Art and Objectbocd 117
words, and in fact has been formulated by some of its lending prac-
ART AND OBJECTHOOD" by Michael Fried
In thb essay Michse] Fried criticizes Minimal Arl-()r a..~ he rolls it,
"Iiremlist" 'Irl-fOl what he dcs('rih~ :IS its inherent theatricality. At the
'-1II1t! tune, he nr~llCS lh~t the modernist nrts, indlldillg painting :lnd
);('uIPlurc:, have come Incr~sin.~ly to depend [01' their very (.'()Jltil\U:IIICI;!
on their ability to dryl'ttt titt!:llte. Fried ch:\m(.1.NE-I,.(:~tile theatrical in
terms of a pa.rtiC'Ul."y rclatinn between the beholder (a .mbj4rct and the
work (IS 01>1'."(.':, ;'I relnuon that takes place in tim~, t!t:lt has duration.
Wltt:re.'1) defeattng theatre ~'nlail~ t1t:ft!lIling Of suspl.'ndinp. h<lth ohjecthood
and lcmpor,1lily.
Fried W:b bOIn 10 'lc'w York Cil), in 1939. J 1(' 1(1<11: IIi.. B.A. at
Pnnc'('fcUi Univt:r.,ity .lIId was :\ HllC1dcs Sd~)ktr at ~~erton Colh~l~C, Ox-
[ord. I lc ~ :\ (;onl:ihutil\~ Edito: Ior I'.rtiarum, und itt: c)rgm)izcd the
Threr .·\",..riC(1/I Pdlnfcr.s exhibition nt lht: FIlgg AIt Museum. 11:\I'v",<!
.nivcrsitv in 190;;. He 1$ currently
i.. a jUlliOT Fellow in the Harvard
Slll.it'I)' (If FI..llIo\\'s.
Edwards's journals frequently explored and tested a meditation he
~clt!r\:n ;dl()"'t:d II) reach print; if all the wOI'I<1 were annihilated, he
wrote .. , and a 11t:\\' world were freshly created, though it were to
exist in ever)' particular in the same manner $IS this world, it would
not he the same. Therefore. because there is continuity, which is
time, "it is cerl.till with me that the world cxixlx anew every mo-
1II1'lll, that the existence of thing$ ever)' moment ceases and is every
moment renewed." The abiding assurance is tl,at "we every moment
~ee the same proof of " Cod as we should have seen if we had seen
Him create the world at first."-Pony Miller, [oaosha« 1<:<1words
I lively.
The enterprise known vuriously as ~hnim:ll Art, ABC Art, Primary
Structures, and Specific Objects is largely ich'ologic3L It seeks to
declare anel C)(.'CIII»' a position-c-one that can be formulat(,~1 in
• t\el>rilll~tl from ,\l'//tl({'lII. }Ime, 1007.
titionc~. If this distinguishes it from modernist painting and sculp-
ture on the one hand, it also marks :Ill important diflcrellC(! between
Minimal Art-or, as I prefer to call it, litef'(i/ist art--and Pop or Op
Art on the oeher. From its inception, IIter;)lisl art has amounted to
something more than an episode in the history of taste. It belongs
rather to the history-s-almost the not ural histOf),-of sensibility; and
il is not an isolated episode but the expression of a general and
pervasive condition. Tis seriousness is vouched for by the fact that it
is in relation both to modernist painting and modernist sculpture
thnt literalist art define::; or locates the position it aspires to occupy.
(This, 1 suggest, is what makes what it declares something that
deserves to IX! called ,I position.) Specifically, literalist art conceives
of itself as neither one nor the other; on the COI1!r<lr),.it is motivated
b)' specific reservauons, Or worse, about both; and it aspires, perhaps
not exactly, or not immediately to displace them, but in Any CAse
to estahlish itself as M independent art on a Iooting with cit her.
The literalist case n~aiMt paillting rc..s l~ mainly On two counts: the
relational character of almost all painting; and the ubiquitousness,
indeed the virtual inescapability. of pictorial illusion. In Donald
J udd's view,
when you ;jol,)r! rdating pnrts. in the first place, you're a~~umir)g
)'011 h;)vc a vague whole-c-the rectangle of the canvas-s-and defi-
nite parts) which is ,III screwed up. because yon should have :i
definite u;/role and maybe no parts, 01' very few. I
I This WM ~'icl hy Jm!1! in ..n Intc:vtc\\' with Bruce C!:u;(:r. edited h)' J.uC')'
R. Lippard and pllbh~I~<i 01> "QUt<){it>l\!I 10 Siena ;mc.! Jtuiri," Art N0l4\~, Vol.
L.;';'V. :-\0. 5, SUI)ll>Jllbcr !966. '£ill! T(!m;ark~nlttlbtttoo ill the present e~:t)' to
Judd ",l.1 M(JrTi~h'IVC been t~k(:n from lhilj illtl!l'vie w, Irmn J\ldd'~ ~~O>' "~pc-
cifie Obieees," Art\' )'11'0'0001., ).(). 8, 1965, M from R{)bcll '\1tlrris') t!~a)'$"
":-\()t('.~ 011 ~~11plur~~ and "Nores (Ill S<~"JlIII'l!. Part 2." published In Art-
[orum, VI)]. IV, 1\0. 6, February 196B, and vo\. 5, No.2, Octobt:r 1900, TC)])C:C-
(1 ha\'t' :IUO Ial:= one )'emAtk by Marrh [mill tht:: ('-'I\AIO~Ntr to thl'
C\hlbilioll "Eir.ht Scnlpton-; 1110A1I1biJt\1ou~ I~gc," h('i:t at the Walker ..\rt
CClIlM', Octchcr-Deeember 1966.) I ~hollitl ndd thlil ill l:e~'iIlS out whal ~l'(:m)'
III me 11,1..' I)(lljilioll Judd 1nd ~fo. fi~ hold ill com IIIon J hnvr- 11.I'Otod various
dHrC"C'lIt't'$ between them, nlld haV'tJused Ctrlain rernnrks ill t"tllllt'~b for which
Ifll:)' m~y not have be'CII intended. .\forcovc,., I hAW' 1)t>1 al\\,lI)'< i!ldl.;ntoo whtch
of them Rl'(U:,JI y )aid or \H(ltc n pnru""lar phrase; lite nltcrnoliv6 would have
bl'~'11 10 litter the tc~t with fOt>~IIOlt'<.
Michael Fried 118
TIll: more the shape of the support is emphasized, ,IS ill recent
modernist painting, the! lighter the situation becomes:
'111(:clements ill....idl~ the rectangle are broad and simple nod cor-
respond closely to the rl.,.'CI:Hl~le.The shapes IIl1d surface are only
those tlmt (,.~III occur plausibly within alld on a rectangular plane.
The parts arc few arid so subordinate to unity as not to he parts
in lUI ordinary sense. A pain ling is nearly an entity, one tiling,
and not the indefinable SIIIO of a group of entities and references.
The one thing overpowers the CMlier paint in~. II also eS~lblishc.. ..
IIII~rt:ctall~lc as a definite funn; il is no longer a fairly neutral
limit. A Iorm (~n he used only in so man)' ways. The reetan-
!tul:\r plane L~given Il life SL);III. The! simplicity required to em-
phasize the rectangle limits the arrtlllgl!lnt:llts possible within it.
P';lilllillJ{ is here seen as all arl 011 Ihe verge of exhaustion. one in
which the range or aooeptablc solutions to it haste problem-how to
organize the surface of the pi ctu re-i.." severely restricted. 11le lise of
shaped rather tlmll redangular supports (;:111, Irom the literalist point
of view, merely prolong the :lgony. The obvious response is to s:tivc
lip workillg on a slngle plane in favor of three dimensions. That,
moreover, automatically
gets rid of the problem of illusionism :Ind or literal space, space ill
and around marks <If\(I ~'()~of~-which is riddauee of OIl(: of the
salient and most objectionable relics of Ellropean art. The several
limit.\; of p:lintillg are no longer present. A work can be 3S power-
ful :IS it can 00 thought to he. Actual 51),1.00 is intrinsically more
powerful and speeiflc than paint 01) n .I;'Ilstirface.
The literalist attitude toward sculpture is more ambiguous. Judd.
for cxumplc, SC(:I'Tl~ h) think of what he calls Spccific Objects a~
something other than SCuIPlUf'C, while Hobert Morris conceives of
lli!t own Ulllnistakahly literalist work IlS resuming the lapsed lradi-
tion of Constructivlst sculpture established by Tatlin, Rodchenko,
Cabo, Pevsncr, and Yantongcrloo. But thi!'>and other disagreements
:UX! I(~ illlp()rt~\IIt ,ball the views Judd and Morris hold in common.
Above all they arc opposed to sculpture that, like most painting, is
"nuule part hy part, by addition, ("'Omp()(5(..'(I'" and in which -spe<:iric
elements ... separate from the whole, thus ~ellin~ up relationships
Art and Objecthood 119
within the work:' (They would include the work of David Smith
and Anthon)' Caro under this deseription.) It is worth remarking
th'll tile "part-by-part" and "relational" character of mo« sculpture
is nssoclated by Judd with what he calls ontilrQP(mwrpltism,' "A
beam thrusts: a piece of iron follows a gesture; together they form a
nalllwlistic and anthropomorphic image, The space corresponds."
Against such "multipart, inflected" sculpture judd and Morris assert
the vnllles of wholcn<.'SS. singleness, find indivisibiliry-s-of :l work's
beina, as "earl), ,1S po~"ihle. "one thilig," n single "Specific Object."
Morris devotes considerable attention to "the 1I~ of strong gestalt
or of IInit:lf)' type forms to avoid divisiveness": while Judd is chiefly
interested in the kind of wholeness that <.'~IU 00 achieved through the
repetition of identical units. 11lC order at work in his pieces, <IS he
Once remarked of that in Stella's stripe p(lintings. "is simply order.
like th.H of continuity. OUe thing after another," 1'01' both Judd and
'Murris. however, the critical factor 11>slwpc. Morris's "unitary forms"
are polyhedron. .. that resist being grasped other ehan ns a :;ing)c
!(h,Ii><": the gestalt simply is the "constant, known shape." And shape
itself is, in his system, "the most important sculptural value." Simi-
larly. speaking of his own work, Judd has remarked that
the hig problem is that anything Ihat is not absolutely plain he-
gins to have parts in some \~lr, The thing is to he able to work
and do differcnt things and yct not break tiL>the wholeness that a
piece has. To me the piece with the brass and the 6ve verticals is
above ~111"(Jf $11(11'(;.
TIle shape i.~the object: (It IlII)' rate, what secures the wholeness of
the object is the Singleness of the shape. II is. I believe, this empha-
sis on shape tit,lt accounts for the impression, which numerous crit-
ICS hove mentioned, thnt Judd's and Morris's pieces are hollos»,
II
Shape has also been central to the mOM Important painting of the
past several years. r Il several recent essays- r have tried to show
; "Shape- as Form: frank Stdb's r\cw rnll'li/l~S," Arlf(1f'(l1n, Vol. V. ~·o. 3.
Nm'cmht'f HJ66: "JulC';~Olit:<I..;," the C;'\lall)~ue introduction to un exhibition of
hl~ wo;'x ut the Coreoren CIlUery. WIllIhington, D.C .• Aprll-June, 1007; and
~KOllald D,wls: Surrace Wid Illusion," A,'/orullf. VoL V. No. S. ApllI H161.
Michael Fried 120

