were ‘empowered to award Serra the commission in the fit place plainly found his vision congenial to their own. And his defence of the work rested precisely fn this basis, that far ftom being an outsider, he was an eminent member of the establishment who, through some horrifying twist of fate, had become subject to harassment by the unwashed and uncouth who do not © ognize, ler alone respect, authority when they see it. Because his work was commissioned according to the regulations of a gov- ‘emment agency, Serta reasoned that ‘The selection of this sculpture was, therefore, made by, and on behalf of the public.’ Stella expanded on this theme in his own remarks at the hearing: "The government and the artist have acted as the body of society attempting to meet civilized, one might almost say civilizing goals .. To destroy the work of are and simultancously incur greater public expense in that effort would disturb the status quo for no gain ... Finally, no public dispute should force the gratuitous destruction of any benign, civilizing effort." These arguments locate Serra not with the vanguard but with the standing army or ‘status quo’, and as such represent a ‘more acute view than Rubin's, though the rhetoric they depend on is no less hackneyed. More thoughtful, sensible, and eloquent testimony at the hearing, came instead from some of the uncouth: (My name is Danny Kate and [wok inthis building a clerk, My friend Vito told me this morning that I am a philistine, Despite chat Iam getting up to peak .. I don’t think ths ssue should be elevated into dispute between the forces of ignorance and art or art versus government. [relly blame government les because thas lng a outgrown is luman dimension, But from the artists I expected alot more. Udi’ expect to hear them rely on the tired and dangerous reasoning thatthe government has made a deal, 0 let the rabble live with the stecl because its a deal, That kind of mentality leads to wars, We hada deal with Viemam. I didn't expect to hear the arro- int poston that art jusifis interference with the sap joys of husman activity ina plaza Is nota great plaza by international standards, but itis smal refuge an place of revival for people who ride to work in steel containers, work in sealed rooms and. breathe recirculated airall day Is the purpose of atin publi places to seal of a route ‘of escape, to ares the abience of joy and hope? I can’t believe this was the attic Smtenton, yet to my sadnem thin for me has become the dominant sec f the work, and ital she Eule ofits postion and location. Ian accept anything in art, but I can't, accept physical asaul and complete destruction of pathetic human activity. No work of art created with a contempt for ordinary humanity and without respect for the ‘common clement of human experience canbe great. Ie willalways ack dimension.""The terms Katz associated with Serra’s project include arrogance and con~ tempt, assault and destruction; he saw the Minimalist idiom, in other words, as continuous with the master discourse of our imperious and violent tech- rnocracy. fu] 1k proves less ofa strain to perceive Minimalist art as ‘against much in the society’ (as the artists themselves would generally have it), then, when we compare it with art that harbours no such ambitions. But can Minimalism readily be scen as having that oppositional moment we demand of vanguard ‘or modernist art? The most defensible answer to this question is surely ‘no’, bbut a contrary answer can sill be contrived given the, at times, disquieting ‘effect of the most uningratiating Minimalist production ~ that bothersome- ness that impels some viewers even to kick it. To construct the inobvious answer takes a recourse (0 the modernist theory of Adomo, however. ‘One ‘cannot say in general whether somebody who excises all expression is a ‘mouthpiece of reification, He may also be a spokesman for a genuine non~ linguistic, expressionless expression and denounce reification. Authentic art is familiar with expressionless expression, a kind of crying without tears, wrote Adomo.