MINIMAL ART A Critical Anthology Edited by GREGORY BATTCOCK Introduction by ANNE M. WAGNER UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BenkELey + Los ANGHLES + LoNDOW[ABT AND OBJECTHOOD™ Ly Misiue Fried 4s his exay Miche! Fried erties Minimal Art—or a he calle “itera att—fee what he Serer a tact Gets At th same tine, he ages thatthe moderaat arty clding. plating and sculpt, have come inereasingly to depend for thir very conte fn thei abity to defer Gare. Friel chaacteees the thewted fers of pate elation between th buhaler ae able a vk a object «reaton that tales place m te, tht bar dation Wir dfig thse etude spent eed ied was born in New York City i 1958. He took hit BAL at enceton Univrty and was Rhode Scholar ot Merton Cogs Ot ford He iss Contibating ator for Artforum, sche ergata! Be Tioce Amica Petters exhstion atthe Foge Act Mest, Harverd rivet 1085. He ip curently «Junot Fellow iy the Harve Soviet Fellows, Edwards's journal fequontly explored and tested « meditation be Seldom alowed to reach print; if all he world were anniated, ke wrote... and a new world were freshly created, though it were © exist m every particular inthe same manner es this word, i woul ot be the sume. Therefore, because there ir cntinty, which time, “Wis certain with me thet tho world exits anew cvery mo. rent; that the existance of things every soment ceases aod i every moment renewed,” The abiding atsurance ie that “we every moment se the sume proot of Cod as we should have sen i we hed seen ‘Him create the word at fst"~Perty Miler, Jonedhan Edord 1 ‘The enterprise known variously at Minimal Art, ABC. Art, Peay Structures, and Specie Objects i largely idealogieal. It seeks 0 eclie and occupy a postion—one that etn be formulated a “Rete fom Arf Jane, 29 Jt and Objochood 117 ‘ord, snd in fact has been formulated by some of is leading prac- tions. If this distinguiahes from modernist panting snd sculp- tureon the one hand it also marks an important illerence between Minmal Art—or, as { prefer to call it, terletart—and Pop or OP ‘stm the other. From its inception, trait art as mounted to somthing more than an episode in the history of tate, Te belongs rather to the history—almost the natural history—of sensibility and isnot an folated episode but the expression of a general and ervasive condition. Its seriousness vouched for by uh fact eat it ' i elation both Yo moderist painting and modernist sulpture Yat itera art defines oe locates the position i aspires to ooo. (Ths, Tsvggest, je what makes what it declares somelhing that serves to he called a poston.) Spocfaly, teralist at eonceives ‘fel s nether one tor the other, on the contrary, i ie motivated by speci reservations or worse, about both; and aspire, perhaps ret sacl, or not immediately, to dspace ther, but isa cate toctublish self as an independent art ona footing with either. ‘Te lteralist cae against painting rests mainly on to count: the tlatonal character ofalnst all painting and the ubigutoumes, fadesd the virtual ineeapabilty, of plctoral lusion. In Donald Ted vie, wien you start eelatng parts, in the frst place, you'e assuming ym havea vague whole-the rectangle of the camvar—and def rte pars, which i all serewed up, because you should have & {nite whole and maybe no pars, or very few” Ths was sd by Jl io pit wa Brace Clay, eed by Lacy 1 Lond pated a "Onno fo Sela ea ad! ft News, Vd tiv Rag Seton let The remus sibaed te pee sy 1 Jal and Mert have ten hen fen endo fn aly esa “Soe {il Obert" As Feoroa, No.8, 1965, oak Robt Mess se Nae on Sxiare” and "Nate on Scalp Pu 8° pulled A fen Vol TV, No Pbrer 196, aed Vel 5, No, Oxaber 196, ropes th Thee ao taken one sea by Mors fm tor sre ee teiton "Eig Supt: te Ames mage” hell atte Waar (Gn, Oso Dest 1088) Tse a that ang oct wat ee ‘ee he postin jd tod Moe fa camo hve gored vr tne Ewe yo rod oi ns na ‘ft etal or wrote = pata pte te aerate would ane teen iter te tt ih eteMichael Fled 118 ‘The more the shape of the support is emphasized, as in recent modernist painting, the tighter the situation becomes “The element inside the ectangle are broad and simple and co respond clot to the rectangle. The shapes and surface ae only those that can occur plausibly