how, in the work of Xoland, Olitski, 11I1(1 Stella, Q conflict has gradu-
~II>' emerged between shape us :t Fundamental property of objects
rind shape as a medium of paillting. HOlIj{hly, the success or failure
of a givcn painting ha~ come to depend on its ability to hold or
~1.:lJnp ltsell out or compel conviction as shape-s-thnt, or somehow to
stave off or e-lude the question of whether or not it does SQ. Olitski's
early spray vaillhll~s arc tlH~ purest example of painting.<; that either
hold or !"liI to hold a~ shapes: while in his more recent pictures. :t!'
w(.11as in the lH·st of Noland's and Stella's recent work, the demand
that a give!) picture hold as shape is staved oil or eluded in vnrluus
ways. \Vhat is at stake in this conflid is whether tht" p~i"tillgs 01'
objects ill question :ll-t' experienced as painlings Or as objects: ;tnd
what decides their id(.'lllit}· as poillting is their confronting of the
dl'Jnttlld that they hold as shapes. Otherwise they arc experienced as
nothing more than objects. This (:.'111 he smlllne<1 up by saying that
m()(lcl'Ilist pl\iJ)\in~ has come to find it unperative that it deft'al or
suspend its own objccthood. and that the crucial factor in this under-
An;hony Coro: Bltnn;ng/C)II. 196.1, S'cer painted black. 3'4" x 13' x 11'. In the
raking is shape, but shape that must belong to I)()ilttlllg-it mllst he
colloctPoI'I of Ju os Olink], Phot09roph COUnO$Y of AI'\;lrtl ElI'meri:h Gallery, New
pict(tr-i:ll, not, or not merely. literal. Whereas [iteralist :u1 stakes York.
ever}tthing on shape as a given property of object!', if not, indeed,
..~ a kind of t1hject in its own right. 1l aspires. not to defeat or
suspend its own objl.!cthood. but on the contrary to discover anti
project objeethood ns such.
In his CSSl\)' "Recentness of Sculpture" Clement Greenberg dis-
Anthony COlO: flo,.. 1966. Stool peinsed blue. 2"1" )( 6'9" x 5'4". In the (oll.,ctiorl
Cllo;~l~ the effect of nresence, which, from the start, has been associ- e! ,,"'. ond litts. Henry Foiwell. PhOI(;9ropn (ourresy of Andre E'T:"Tlericn Gallery,
atcd with ltterallsr \vork.J This comes up in connection with the: New Yon.
a __ _ ~ " _. __ ._. _ __ __~

work of Anne Truit]. an art-ist Creenbcrg believes anticipated th.e

]iterali"ts (he calls them Xlinirnalists}:
Truitt's art did tlirt with the look of non-art, and her 1963 show
was till' first in \\'hidl 1 noticed. how this look could confer an
effect of prc,Y(>llce. '111Ht presence as nchievcd through size was
:wstiletic:llly extraneous, 1 :ilrt-:tdr knew. Ttmt pn'scncc os
achieved through the look of non-art was likewise tll'sthetiC:llly
1 l'lh!bltt'd ill the ('..It:llo~ue 10 the i,.(l~ AlI~d.t':> Q,,1I1ty :-.tlL~I!Un'l of Ali'S
(.\:hiblli,»I. "Aillcrit<l'\ Sculpture or the Sixtf~." nit! ...... ,,~ '"PfOject" IU 1 have

iusl 'hl'el II is l~kt!1l from C:rcr.JlhC1~·!(statement, "The onenssblc nirn of the

:\'1inima1iSb i~ II' ·projc.-cl· obkcl~ :md ensembles of (lh~ct< thnt nre iu~l illidge-
"hI.· IrlCI) nrt."
 Art and Objscthood 123

extraneous, 1 did not yet know. Truitt's sculpture had this kind of
presence hut did not hide behind it. '111at sculpture could hide
behind it-jllsi as l)''linling did-T found out only after repeated
ucquaintaucc with Minimal works of :u-t: Jlldd'!5, Morris's.
Andre's, Steiner's, some but not all of Smuhson's, some but not nit
or [..,eWitt's. ~1ittjmal art can also hide he hind presence as size: 1
think of Bladen (though T am not sure whether he is a certified
Minimalist) as well as of some of the artists jllst mentioned.

Presence can be conferred by size or by the look of non-art. Further-

more. what non-art means loony, and has meant ('Or several years,
Is fairly specific, In "Afler Ah"lract Expressionism" Greenberg
wrote that "a stretched or tacked-up canvas already exists as a pic-
turc-s-thougb not necessarily (IS a successiul one."! For thal TC<lSOn,

i "Aflc:r Arn.lrlll't Exµr~:u:luDl." Art /ntc;mtItiml(.l, Vtll. VI. r\(l. S. OctPbllr

25. 19(~. p. 30. The p!lJ..~g(' from wlli~'" this }H!lI been taken r~;,d~,,~ !(lIII),,,g;

Under the I<.-still~ 01 modernism more nnd mottO or the C'OIIVeJlti<lIIlO o.! the
nrt (If p*illtin~ ~vc' shown thcm~clv(S (0 be lli:!pensal,lt:. ~mc..~Cf1l1;)1. But
now it It:U" heen ~tothll~hod. It would seem. thut chI' lncdUC"iblc essence of
pktorial urt CQn<;i<.(s ill but two conHihltivc CQllv("lIli01~~ ur norms: Bntnr;s:.o:;
and th~ dcllmitftti(ll1 of a,tnC$l; finO thnt the observanee (If mercly these
:>onold Judd! Unlilled. 1966. Goh'OlI;ad "eel. Each bOlCl 40" J( 40" x 40" lor two f1()rlYl~ h t'1lough to crmtc- Sin obJuct that ('.111 be I'xpl'r/l'fl~1 a) a pic-
o resel ICf'9lh of 25'4". Phol09roph coutle.y of Owon Vol.ery. N~ .... York. hue; thus a stretched or rncked-up C:lOv.u alrc:.cI)' CX~1bas ;t p:clun:.-
lbvu~h 11(11 nC"OCU:lflly !l~ a $IICCl<t.sjll! one,