* If no general judgement of this kind can be made, I have proposed here that some local or specific judgements might be; that in some fof the Minimaliss’ most contained and expressionless works we might infer a denunciatory statement made in, and not against, the viewer's best interes ‘Adorno suggested that “The greatness of works of at lies solely in their power to let those things be heard which ideology conceals."* Whether by the artists’ conscious design or not, the best of Minimalist art does that well enough through its lapidary reformulations of some especialy telling phrases of the master discourse. Adomo championed modernist art not only for its negative capability, however, but also for its utopian moment, its vison of something other or better than the present regime. Here we encounter Minimalism’s departure: its refsal to picture something else; a refusal which finally returns the viewer ~at best a more disillusioned viewer ~ to more of the same. Notes 1 Tetes de Laure, Ale Dos’ Fein, Sonos, Cems, Blooming, 198. P79, 2. Hanes See, “The Right So, At News, Mach 1984, p58 3 Haloser alone as ventured in print (however tentatively) "Ite much to sugges eat tora sake” ets herein i suthotatve (autora?) guise, x guise which reves {ht ar fon septs fom power and eligi a Ealightenmentpilsophy wool have i) bourgeois ist dplaced wal o power and uliately a religon?” "The Crax of Minimal in Howard Singerman, ed, Jadu A Sled History of Contemporary Art Tousigse, Now York: Abbeville Pres fo the Museum of Contemporary Ar, Los Angeles, 69.174 22 pits Tuchman, ‘An laccrview with Cael Ande’, Anfnam, Jane 1970p. 6. sors ‘pace or voids are convcconally coded seminine, 2 symbolic fom of vex donations ine here 00. 5 SceDon Ten, “A 16Ton Sula Fall Injring Two, Nw You Times, 27 October 188, Be, and Ran Landa, Selpete Cashes Two: Worker Loves Legs x6-Tom Piece Fall [New Vouk] Daly Now, 27 Ocabet 1988, 163. [-]6 "Gar Andre: Arworker’ ntervew with Jeanne Siegel, Sto Intemational, vol 80, 27, November 70 p. 178 Andre, and, ro lene extent, Mom, wee active in the AM ‘Workers Cention, an ssrchic body formed in 1989 whove principal achievement wat ping organize dhe New York Art Strike agains We, Racism snd Represion, which lose munerous pleieand seus on 32 May 1970 asin onthe tp ofthe “Mecropoltan Moscum, which didnot close, drew about five hundred parspant) The ALW.C. drew 3 dsincion between the poiczng of ants, which urged atl he poitica- ing ofa, which it dd not Te bean noting tht the pte matvaor of plication in the aden population, the dh, did noe threaten any of the men dace here, 2 mow ofthe had pen year nthe rly —in some cass by choice prior to paring ere a art. Kenneth Noland, born in 124, served For 1942 1946 der po an rypographer in thes force, mail the Unived States but abo in Egype ad Turkey: be sbsequenty taeda t Blick Mountain College an in Par, Jd, bor into, served in the amy in Kora in an engineer's unit, 1045-7 (before the outbesk of war ther) subuqucily he did at the Are Students League ndat Colimbia Univeniy, rom which he grated in 1953 with aS. Pilowophy and ‘where he pursed gadaae sods in Are History fom 1938 to 196. Sol Le Wie, bom in 28, eared a BEA. fom Syracuse Universty so 194) and then servedin