within and on a rectangular plane “The pats are few and sn suborginate to unity as not to be pasts tn'an ordinary seme, A paunang ts netly an ent, 6 ie sind not the indeiable som of «group of entities and references ‘The one thing overpowers th euler panting It also establishes the rectangle as « deflate form; itis o longer faely petal Timit A form can be wed only in so many ways. The rela {gular plane is given a Me span. The simplicity required to ea ‘Phaze the rectangle lint the sarangements possible with Painting it here seen at ax art on the verge of exhaustion, one in ‘which the sange of acceptable solution to basic problem how to ‘organize the surface ofthe pcturo—is severely restricted. The use of shaped rather then reetangslar sepports ca, rom the Iterals point of view, merely prolong the agony. The obvious response isto give bp working on & single plne in favor of three dimensions. That, moreover, avtomatclly eid ofthe problem of sins sn of eral space, spe in fn around marks and colore—which i riddance of one of the Salient and most objectcnable relic of European art, The reveal limits of painting re no longer present. A work can be as power ful as can be thought to be. Actal space is invinsialy ore powerfulund specif than pant on a fat surface, ‘The eral attitude toward seulture is more ambiguous. Jud for example, seems to thik of what he calle Specie Objects at something other than sculpture, while Robert Mor conceives of Is own tmisakably elise work av reining te lage adh ton of Constructivist sculpture established by Tatlin, Nodebenko, Gabo, Pevsner, and Vantorgerlo. But this and other disagreements are os important than dhe ews Jadd and Morris holds common Above all they ae opposed to selpture that, like most painting “made part by par, by aeition, composed” and in which “specie lomente separate from the whole, thus setting up relationship ‘At ond Objecood 119 rithin the work” (They would inclade the work of David Smith {hd Anthony Caro wader this description) tis worth remarking thatthe “parvby-part” and “relational” character of mot sculpture is associated by Judd with what he calls enthropomorphiom: “A team thrusts: apiece of ron fellows a geetre togethcr they form a retraite and anthropomorphic image. The spece corremonds.” ‘Aninst such “ulpart,inloted” seulpture Judd and Morss assert the values of wholeness, singlones, and indviibility—of s wor’, being. as nearly as possible, “one thing.” a sigle “Specific Object.” Moris devotes considerable attention to “the use of strong gestalt trol unitary ype forms to avold divisiveness; while Judd chieBy intersted inthe kind of wholeness that cam be achieved through the repetition of identeal units, The order at work in his plezes, as he face remarked ofthat in Sel’ sbipe paintings, “is simnly order, ke that of continuity, one thing after another” For both Jad and Manis, however, the erie factor ls shape, Mosi’s "unitary forms” tre pobyhedrons that vest being grasped other than as a single ‘apes the gestalt simply ithe “constant, known shape” And shape tal iin his system, “the mast imperant sculptural value” Sim In, speaking of his own work, ud has remarked that the big problem i that anything that isnot absolutely plan be- fin to have parts in soupe way. The thing i to be aie to work nd do diferent things and yet not break up the wholeness that a pst has, To me the piece withthe brass andthe five verticals is above ll that shape. ‘The shape ithe objec: at amy rate, what secures the wholeness of the objec isthe singleness of th shape. Is, 1 believe, this empl son shape thet accounts forthe impresion, which numerous et. {shave mentioned, that Judd’ and Morris plces are haow 0 Shape his ako been central tothe most important palsting of the st several years In several recent essays" T have trial to show Sage 4 For: Pan Stal’ New Puig Aforum, ViVi, No. 3 vee 168 Jer Olek” the alge nada on bon oF IM" at the Cocoa Caley, Washington D.C, Apr-Jun 1967 and "Told Davi: Sac and Hen” fora, Ve, By ApeMichosl Fad 120 ow, inthe work of Noland, Ota, and Stell, a conflt has grad ally emerged between shape as a fundamental propery of objects snd shape as medium of painting. Roughly, the succes or fre