III it~ hronc! outlil.c lhh is undoubtedly correct. 'fhl!7(: nrr-, however. certain
qunllflC-:Hioll!< Illat can he m;td(t
To 1ICttin with, II is Iwt quite c!lbOugh til 13y thllt a Lelr!! O::UI\'IIS I.<lck.. o to a
\V31l is no( "Il('ce~:trii)''' a Hloc<:ssflli picture: it would. I think, be less (l! an
(':mrJ!l~ti<Jn «I :<11)' thnl it b not '~lIctric;d1!y one. It IYIlI)' be countered thnt
Iuture cirCllmsl<ilo('e) mighl "be ';:11<:11<l< til llUJ/.:e it :1 ~lI(l(l(:~dul pnlnUJIj.!: but 1
would "("ue that, for thAt 10 I\IIPPI:JI, 11,,=cfltcrpn:o;l' (If J)<1illtill~ wodd have
to dlallS~ >0 dl';l~tl<'.lUy lh.1t lIoliling more thall lllll 11:1111(;would rcmaln. (It
woulrl require a faT srcntC\r <:h;~I)lttl lh:'lIIl thut LII.:!I }XllnUn1! I~ undergone from
Mnl1.ct 10 N'c>lnncl, Olltsl:i. aod ~teU:I!) Mmf'O\'l'r, SCCilll: :«IoH:thing a<, a pl\int-
in~ in thl' " •."(~ Ihal Olll' sees thr- tSlc:kl.ld·up moV'd.< II~ n Jnintinj.!, and being
CIlIIVIn<'<'O that .t parhC\II4!1 work call ~t:llld t.'()mp."lr~on With th.: Iminting of th~
on~t whose qunllt), fs I)u( ill doubt, are Qlt(lgcllwl' differe:lt C\'pCrl.<JIlCIlS: it ill.
1 want II) STlY, ns tbough 1I111e:o;.< ~omC(fl'nlr compels conviction ns to il.) qurt.!ic)'
it I~ no more dian trivlnlly 1.# II(lfflil ..,IIy a pamring. 11ii8 lSUI!J.!Cll!:<that fbh)('~
and lIw delimitntion of lIf1lll~"t ougltt not 10 hI! thougbt v! us til<: "Irreducible
&S<:occ (If I)ictori:tl art" but mllier tb)()fI}ethin8 Ilk(' the minimal ccndtrlm"
fc>r srmletltil1g'" buill£; secn lU a pairllillS: lind that the erucinl questlcn is not
Michael Fritld 124
.IS lie remarks in "Recentness of Sculpture," tile "look of non-art \\~
no 1<)Jl~('ravailable 10 painting." Instead, "th~ borderline between art
and non-art had to he sought ill the thrce-diruensional, where sculp-
tUI'(' was, and where evcr)'thing material that was not art also was ....
Greenberg g<H!S on to say:
The look of machinery is shunned now because it does uor go far
enough towards the look of non-art. which is presumably :111
"inert" look that ollers the eye u minimum of "interesting" inci-
dent-unlike the machine look, which is arty b)' comparison [und
when I think of Tinguely 1 would agree with this}. SliII, no
matter bow simple the object Ina)' he. there remain the relations
and intcrrcluuons of surface. <-ontonr, and spatial interval. ~1ini-
mal works an.' readable .IS ;HI, as almost '1r1)'tbing i:- today-in-
cluding u door, a table, or a blank sheet of paper ... , Yet il would
:.(,(:111 that a kind of ,11'1 nearer the condition of non-art could not
be envisuged or ideated at lllite moment.
wh:.t Illest miuimul and. ~(l to ~l1~k. timt!I~'S) ,:ooditlom nre, ~mt rather what,
nr II snven JOI.lImt!llt. u C".I,~IJI(; r.f compcUinJ; t.,(lI'Ivictioll. of succeeding IL< pnint-
11111.Tht~ " not to My t1~l pailllinr, has no C$~eOCc: il :.$ 10 claim that that
c»clluu-i,t.'. thr.t which CQlllJ)d!S C(lIiv;l;til')~l~ Inrgd)' dt:'tt:'rmillot·.l b)', and
thenofort! dIU 1I)!~"'S (l(Jnt1nuolly in re.~POll:SC 10, tho vitnl work (If the recent J)tls!.
TIle C~)I.;'IK'C of P:tilltillt ts nl)t <l)Jncthllll: irreducibl«. nather, tlw t.:t)~ of ll",
mndemis~ puinte-r b 10 di<.OOV<lr rhose conventior» Inrlt, M rI gi\'t!1l momeut,
<1(1Jfl.l: nrc capnble II! dtab4I')';IIi't his \\·or~·,. idcntil)' a~ ,):tilltillt·
ern"'''' 'l! npproaches eMs J)O~lio" whrn he ndds ... A:s it l1l1C}111> 10 me, ~C':w.
11'1;111. Kud'ko. :\11>11 Stlll h.rv e :(\\UII)!. the l>clr-<:dtlC1~m of modemi!-l pnilltinr.
:1 new direction )Illlph' hy ("(lntinuiu)!, it ill it> old O,W. The que-stirm now usked
through their art i~ 00 IOIlJ!M' whnt constitutes "It. of tI'l" clrt of pnlnting,
such. 1)\11wl"'l fN('(tuclbl), t.'<Ill)titut~,> Itarxi :nl as euch, Or rather, wJ", I is
ultimate sourco of v ..111(: (II qllJilily ill art?" But} would nrguc that wh!ll mod-
ernisrn ha..1 meant i~ thaI lhl! rwe qllCSti<nl> \V1",l ()(Ju>tilulcs til(' art of paint-
inl(? Anel whnt CQnstitute> ~lJ()r.I 1XJtnlin~?~rc no IOIl!;C!r $t!jlu:lbltl; th\l Rr<e
di>JIpp~'IN. or ioll.'r('.)1lngiy tcnch to di>3I)I>C.lI, Into the second. (1 :lUI,
C:fMIr.¢C. t.,k.in~ h>'I(' j,('r(' with the version of II'<H,krni<m pHI Ioewnrd in my
Thrc« AlJu:rfG'tJn J'aintc;r:y.)
If"t u,()(v 1)11 ,hI' nnrun- I» eS~'It<:1! :... c1 1,'l::II\vM\t/(m in thl' 111(I\k~lli>t ,,,b
see !fir C~lI,$ 011 Stelln aoo Olitski lI'It'1lti<lflcd "hfW." n~ well ;\~ St .. nley Cavell.
"xtusic 1)j)~tHl'IPOOI·d:· .-00 "Rl'jollldcn:" W (Tili<.·> of 11....t ••~)', to he pub-
li~h('rl ...5 part of II ~YlIllX,,":m h)' Iht! UniveNitr of Pitlsbul~h Pt(·<.~ In n
11m,· entitled Art, ~1.jrid "1#1 Itt:iff!illf1. ('••;wdr.~pieces will "blo uppeur ill MuM
Wc' ,HM!; W/IIZI We Smi'. a l!oo!.. of his ~~n)'( to 1)(' pllhli~llICrl in the tlt-af
£ u tllTe! II)' S<"Tihllt:'1'·'.
Art and Objecrhood 115
The meaning in this context of "the condition of non-art" is what I
have been calling objecrhood. It is as though objecthood :\J011(; can.
in the present circumstances, secure something's identity, if not as
non-art, at 1C:l~t as neither painting not' sculpture; or <1$ though a
work of art-more accurately, .. work of modcrnist painlillg or
sculpture= were in some essential respect not (In ohiect,
Therc is, in an)' case, a sharp contrast between the litt:ralist es-
pousal or objccthood-e-alrnost, il seems, as all art in its ov....n righl-
and modernist p:lioting'~ sell-imposed imperative that It defeat Or
suspend its own objccthood through the medium of shape. r n fact,
from the perspective or recent modernist painting, the literalist posi-
tion evinces a sensibility not simply alien but antithetical to its own:
as though, fl'OlIl thal perspective, the demands of art and the eondi-
lions of objeethood arc in direct cOll/lict
Here the question ;lrI.se": Whut is it about objecthood as projected
and h),po:ttatiud by the Iileralbls thut makes it, ir only from the
perspective of recent modernist painting, antithetical to art?
III
The ar......
wer 1 want to propose is this. the literalist espousal of ob-
jecthood amounts to nothing other than :1 plea for a new ~enr<: of
theatre, and theatre is now the negation of art. •
Literalist sensihilit)' is theatrical because, to begin with, it is cun-
In
corned with the actual ciT'("Umst'1J1CCS in which the beholder en.
counters literalist WOrk. Morris makes this explicit. Whereas in pre-
:I, vious lllt "what is to be had from the work is located strictly within
Inc rill," the experience of literalist art is of an objeet in a situation-«
one Ihat. virtually by deflnilion) includes the beholder:
or Tile better new work takes relationships out of the work and
makes them t\ function of SpOlCC. light, and the viewer's fleld of
vision. '111C ohject is but one of the terms in the newer aesthetic.
It is in some way more l'eOexive bec.IUSC one's awareness of one.
self existing in lht: sumo space :1$ the work is stronger than in
,,«. previous work, with its man)' internal relationships. One is more
aware than before that ht' himself is cltahlishing rclatioMhips 9S
he apprehends the object from various positions and under vary-
ing conditions of light and spatial context.
 Art and Objccthood 127
Michael Fried 126
by the presence of the object. It is not controlled in the sense of
Mon'is believes that this awareness is heightened by "the strength of
being ordered h)· un aggregate of objects or by some shaping of
the const:lI1l, known shape, the gestalt.'" against which the appear-
the space surrounding the viewer.
HrlCC of the piece from diJl'crt.:nt points of view is constantly being
compared, It is intcnsifled also hy the large si';lIe of much literalist The object, not the beholder, must remain the center or focus of the
work: situation; but the );itu:lHOIt it,,,elf belon/µ to the beholder-it is his
The nwareuess of scale is a function of the comparison made situation. Or us Morris has remarked. "I wish to emphasize that
between that constant. onc s body .~i~.e,and the object. Space things are in a space with oneself. rather than .. , [that) one is in a
between the subject and the object is implied in such a compari- space surrounded by things." A~ajn, there is no clear or hard distinc-
tion between the two states of .i.ffaus: one is, after all, alu.;lQlJs sur-
SOI1.
rounded by things. nut the things thnt are literahst works 01 art
The larger the object the more we arc forced to keep om' distance must somehow confront the beholder-they must, One might al-
r rom it: most say, he placed not just in his space but in IDS u,"l1Y. None of this,
MOrris maintains.
It is this necessary, greater distance of the object ii' space from
our bodies. in order that it be xeen at nil, that structures the indicates ,I lack in the object itself. Rill the concerns
of interest
nonpcrsonal Of puhlic mode [which :Morris advonates]. However, IIOW Me for more control of ... [he entire situation. Control is
it i:; ju:-I this distance bct\\'(;(·f) object and subject that creates a necessary if tht! va.riahles of object. light, space, body, are to fune-
more cxtended situation, because phystcal participation bcoomes lion. The object has not become less important, II has merely
rWI.'eSsary. become less self-important.
The theatricality of Morrts's notion of the "nonpcrsonal or public It is, J think, worth remarking
that "the entire situation" m<.'8DS
mode" se-ems obvious: the largeness of the piece, in conjunction with exactly that: aU of it-includi,)!).it seems, the beholder's body.
its nonrelatioual, unitary character, distances the beholder-not just There is nothing within his field of vision-nolhiJIg that be takes
physically but psycbi~llly. It bo, one might ~I)" precisely this distanc- note of in any w<I}'-that, as it were, declares its irrelevance to the
ing that makes the beholder a subject and the piece in question ... situation, and therefore to the experience, in question, On the con-
an object. But it docs nol follow that the larger the piece the more trary, for something to be perceived at ;111 is for it to he perceived ;)S
securely its "public" character is established: on the (.'Ul'trM)" "be- part of tflat situation. Everyihing counts-not as part of the object.
rond a certain si'l.c the object can 'Overwhelm and the gigantic scale but 3S part of the situation in which it~ objecthood is establish cd and
becomes the loaded term." ~torris wants to achieve: presence
on which that objcctbood at least partly depends.
thro\l~h objecthuod. which requires a ccrt~lin largeness of scale,
rather than through :size alone. But he is also aware lll:'1t this dis-
IV
tinction is anything hut hard find fast:
Furthermore, the presence: of literulist art, which Crccuberg was the
FOI' the space of the room it:self is a structuring factor both in its flrst to analyze, is basically a theatrical effect or quality-a kind of
cubic shape and in terms of the kind of comprcss~ol\ different SUlgc presence, It i...l ~I function, not just of the obtrusiveness and,
SL-l.Cd and proportioned rooms can effect upon the objeet-.·mh$ect often, even a~r(:.'>Sivcncss of lHeral~1 work, but of the special com-
terms. That t\1(' spare of the room becomes of such importance pliclty that that work extorts from the beholder. Something is said to
docs not mean that an environmental situation is being estab- have presence when it demands that the beholder take il into ac-
lished. The tot,11 :-'l).'1CC is hopefully altered in certain desired ways count, that he take it scriously-and when the fulfillment of that
 Art and Objecthocd 129
Michael Fried 128
IhaC most closely approach the literalist ideals of the nonrclational,
demand consist-, simp), in being uwmC of it and. so to speak, ill the unitary and the wholistic are otll(~r persons. Silnilarly. the literal-
act ing t\c()(mlingly. (CcI'l:1in modes ul SCl'iOUSII(.,l;lI are dosed to the ist predilection (or S)'III111etry . and in ~encral for" kind of order that
beholder' by the wor], itself, i.('., those established b)' the !inest paint- '<is simply order ... one thillg after another." is r()ot('(I, Hot. as Judo
ill~ and s(."Ull)tuTc of tilt' recent past. Hili, of course, those arc hardly seems to believe, in new philosophical and scientific prill('lpll~S.
lIIodes of seriousness in which llIost pcopk' I(,c\ at home, UI' that they whatever he takes these to be, but in nature, And third. the: appar-
even find toh-rnblc.) Here again the experience of being dist:1ll('ro cnt hollowness of most literalist work tIle quality of h;I\'lI\g an
by lilt' work ill (l'lt"~tion seems crucial: the beholder knows himself in$'idc-·i$ o Imost blatan t ly ;.IIl( h ropornorphic. It is, as numerous
to stand ill nn indctcrtninnte, ope\l.ended-and uoexacting-e-rcln- commentators have remarked approvingly, as though tilt' work in
tion (1.$ Sfll'it>ct to the impassive uhject on the wall or floor. Tn fact. question has an imler> even secret, Iife-:'In efFect that is perhaps
l>t:in~ distanced hy such ahjeds is not. 1 suggest. entirely unlike made most explicir in Morris's Ull/illed (ltl65-6G). a large ringlike
being dlstanced, or crowded, by the silent presence of unothet per- form in two halves, with fluorescent light glowing Irom within at the
S()Il; the experience {If coming upon litcrulist objects uncvpectedly-e- narrow gap between the two. In the same spiril TOllY Smith has
for l'x;lmp\t·. in somewhat darkened rooms-e-c ..sn be strongly, if said, "I'm intel·~ ..ted ill the inscrutablllty lind mysteriousness of the
lfIunwlltarily. uis/luieting in jll.~tlhis way. tltin~."t; H(, has also been quoted ItS saying:
There nre three Irwin reasons why this is $0. Ftrst, the size of
t)lII(·h literalist work, as }..torr1s's remarks iUlp1r. compares fairly -'Jore and u mre I've become Interested in pncumutk, structures.
dos(,I), with that of tht: human hlldy. In chis context Tony Smith's In th(·:<I{'.1\11of the mnterlul is in tension, Bllt it is the characte-r of
replies to <pl(')o,hons about hi:. six-foot culx-, Die, are high ly suggcs- lilt' form tll:ll appeals to me. Tilt' biomorphic f()rm~ that result
tivc-: (rom tlt(' eonsrrucuon have.: ,I dreamlike quality for me, at least
lih· what iii "aid to be a laidy common type of American
Q: Why didu't )'011 make it larger so th'lt il would 100m over the d rerun.
observer?
$lIlilh's int('I'('sl in pneumatic SlIlIctlltes may seCII) surprising, hilt it
A: I was not making It monument,
Q: Then why didn't yOll lIIake it smaller SO that the observer is eonsbt('nt both with hi~ Own work and with literalist sensibility
gent-r.lll}'. Pnt'lIlil~tk'structures (';lll he described as hollow wilh a
could see over tltt: top?
vcngcance-c-the Iact that they are not "obdurate, solid masses"
A: J was not making om object."
(~10rris) being illsisted em insl<":lcl of taken for grunted, And it
(1 ne way of d('';'<(;tihin~ what Smith Icas making might he somethillg reveals something. I think. about what hollowness m-ans in literalist
like a surr<)g~lll' \wrson-thOll is, a kind of statue. (This reading Ilnds ,III thl\t thr- forms that result ar(' "hiomorphic."
support' in the caption to a photograph of another or Smith's pieces,
1'Iw mack Box, published in the December 1967 issue of Art/ownl, in V
which Samuel \\'ait-"taff, Jr., pn.'StIJl\lIhly with the nrtist\ sanction. ob- I am suggcstinl{. then, that a kmd of latent or hidden naturnlism,
served, "One can sec the two- by-fours under the piece, which keep it in<i(.'(.>d:mthropomorphi~lll, lies at the core of literalist theory and
from appearing lile architecture 01' .. monument. and set it off as practie». 111C concept of presence all bill says us milch. though
eculpture." The two·by.fotlrs are, in cRect, a rudimentary pedestal. rcrr<"'lr so nakedly as in Tony Smith's statement, "I didn't think of
and thl~rd»' reinforce the statue-like quality of the piecc.) Second,
oJ Ex('('pl fot the :\fOTrfl> ~pi~r:tph .. Ir(".~ll)· QUilted, 311 stntemcnts ur Ton).
tlw entities or beings encountered in everyday experience in terms
Smilh h:lv<, Lt:'('ll InkCt) Irom Samuel Wa):)<l~tt. Jr:<. "Talking 10 'fUll)' Smlth,"
Arlforum. Vol. V. No.4. December 1966.
'. ()lwII!U by Morr~~ IU the o:pil!wJ)i, to hi~ "Note) UII Scllll'>l\lrc. Purt 2."