the US. Ary in Japan and Ke the end of the Korean war, he amended numrous univers and at schoo, including the (Caforni Schol of Fine Ar and Reed Colle, nd dd graduate work at Hunter College in [New York in Ar History, Dan Favin, bor i 1933, found nn, in 1955, by hit own account, otering in Korea with an army of ocopaton av an Air Wester Service Observer a, ysi-a. Mors, bor in 19}, ered ne im Korea at an engineer toward ‘evubuequnly tended Curis University, Arde, bor 93 ded at Pips Anover ‘Acakny 199, and seven she syn North Caran in is, Walter De May tSevinoysccmods A in Haury anda MCA in Seapnethe Uae a (Clio st ese, and cs notin te try. Pk Si, brm 1996 expe tbe diese on pading tom Pacton, ut wu exerted bere ofa chldnod jar ts ‘Se born in 139, ao di ot se mary service 7 "agent Goonen‘Disilao’ 196 (tex aompanying an cabin ed at the Thor de Nog and Sale alec in Speer 96, eprint a linn A Cra Aly . Grngary Batok, New Yous 1968.16 2° Bogen Goosen Theft Re 8A into New York: Museum of Modem ‘A, 96 p11 hr show rps the eb f Miia he Mann of Modern ‘As tough i oo ue Mina exe 9” Cenene Greenberg, ‘Recetnes of Supt’ 1967, rine in Minimal A, Bacock p83 In-The Cr, Foc ces Minimal ply representing a once an ‘kite enon of anda beak wih se Geeergin Moder noel 10 Goosen, At ote Rel U1 Lagene Goosen, Fight Young Ari 1964 ancy accompanying an exibition f the Hon River Musca Yonkers Nm Oeober tae in Minin Ae Bateock p16 12 Sach wa the ie given othe roving forthe work Brydon Sith, Don Fai ure Ligh, Oca: National Gallery f Cat, 1969p 16 and Flavin ert the phe when showing sd ofthe work cs lear Havant Univer ia 98 13 Fin,” "in ayigh or cool wie An Autblognpic Skee, Ax, December 9,4 1M Theodor W Adore, Aehes Theory, trans. C, Lenhardt, ed. Gretel Adomo and Rolf ‘edema, London, 198,63 15) Sip, Andie: Artworker p17 and Dail oundon, Ca Ad: Sap sir, Nev York: Jap Resa, 198,937. Ae work Andie conceived 19 bot cml ‘Modo exon uo 90, wa om contig ofa np estan ber snding co ds The det ante Gretta mare, ane, ean oe plan ‘rte by ao cect ens and rooumed by abu of Hees. a 96, ae mas trond alread Caen eve homage rnc (Row cack) doc mo ave ‘Beespli sang const in ee thn Engh 16 Reprised nd Compete Wiig 39-9 Hal 1975-9 (7 While hon mow play sed Ju own ton, th ey dn del exchsively with the Minimalist, ba included other sachs Rauschenberg, La Samar and (Che Oldenburg, who were wing non-inears materi or objec sn thei work, 18 Same! Wagga Jes Blac, Hie and Grey an exibition adhe Wadewort Ateneo jn Hanford in Janaary-Febraary 1964, ince Mocs, Tony Smith, avin, Ages Mann ae Anne Trait, for example, among other ait who would nt becorne nocd with “Minimalsm. Fain npanize an exibition at he Kaya llr in New York in Mach 1964 dha included hinsele, Jad, LeWie, Sea, Bannad, Rober Ryman, and Jo Bac, aon others. Goosen organized Bight Young Ari at the Hon River Mosca in Octobe: 1964. Including Andre and Banna. The Shape and Stu show at Tibor de Nagy in 1965 included Jud, Moms and Andee, among other: Michael Fred's Tice Ameran Pao, with Stel, Noland and Otis took place atthe Fog At Museum a Harvard in 1965, Ad Kynaton MeShin Primary Smtr exibition acura he Jewish Museum in 1966 19 Rose, ABC Ar reprinted in Minimal A Batok, p 296; Lucy Liar, New ‘York Lente: Rejective An, 1965, reprinted in Lippard, Changing Ess At Cr, New ‘You, 1971, p. 141-5; Annette Michelin, 10% 10", Anam, J, 1967, PP 3-8 20" "The Art and Police A Syposian’, Arona, See 1970, . 37. 21 Obey, Minus Pc, eprntein Minimal dre. Batcock, pp. 252,356 22_ Juda, Specie Objecs, Ars Yak, 5, 1965, repented in Ju: Complete Wings, pate BD Judd, Spectic Objoe’p. 1. 24 de Laue, Ale Doe's p87. 