of «given painting has come to depend on its ability to bold ot stamp itself ont or compel conviction as shape—that, or somehow to stave aff or elude the question of whether or not it dos so, Os ‘any spray palotings are che porest example of paitings that ether hold or fat hold as shapes; while i his more recent pictures, well as inthe best of Nolads and Stllas recent work, the demand that a given picture hold as shape is staved off or ehded in various ‘ways. What is at stake in this conic is whether the paintings or objects in question are experienced as paintings or as objects and what decides their ideatty as paling is thet contonting of the ‘Seman that they held as shapes. Otherwise they are experienced at nothing more than ebjeets. This cin be summed up by seying that modernist painting hes come to Bnd i imperative that it defeat ot -suspend its own objecthood and that the cuca factor i this under taking is shape, but shape that most belong to painting it must be Pictorial, not, or not merely, Meral, Whereas teralet art stakes ‘everthing on shape asa given property of objet, i ot, indeed 15 hind of objece in ats own right. Te aspises, not to defeat of suspend its ox abjecthood, bt on the contrary to discover aad poe bjecthood as such, Tn his esay “Rocentness of Sculpture” Clement Greenberg di ‘cusses the eect of presence, which, frm the sat has been asc sted with literalist work? This comes up in connection with the “work of Anne Trot, an artist Greeuberg belies anscpated the Teralists (he cals heat Minimalist). ‘Truit’s art did lire withthe look of now-ar, and er 1963 show ‘was the frst in which T noticed how this look could confer an let of presence. Tht presence as achieved through tae was scsthetcally extraneous, T already Tmew. That presence as schieved through th look of nomart was ikewieesesthetcally blind ie the ctigue the Lx Angles County Meum of Aes ‘Sclpace ofthe Sata The sero Spufe” wt he ‘ed hen fran Crowergs sees “Ine otic wit be Neo pos ocean send ce teJ ond Objechood 123. extraneous, Idd not yet know. Trait’ sculpture had this kind of presence but did not hide beind it That sculpture could hige Icing it—justas panting did—I found ovt only after repeated scquaintance with Mininal works of art. Jods, Morris, Andre's, Steiner, some but nt al of Smithson’, some bat not all of LaWit¢s, Minimal at cat also hide behind presence as ie: I Uhink of Bladen (though I am not sure whether he i 2 certied Minimalist) as wel a of some ofthe atts just mentioned, Presence can be conferred by size or bythe look of non-at. Further ‘nore what nonart means foday, and has meant for seveal years, [6 fairly specie. In "After Absvact Expresionisn” Greenberg wrote that" stetched or tacked-up canvas already exits a «pie ture—though not necesarly asa succesful ne." For that reatoa, ‘Ale Absit Expcsnn” At Internationa, Vl. Vi, No 8, Osher 108, p30. The pase rem wich hs we ken ea ode ting of madera mre ad mane of the convection of he Sta pone Have ow tometer tobe Soper opel Bol ein astra ealibed voll seam Oat tae ez of Eth domatan of Sram to tat the eaeraee of merely ie ‘eso nag ce ie hae expeed ms fart © stil or lady came seady ear at > pense tion eoosely ar esl Soe ‘alifeatonsthatean be made ot To bin wth ote enagh sy ata ae anes tacked 0 vl et “boty” tse ‘ral sve tut or tnt bgpen the exter of pity wed have ‘ould regi far gree change than tat nt pining har undergone om Ninf Ndi wo Sl) Meer, evn someting ‘vince tata prt work can tad compro withthe poi of the ‘pot wbore quit astm dui, ae altpeer dle epericnes {Tattoo ae hough ner sen compe cavcion sey gay ‘th mo mor an tly or tamil spn. Ts somes Oat te dnd Se te of Sa cehtnt ne he ie Sorted’ eng om x pbting, and ut he aa question atMihoal Find 124 asho ema in “Recentnes of Sculpture,” the “look of noma was no longer available to painting” Instead, “the borderline between ar and nom-art had tobe sought in the thee-dimensional, where seulp- ture was, and where everything material that was not at als Was" Greenberg goes on tos: “The look of machinery is shunned now because it doesnot go far ough towards the look of noma, which i presumably sx “noe” look that offers the eye 8 minimum of “interesting” Inc