Michoel Fried 130
them [i.e., the sculptures he "always" madc 1 as sculptures but as
presences of ~l sort." The Itlten(,'Y or hiddenncss of the nnthropo-
morphism h3S been such that the literalists thcll1seh,cs have, as we
have seen, felt rreo to characterize the modernist oTt they oppose,
e.g., the sculpture of O'lvicl Smith and Anthony Caro, M anthropo-
morpbio=e ell:\ractcri'l~tion whose teeth, ima~intlry 10 begin with,
have just been {)ulll:d. 'R)' the same token, however, what is wrong
with literalist work is not th~tl it .ill anthropomorphic hut that the
meaning :1IId, equally, the hiddcuncss of its ~_lIlhropomorphisJJ) are
incurably theatrical. (Not all literaliS1 art hides or masks its anthro-
polllot'pbislIl; the work of lesser flgllrcs like Steiner wcnrs anthropo-
morphislII on its slccvc.) The (;nJci(li (/i.${inctioll that 1 am pr()lK>Sing
:5"0 far is beuace« work that is fllndamelltally theatrical 011(/ work
that is not. It is thctltTlcality that. whatever the differences between
them, links artists like Bladen and Grosvenor,' both of whom have
allowed "gi.gontie seale Ito become] the loaded tcnn" (Moms).
with other, more rc:strailled figures like Judd. Morris, Andre, Mc-
Crnckcn. J.eWitt 3Jld-<l<:spite the size of some of his picccs-e- Tony
Smith." And it is in the interest, though not explicitly in the IUJ(M, of
theatre that literalist Ideology rcj{.'Cls hoth modernist painting and.
at ica,st in the hands of ito; most distill~tlished recent practitioners,
modernist sculpture.
Til this t:ont1ectioll Tony SlIIith's d~ptiolt of a car ride mken ut
night on the New Jersey TUn1l)iKC before it was finished makes
<:()rnpelling reading:
Wbun 1 W{I$ teaching at Cooper Union in the first ~lT or two of
the fifties, someone told me how 1 could get onto the w)finished
New [ersey 'Turnpike. 1 look three students and drove from
somewhere in the Meadows to New Brunswick, It was a dark
, 111the catalogll_(! to h'll q)TUIS:'~ Primal)' :)lrllcturl."S ~ldhlti()ll al the Jc:wUh
MUl>Cum. Blnden wrote. "How do you make the ilt<idc the outside?" and Cros-
venor, "I don't w'I,,1 my ",'{)f\: 10 he: thO'lsht 1)1 l\,. 'lru~e lScl1lpt\Jr(!: 1I14,lYnre
idcu.~ that operate ill the )lX1CIS between lIollC' and eeiling," '111c rdev:LIlOl: of
Ih<".Sl! :.1alClI1cnl3 W what I 11:1\'\:adduced a,</ cvj(kooll fOT tbe tl\oCo11r'1caliCy .. f
lit~T.<Ii(t 111I.'ol)' find practice s:ct!Uls otwlOlllS.
I> It i" 11W-,lItricality, 101). 1I1:.llIInk'l all these a.rthts to Otllt'T Gp;llrll$ ;\$ tlb"nr\ltu
a~ Kaprow, Gnmdl. nnwcillJ:lIOOrg. Oldcnburg. ll"lt\vln. SlUillisor" Kjt!nhob,
Sc)!a'. $;lUl:lr.I~, Christ!). K\,I.mJl~ ••. the llit could S;I) (Ill Indc::ft.nittlly.
Art and Objecthood 131
night and there were 1'10 lights or shoulder markers, lines, railings,
or anything at all except the dark pavement moving through the
landscape of the Hots, rimmed by hills in the distance, but 1'110<:-
tuated b)' stacks, lowers, fumes, and colored lights. This drive
was a revealing experience. The 103<1 and much of the landscape
W:LS artifkial, lind yet it couldn't be called a work of art. On the
other hand. it did something for me that .1rt had never done. At
first l didn't know what it was, but its effect was to liberate me
from man)' of the views J had had about art. It seemed that there
had been a reality there that had not had aor expression in art,
The experience on the road was something mapped out but not
socially recognized. I thought to tn)'sclf, it ought to be clear that's
the end of art. MoS"l painting looks pretty pictorial :'tfte)' that.
There is no way you can frame it, you just have to experience it.
Later T discovered some abandoned airstrips in Europe-s-aban-
doned works. Surrealist landscapes, something that had nothing
to do wilh ;IIIY Function, created worlds without tradition. Ar-lifi.
cial landscape without cultural precedent began to dawn on me.
There i:s ;1 drill ground in Nuremberg large enough to ncoom-
modure two million men. The entire field is enclosed with high
embankments and lowers. TIle concrete approach is three sixteen-
inch steps. one above the other. stretching for a mile or so.
What seems to have been revealed to Smith that night was the
pictorial nature of painting-e-even. one might sa)', the conventional
nature of art. And this Smith seems to have understood not ~IS laying
hare the essence of art, but as announcing its end. In comparison
with thc unmarked, unlit, all but unstructured turnpike-more pre-
cisely, with the turnpike as experienced from within the car, travel.
in~ 011 it-art appears to have struck Smith as :'llmosl absurdly small
("All art today is an ali of postage stamps," he hos suid ), circum-
scribed, conventional. ... There was, he seems to have felt, no way
to "frame" his experience on the road, that is, no way to make sense
of it in terms of art, 10 make OFt of it, at least as art then was.
Rather, "you jllst have 10 experience it"-as it hap-pens. as it merely
is. (The experience alone is what mattcrs.) There is no suggestion
that thIs is problemnttc in an}' way. rJ'hc experience is clearly re-
garded by Smith as wholly accessible to everyone, not j\l~t in prinel-
 Tony Slrith: Tho Bleck Box. 1963-65.
Robelt Morris. Ulltitlcd. 1965. Oroy fiberg!o~ wi'" lighl. 2.4" )( 96" diameter.
~ointed wood. 2W It 3'. Pho~c.g(oph
Ifl the coJlecli:)n of II\c DW<:fI Oolle:ry. Pho;ograph COI/rlosy o! leo Castelli C;~II(lry,
cour-e,y oS Fhchboch Gal!ory, New
NC!·.... Yo:'.:.
York.