25 Isc Babu, ‘Diciplning Women: Michel Fucaule andthe Power of Fein Discos’. in Foinim ar Crt, ed Sey Bena and Drcila Come Minneapolis 1987p. 10, 26 "Judi, Specie Objecs 187 27 Jd Specitic Object . 184 2B In 1978, Moms would doa series ofink on paper drawing, allen the Realm of the CCarcer’ se Stephen F Esenman, "The Space ofthe Sele ober Moers “Inde Real the Carcera™, Ars, Sepember 1980, 9. 104-9. 29. Moms, ‘Notes on Sculpeae: Pat One repitedin Minimal An, ed. ascock, p. 226 30 Mors, Nota on Sculpture: Pare Two, reprinted in Minimal Ar of, Butock, pp 232- 3. Naomi Schor sugges hat deta have hatonclly been coed feminine and viewed cond ingly with suspicion, ino contempt: Reali Det Acasa th Fomine, New Yor 1987. The paycho-texual aspect to Mori’ project became clearer in 3 performance piece of 1964 ale Sit in which the artist moved tard 4 fet construction mater painted plywood panel) around a age while maining sui inference wo the nak body of 2 woman (Carle Schneeman) pose ar the courtesan Olympia. When cite sagged ae {he work implied tat rhe nue woman watt Manco the geyconsrton material. ‘was to hin’, the at replied with tory abou woman being ely aggresive toward ‘im ands, t seems, hreaening dhe integrity of is work proces: ‘Monts’ coment wat that he had een approached several nee bya dancer who wanted to work with him, unbut toning her blouse ashe spoke. His solution ws Sic, Wain , Wion, “Hard Quessont and Soft Answer, At Novs, Novenber 196, 26. 31 Klas Thewelet, Mae Fins, sl. 1 Ween, Hod, Bois, Hier, Minneapolis, 1987, 224 The specific population Thewelet seed ithe German Frekorps, he volnteer ‘mic that ought and to a ange exon, ramped over, the revoluioary Geran working ls inthe year mamediatly afer World Warp BR Most, "Notes Par Twp. 232 33 Jomthan Feber, ‘Rober Moms Looking Back: An Interview, At, September 1975, parca. 34 Mort's violence emerged mos expt in some of the non-Minmalis work tht forms ‘he gente par of production: he dexeibed ‘proces pice’ he concrived in the 19603 fllows, for example: T had them shoot a shotgun bt into the wall fo the gallery anu the pater ofthe shot was phosographed. That wat a aveling show. At dhe net place the photograph was pu ep andthe gun fired, andthe rer was protgraphed and nlp Each museum gota photograph of the shot photograph and they sot tat one So that You got series of photogapls of photographs thar had been shoe. Each photograph had o be bigs.waned ito get bigger anid bigger’ Goosen, “The Anis Spek p05. 35 Roulind Kraus, Richard Sena: Sadpr, Lars Roweztork, New York: Miscum of 36 Inerview with Lira Bae, 30 Match 1976 in ‘Richard Ser with Clara Weyer ‘Riba Sora: news, E9719, Yonkers NY: Hison River Mosc. 1986, P73 237 Trance The Storm nthe Plas, excerpts rm the General Services Adntaon hein om the Tit A, Hager’ aly 1985. p. do 2, 38 Jean-Francois Lyotard, ‘On They: A lncview in Daf, ed, Roger McKeon, New York, 184, p29 39 Wiliam Rubin: "Pretc' to Kram, Sms, pp 9-0, Sema announced setentiousy a the Dearing tha the Tied Ar would, dee, be destroyed ft were moved ashe doesnot make Porble sxe; but he had erected sitar pieces on publics ona temporary bas and he mat he Meum of Modern Bad no plan to dips ofthe numerous work inhi exii Arconce it was over, 40 "Trasenpe, pp. 28, 32 41 “Tramexp p23. Kat weat ont give Seta. the work the bene ofthe doubt don't believe the Contempt sin the work The work is strong enought stan lone in beter pice. I would sgt to Me. Ser that he take advantage of ths oppotanity o walk sway fom thi fico and demand dat the work be moved ts place whee twill beter revel beaty 42 Adomo, Antic Thy p. v7 43 Adomo, ‘Lyric Pocry and Society’, Ta, 20, Summer 1974.