Jules ~it$l.;; Dvngo .4~. 1967, AlUMinum PQit\lcd with oc,ylic rosin. 10' )( .44".
h'l Inc col I.Icl'On of Robe.1 Rowan. Photograph COu,IC$Y of And ... EMme:rich Gal.
Icry. N&W York.
Michael Fried 134
plc but III fact, and lilt' question of whether Or 001 one has really
lwei it does not arise. That this appeals to SlIlith can be seen from his
praise of 1;.; Corbusier as "more available" than Michelangelo: "The
direct and primitive experience of the High Court Buikhng at
Chandigarh i-, lik(' the .Pilch los of UlC Southwest under a Iantastic
oV(.'rh;lIl~ing cliff. It'!\ something everyone C:\1) understand:' 1t is, I
think, hardly necessary to add that the availability of modernist art
is !lot of this kind. and thut the ri~htncss or relevance one's
conviction about specific modernist works, ;1 conviction thnt begins
and ends in one's experience of the work itself, is always open to
question.
But wha] u:as Smith's c'xl~ericn<.'C on the turnpike? Or to put the
same question nuother wn}'. if the turnpike, airstrips. and drill
ground an' lint works of ;ll'I, what (I/'(> tht'>'?-What, indeed, if not
<.'mpty. or "abandoned". sitIUlJi()tlS? And what was Smith's experi-
CIlN' if not the experts-nee of what 1 huve been ealllng theatre? It is
as though the turnpike, airstrips, and drill ground reveal tilt! thcatri-
(.",\1character of likralist art, 001)' without the object, that is, It>ilhout
the art jlsdf-as though till: object is needed only within a room"
(01', perhaps, ill ail>' circumstances less extreme thnn these}. In each
of the above cases the object is, so to speak, replaced b)' something:
for example, on the turnpike by the constant onrush of the road. the
simultaneous recc-sion of new reaches of dark pavement illumlned
by the onrushing hcltdlighb. thc sense of the turnpike it~·1f as some-
thing enormous, abandoned, derelict, existing (01' Smith alone and
for those in the <:31' with him '" Thi~ last point is tmpoitant. Ou Ilu~
one hand, Ilw turnpike. nirstrlps. and drill ground belong to no one:
on the oilier. the situation t:st<lblished hy Smith's presence is in each
case fclt b)· him to be hi«. Moreover. in each ease being nble to go
on and on illddinitf'lr is of the e..,._,ence. What replaces the objcct-
what do<!!>the same joh of distancing or isolating the beholder'. of
making him ;, subject, that the object did in the closed room-i~
above all the cndles ..ness, or objcetlesxness, of the apprcnch or on-
rush Of' perspective. II is till;! explicitncvs. th;lt is to say. the sheer
'nl1: ~'(Ifll~1)( of :t mom i:!. IIII)('/ll)' clnndesrinely,
.lIln Ih<'<lr)·. Iu Iact, it (~1.1of~(:n be
:sub.tIIHIC'(! tor the word "~rj''' in the
I.,UN: somethiru; h )aid II) h~' 10 III)' spuoe if it t~ in till' :o.:\m~loom with me
(111l<i if It i. 11incccl so that 1 <:;\11 hfl1~1>' fnil to 1ItCIIi<.x·it).
Art and Objcetbocd 135
persistence, with which the experience- presents itself as directed M
him from otlt~i<k~ (on the turnpike from outside the (~ar) that simul-
hllleo~lsly makes him a subjccr-e--mnkcs him subject-and establishes
UlC experience itself 'IS something like that of an object. Or rather, or
obiccthood. No wonder Morris's specular iOIl~ about how to pul liter-
alist work outdoors rumuin !>tr~tngdy inconclusive:
Wh)' not Ptlt the work outdoors and further change the terms? :\
or real need exists to allow this next step to become practical. Archi-
teetumlly designed sculptllre courts are not the answer nor is thc
placement of work outside cubic architectural forms. Ideally, it is
a space, without architecture as h:ICkgrolll'<i and reference, that
would give {Iiffen:nt terms 10 WOI k with.
Unlc-« the pit'c'(', art' set down in a wholly nntural conti-x], and
Morris does not seem to be ndvocatlng this, some sort of artificial
but !lot tIllite architectural setting must be constructed. \Vhal
Smith's remarks St-em to suggest is 1l1,1t the more eflecrive-e-mcaning
effective as tlw(/tre-the setting is made, the more 'lIl't!tlluous the
works themselves become.
VI
Smith's uccount of hl1> experience on the turnpike bears witness to
theatre's profound hostility to the art"" ;Ind discloses. precisely in the
al).~t:nCt: of the object and in what takes its pillet" what might be
calico the theatricality of ohjcc:thood. R}' the same token, however.
the imperative that modernist painting defeat or suspend its object-
hood is at bottom the impcrativl! th;tI it dejc(ri or .$1I,vr>etul theatre.
And this means that there is a war going On between theatre and
modernist painting. between the tht',ltric:al and Ihc pitlorial-~I war
that. despite the literalists' explicit rejection of modernist painting
and sculpture, is not basically a matter of program IlIId ideology but
of experience. conviction, !>t'nsibilit)'. (For example, il was n pnrticu-
lar experience that (mgclltierc.:ci Smith's conviction that painting-in
f:let. that the arts a....such-were flnished.)
The starkness <'IUd apparent irrcconcilnbility of this conflict is
iJl1I>()fI~'lt 10 11tC"l':oli>t
arl
something new. I remarked earlier that objeeehond has become an
issuc for modernist painting only within the past se ..-cral years. This,
however, is not to say th~t before the present situntion came into
Micho~l Frie~ 1;$6 Art ond Objccthood 137

being, l),dll(in~s, or sculptures for thut matter, simply I~cm obiccts. Similarly, what has compelled modernist painting to defeat or sus-
1t would. I think. be closer to tile tnlth to say that the)' .'iimply were P(:II<I its own objeethood is not just developments internal to itself.
not.!" The risk. even the possibility, of seeing works of ,1I't as noth- hilt the same general. enveloping. infectious theatricality that cor-
ill~ /liMe than objects did not exist That this pOx'~ibilily began to ruptcd litcrulist senslhtlity in the first place and in the grip of which
present itself nround 1960 was l:u~cl)' rhe rt'!\\l1t of developmonts the developments in question and modernist painting in geut'ra)-
within modernist 1J<lilltillg. nou~hl)', lht! more nearly assimilable to are seen (IS nothing more than an uncompclling and preseneeless
objects cl'rt.lill advanced p(dl\hn~ had come to seem. the more tIll' kind of theatre. It was the need Io break the fingers of this grip that
entire lliSlOI,), of pllilltinlC since \tallt't could 1)(, nnderstood-e- made objccthocd OIl) issue (or modernist painting.
delusively. 1 1,..ltt'\,e-ils ('<mslstingill the progressive (though ultl- Ohjecthood has also become an issu!;' for modernist sculpture.
mutely inadequate] revelation of its essential objecrhocd.!' ,Ind the This is true despite the r,u:t that sculpture, being thrcc-dimousional,
mOH' urqcnt 00(:41111<.' the need (m' modernist paintint; to make ex- resembles both I)rdinary objects and litcrallvt wurk ill ,I way that
plicil lIs eonvcurionul- specifically, Its l)iciorilli-cssene<> by defeat- l);linting doe." not, Almost ten years ago Clement Greenberg
ing or suspending il<; own objccthood through the IIIt'di\lm of shape. SllIIlITIl,<1 up what he saw as the emergence of (l new sculptural
The view of modernist t>i'inting Its tending toward ohjecrhood is "style," whose master is undoubtedly David Smith, in the following
implicit in judd's remark. "The new [Le., literalist] work obviously terms:
resemble- sculpture more than it dol's patnting, but it j" nearer to To render substance entirely optical. and for,", whether pictorial,
painting"; and it is in this view that likrnli$t sensibility ill gc.>nert\l is sculptural, or architectural, as an illte~ral part of ambient space-s-
grounded. Llteralist sCIl"ihility is. therefore, a response 10 the same this brings anh·illllsionism full circle. Instead of the illuxion of
developments that have \;1I'gdy compelled modernist p;'i"tin~ to things, we arc !lOW offered the illusion of modalities: namely that
undo its objeethood-c-more precisely. the same developments seen mnth'r is incorporeal, weightless, and exists only optically like n
c1iJjrm:llt1y, that is. in tht'alric::al terms. by a M"nsihility alm(lt/!I thcat- mirage.!"
rical, already (to say the worst) corrupted or perverted b)' theatre.
Since 1000 thi~ development has been carried to a sU<XX.'SSionof
14 Sla"lt'y Cavell h~< remarked ill ~j'mhur lh31 COt ({fll) I in lhj' Critiquc .)/ climaxes by the English sculptor Anthon)' Caro. whose work is far
JIIIIr:ITl.mt a \\'(JI~ of MI is nll( .11'1 (,LjI'Cl. T \\;11 take Ihi- ('.'.~()(tunit)· (0 al'-
more specifically resistnnl 10 ht"ing seen in terms of objccthocd than
ImowIN\sjt' the Ca(.'l 11..-l wilh.ot.1t IlUlJlt.-TOU> ~'I.).WM"<!tI\ml~ with Ca\,1'1i durinl:
tlld P;Ht tew ),(·.1r.<. :IIlU \\Hlto". whut 1 It:w,: hr.u",·(t from him i" c,,"'<~ and that of David Smith. :\ characteristic SCtllplllT(' hy Can) (~on~lsts, T
~t!lHil"1I". 11ll' tln'~>f'nl ~"'<1I)" altd I\~ It nlooL-would 1~'i\'(' hN-n ilwelllC't'iv ••bl«. W<If)! to say, in the mutual and naked jllX/(lpositioll of the I-beams.
1 want abo 10 1:<\\)(('<" 11\) I-!r..litu~lc :11\0 Inn,-llt.!<lll~~> to 11,(, compll~cr Jol,,) ~ifdcrs. cylinders, lengths of piping, sheet metal, and grill that il
11mh,{of) who, lc~dhcr \\ ilh hts wife, tIl!:! \'iull"i~1 Ro<C''TOOIry 1!:\ll.moll. hOl~ comprises rather thnn ill the compound 0/)1('(:'1 that tlwy compose.
~i''('n IlW wh"I('V('Y Initillll(lII into 1IW,<iCrIl rnude 1 I"wt' l\.'Id. both f(l: dial ini-
11\t: mutual inflection of one element by another, rather than the
tt,ltInn .md fur lIunWIU'" In.:;ights hearill)o! ,)0' the <\lhjcct t,f Ihi. c ......)'.
:: One' \\'11)' m dt'.<uibilljo! 111;~view lIli~ht lx· In 'in)' that it dr.1\\'~ ~l)lIwthln~ identity of each. is what i" cntdal-lho\,gh or course alt~rillg tht:
11k" '" f"h .... ;"f"f('/K'C' fnlln dlt~ ('.(1 11\.'11the iIlCft'.,.incl)' l."Xl)I!C'lI11('\;110,,1cdJ!' ici('IHily of :my dement would be al least as drastic :IS altering its
trlL'111 of lilt! IIkrol chnracter rI! the )"['{IOrt hll~ been cenuul to the dC'\·t..rop~ placement. (The identity of each elc;lllent matters in somewhat the
mr-ne of modernist I>: .. "tjllg: n ..mely, lhal lit'II.,,"w<<. OJ' ludl i.< ;\11 artivtie v .lhl('
same wa), :'Is the fact that il is an arm, or this arm, that makes a
'Jf slIpr{'ll'\C- Ilnpl)1l.111cl;. III "Shape liS Form" 1 .-1ll'1I'c! Ihllt this lllft'rcI'('C is
UJi..d tn ~C'lt:lh) vttal (.'(NI>idcr.lli .... <: nncl implied 11,;.1 litt;'nlll~<-m.~t' pre- particular gesture. or as thc Iact th,lt il ix this word Or this note and
'l$cl). lIk' Iile~lnt~~ of the ~UI)potl--iS ,I
\';\h~(' onl)' Witlllll IIw(k"mt,,1 puint- not another that occurs in 3 particular place in a sentence or
illE:. mel the-n 0111y L~~',I\I>c il hn~ hl'O'll Imlll,- \>11,' h)' till' hisIOI)' II! that Cllt"'· melody.) The individual elements bestow significanCe OJ) One an-
prill'. 1 ~ "'(1le XI:NI Sculpture," :\rt tIIld Culture, 131>.<11)11. 19B1, p. 14'\.
Michocl Fried 138
other precisely h)' virtue of their [uxrnposition: it is in this sense', a
~1'1I"1' mevtricably involved with the COIICCl)t vf meaning, that every
thin~ in Care's art thai is worth looking :It is in its S}'nlMC, Care's
(.'OIl(:\"lIlratioll upon syntax amounts. U1 Crcenberg's view, to "an
emphasis 011 abstractness. OD radical unlikeness to nature."I:! And
Gr('("nbt:I'g p;ocs 011 to remark, "No other sculptor has "~one us fill'
[rom the structural lo~ic of ordinary ponderable things:' It is worth
t'lllpha:;\zin<:. however. (h;1I this is a function or more than the low.
IWSS, openness. pnrt-by-partncss, abscuoe of enclosing profile." and
centers of iuterest , unpcrspioucusness, etc .• of C;lI'()S sculptures.
Rather they defeat. or allay, objeethood by inlitating, not gestures
exactly, but IlIl' cifiNl('!J of gesture: like certain music and poetry.
they ,II"(~ possessed by the knowledge of the hum ..H'I body and how,
in innumerable wa)'s and moods. it makes meaning. It is ,I::' though
Carn's sculptures essentialize meaningfulness (I:> such--.'l~ though the
possibility of "waning what we s:\y ;11)0 do alone makes his sculp-
tun; possible. All this. il is hardly necessary to add, makes Caw's aft
n fountainbeud of antilitcralist ancl antithcatricnl sen<:ihihty.
TIII>I'e is another, more general respect in which objccthood has
become ;111 iSSlI1;! for the most ambitious recent modcmlst sculpture
nnd that is in regard to color. This is " large and difficult subject,
wluch I cannot hope to do more than touch on hert>"~ Briefly.
however. color h;l:-: become problematic for modernist sculpture, not
because one senses that it has been apptied, but because the color of
a given sculpture, whether applied or in the natural state of the
material, is iclenticn] with its surface: and inasmuch 3$ all objects
have surface, awareness of the sculpture's surface irnpliex its object-
hood-e-thcrcby threatening to q\l(\lif)' or mitigate the undermining
•.-.Thtc ~nd the foUnwin>! t':H\<1f'" nrf' rnken [Tom Crt!l!nut.'1'll~ C~fI)', "Antoon)'
CIIII)." .\r/) )','nrfwok. Xo. S. 19~. Caro's filsl ~Cl.j) in Ihls direction, tilt! dilni·
n.-lion (If the 1)l'd\!~t"l. 1>\Wm,; In retrospect to have b\!\."l' mottvnred not br the
d('<H,· to provr-nt his wml.: w ithlJlUl :,rliRcl;l1 ;!l(l~ S(l milch as ~. !lIt! llood to
\,,,(krlnill!; it, ohjrcthoon. llis wnrk }l~ 1(''1(·.. 1(''(1 th .. ('xtcnt to which Int!Tt<I),
puttin~ '>.(l1l1l!thio~ (It! " VC(!I.'l't;l1 CQllfirrru' it in its obicethood: chour,h merely
removing Ih.. flo:ddlal doc.$ 1101 in It~c!lf uodermioe obio:-c!llood. :o~ Iit('YlllllOt
work 1''''\1\'''-""""
,. Scc \.fco,;tibcrs·~ "Anlhool)' Cnro" :\1«\ thl' In!ct ~ccdoo lilY "Sh~I)CIn
F(,nll" for more. thou)!tl not n grc.,t deal moee. about color \11 <(1'\0111(1'.
At! and Objccthood 139
of object hood achieved b), opticaliry and. in Cure's pleces, by their
syntax as well. It is in this connection, I believe, that a very recent
sculpture, Bung«, by Jules Olitski ought to be seen. Bwrg(J consists
of between fifteen and twenty metal tlll)e:.... ten feel long and of
vilrious diameters, placed upright, riveted together and then sprayed
with point of diflel'(!nt colors: the dominant hue is yellow to yellow.
orange, but the top aud "rear" of the piece arc suffused with (\ deep
rose, and close looklOg reveals flecks and even thin trickles of green
Mel reel ,IS well. A rather wide red band has bern painted around
the top of the piece, v..hile a milch thinner band in two different
blues (one at the "front" and another at the "rear"] circumscribes
the vel')' bottom. Obviously. Hllrlga relates intimately to Olltski's
spray paintings, especially those of the past year Or so, in which he
has worked with paint and brush at Or near the limits of the support.
At the same time, it amounts to something Iar more thall an attempt
slrnply to make or "translate" his 1}.."Iillhng_, into sculptures, namely,
an attempt to establish surface=-rhe surface, so to speak, of paInting
-as a medium of sculpture, The use of tubes, each of which one
sees, incredibly. as jfaJ-thnt is, Ilat hut r()f/ed-ma};(.'$ RU1tg.a·~ sur-
fa('C more like that of a painting than like that of ::H'I object: like
painting, and unlike both ordinary objects and other S<.'1J11)tul'e,
Rtm::a i:. all surface. And of course what declares or establishes that
surface is color, Olitski's sprayed color.
VII
At this point I want to make a claim that I cannot hope to prove or
substantiate bUI thaI I believe nevertheless to be true: viz., that
theatre and theatricality arc at war today. )10t simply with modernist
painting (or moderntst p:1infing and sculpture), but with art as
such-s-and to the extent that the different arts CUn be described as
modernist, with modernist sensibility ;l·S !'tllch. This claim can be
broken down into three propositions or theses:
1) The $UC~~, soen the suroioal, 0/ the arts has come increasi1lgly
to dcueml 011their ubility to <ic/cat theatre. This IS perhaps nowhere
more evident than within theatre itself. where the need to defeat
a.s wh<lt I have been c.111illg theatre has chiefly made itself felt as the
need to establish a drastically different relation to its audience. (The
Michoel Fricxl 1~O Art end Objccfho<>d 1~1

relevant texts are, Or course, Brecht and Art3I1d.I:') For theatre has general, including frankly appcliling ones, arc acceptable to modern-
an audi('llcl-it exists for Onl.,--10 ;\ \va)' the other arts do not; in ist sensibtlily whereas all but tht- most successf 1I1painting, sculpture.
f'l('I, 11Hsmore than anyllung else is what modernist se-nsibiliry finds music, and poetry is oot. Because cinema escapes thcatro=-auto-
intoler.rblc in theatre ~ener.111)'. Here il should be remarked that matically, as it were-s-It provides a welcome and absorbing refuge to
litcr.;dbt :II'l, too, possesses an audience, though n solllcwhOlt special !wll:.lhilitics at Will' with theatre and tlW;ilrit'alit)·. At the same time,
one: that the be-holder is confronted hy literalist work Within a the automatic, gl,arantecd character of the refuge-more accurately,
situation that he experiences :\..\Itls means that there is an important the fact that what is provided is a refuge (rom theatre and not a
sense in which thl! work in question c-.:ist:. for him alone. even if Iw triumph over it. absorption not ccnviction-e-means that the cinema,
is nut ;wtually alone with the work at the time. It lila)' seem pam- even at its most e~rirnc;'tal, is not a modernist art.
doxical to claim holh that literalist scn"ihliily aspires to :111 ideal of 2) Art dcgcnerote« as it approaches the condition of theatre.
"somcthlng everyone can undcrstaud" (Smith) and thot Iitt'ralist art Theatre is the common denominator thai binds n Jorge and seem-
addresses itself to th{· heholrle r alone, out the p'II·:.do:.: is only appar- ingJ}' disparate variety of activities to one another. and that distin-
ent. SOIlll'()IW ha~ merely to enter the rOOlI) in which a literalist work guishes those :ldi"iti('s from the radically different enterprtscs of the
ha.s been plated to heroine that beholder, that audience of 011(,'- modernist arts. J Iere as elsewhere the question of value or level is
uhnoxt a.; Ihou~h the work in cjlll':.hon has been wa;(lJIg for hun. central. For example, a failure 10 register the enormous difference in
And inasmuch as litcmhst work depends 011 Itw beholder. is ;11C;(III1· clllaHt)' between, sa}', the muslc of Carter and tJ. ...l of Cage or be-
plell' without him. it has been \\"lilin~ for him. And once he i~in the tween the p.dntings of Louis and those of Hauschcnbcrg means that
room tlw wor], rd\L"CS, obstinately. to It'! him alonc-s-which is to the 1'e31 distinctions-between music and theatre in the first instance
say, it refuses to stop confronting him. distancing hiln, i~iating him. and between palllling and theatre ill thc second-are displaced by
(Slid, isol;lIioll is not solitude ail}' more than such <'''OlIfr(nltation is the iII\1sion that the barriers between the arts nrc in the process of
communion. ) crumbling (Cage and Hauschcnbcrg bl'ing seen, correctly as simi-
Tt b the overcoming of tiw:ltl't' that modernist s('nsihilily finds lar} and that the arts themselves arc at last sliding towards some
most exalting and that it experiences ." the hallmark of high art in kind of fin:II, implosive, bugel)' {/{':\irahlc: syntbesis.!" Whereas in
our time. There is, however, one' art that. b)' ils ver)' nature, escapes
theatre entirely-e-thc movies,H: This hdps explain why movtex ill
;:tlt',lill, Ia~~ cnll<'d ,ttc:ntinn, in COIIVeNation, to thl' SMt nf r'C'Inc;ml)l!7ill~Lllal
:. "11\ 111'1'(1to ochit·\·(, a new r'\:'Jaliv/I to the Wt·,"1nlor, which Br c-chl fdt s..'<I~ into I!i\'inj! :III 3\,'(;~nt of <I movie, and more S!t!n~lally to the nnlllTC of
aud wl u dl he d"t\" ...t·c1 nmr- ;md Il~ill in llis writill)t) on d'l",llft WAS.nnt ~Im· the ditfi<:ult:('.$that lire involved ill )(i\'inp, such an n('C(I\IJlt.
pI)' til" result of hb \1:lf~l,m. On the- contrury. "is di><''O\~IY (If 1\1<11" '(,f'ln~ .t This t~ th .. view at SU)3n SOl'lta$:. whose Y:\rl(lll< ~or<. (XI1IC{1('(1 in
to huvr- 1><'.'11 10 part the uisll>v,~y of "hfll this rclntion might bc like-, ",1\;lt it .-\~ajMr Intc;l'ptcturiotl. m'IIount 10 J1("Yh~ps the purest- -t:crbiuly 11..-, l'I\(I~t
m1r.h. rm-nn: "\\'0('11 1 nxul :-tur.\\ C(t)lir,d I ,m,w,<Jood my plny«, ~ntllr.llI)' ('gr('ltll)lI~prrs~nn of what 1 have been \,wJllinll I it(,.ltft<,...1 ~('Jl~hility in
1 \\';allt ,,, w, thi, I)""k wid,'ly dr'(11Inlctl. It wa~II't of course Il,,,t I f')110<l 1 rCCl"I! ~rilh:i>nr I .. tJ.\{ ScMC 1111')'nre indeed the "case :.tudjc~ for :1)1 l'csl1telic,
Iwd UUl'OlI~i()l1>h' \\fin,·" .1 wholr pill' of Manist plny~: but 1111>111:\11\1:\(-.; a Ih~Jo:'Y .» ItI)' own !It!n)ibiilt)·'' that she tnkr~ them tn be. ln a charueteristic
w .. , the- unl)' '11<"<'1.111)1' for rll~ pl.,y> I'd C'VC'( corm- :1('1'0<'." (IJl'f'dlt tnl Theau«, l~SQg(' ~h~~ Snnt,lg ('(Intends!
rcitlc..t md h'~n<:'trd h)' 101m WiIlr.-II. "'l"\~ '1'(111... I<)(U. 1)1). 23-~N.)
, I' "'~'II) I.e.", IIw Ill(W/," ('CCIlII(' lhcalr., i..:a bt-.,utiful qlll"<ti,,... :Clld 11""1"\' .<\."1 to!b)' h :I new )dl~ (.If Instrument for nwclifyin); oon-
jI\Stl\II11CI1I, all
1< "" d.)uhl l",{ tl.,., ~ Ilhc'n<lmmol()l,ty .li! the c inemu dIal (~IlCltlll:tlt'el elel rhr- :<clClmne:t( and OI"$:ani'LiJl); lIew JYlot*.e~of ~Ml~lh'Jfty. And Ill<- mennx (or
)illlliarilw> ano ..lilT ,'I't'I Io\,'c" h," \\'1'('Jl It allll the tlu-atre- e.c .. llial ill the IJl/'lVil'~ prncticlng nrt have been rudic:illy extcntlt'd.. • V:)illtCI' Il() long('r fool
thr- .II-tm< are 1101 it~tr>l~;tllr Jl«'~C'IlI. the- IlIm hl'rlf l~ PI"OI('('I<,«I ur.oof( frulli us; Ilu:ln,;{'I\'I'<; rn.nllncd to CADV,u und paint, but t!lIlP1oy h... air. l)lt<ltOm',\DJ~,
\\';1X. sand, b:~ydl! tires, their own tontbbrushes, and socks .... All kiml$
111,. '\-(('/'11 t< /\('It <,xlwricnccd ;1> .. kind of obJn1 c;xi-tillq. <.0 to ~1X'nk, In 1\
~ (.'mwcnliol)3Uy aC't.'C!ptud bound:\f('.) l~\!tr th{·rcn), been C'hl\llcn~oo: not
~pcdflc ~1.lj'li(·.,1 rd:\I/l)n milS, Ck WIl'Illd be o:xtrelOdy rt'\\'~rtlilll!. Cavell,
)U~t the one between the N:<ci.enliSc" .lDd lh~ "literary-artistic" cultures, IX'
 • . ....... 14,i Art end Obleetheod 1~3

facl the individual arts have never been more explicitly concerned they are used diroctlr. the}' arc more specific. Also, the}' ure usu-
with the conventions that constitute their respective essences. ally aggressive. There is an objectivity to the obdurate identity of
3) The concepts 0/ quality und v(I/uC-<llld to the exten! that a material.
these are central to art, the COIIC(:pt of art ilsell-{lre sncaningjul, 01'
Llke the shape of the object, the matenals do not represent. signify.
wholly mcanill:!ful. 01l11j within th« iru!ividual arts. Whnt ltes he-
or allude to :lnything; they are wh;lt they are and n()thing more. And
tween 'he ons is theatre. fl is. 1 think, sigui.6cnnt that in their
what they are is not, strictly speaking, something that is ~I'asp'cd or
various statements the liternhsts hnve largely avoided the issue of
intuited Or recognized or even seen OI1W and for nil. Hathe:r, the
value or qu ..lily at the snme time :IS they have shown considerable
"obdurate identity" of a specific material, like the wholeness of the
uncertainty as to whether or not what they are making is 1U't. To
shape, is simply stilted or given or established at the- wry outset, if
describe their enterprise ,15 an attempt to cst ..bllsh a lieu; art does
not before the outset; accordingly, the experience of both is one of
not remove the uncertalnty, at most it points to its source. Judd
endlessness, of inexhaustibility. of being able to go on and on Jet-
himself has as much as acknowledged the prohlcmutlc character or ting, for example, the material itself confront one ill all its literal-
lite literalist enterprise by hi.; claim, "A work needs only to be inter-
ness, its "objectivity," its absence of anything beyond itself. In a
esrtng." For Judd. 8... for literalist sensibility gcncrnlly. all that mat-
similar vein Morris has written:
rers i~ whether or »ot a gi\'cn work is able lo elicit and sustain (his)
interest. Whel'(,'1l~within the modernist arts J)othing short of cOIu;ic- Charactortstic of il gcSI<l}t is that once it is established all Ilia
1I00t~1)eeifically. the conviction that a pnrticular painting or sculp- iuformation "bout it, qua gestalt, is exhausted. (One does not,
ture or poem or piece of music can or cannot support comparison for example, seck the gestalt of a gestalt.) ... One is then both
with past work within that art whose quality is not in doubl- free of the shape and bound to it. Free or released because of the
matters :It all (Lttcrnhst work is often condemned-c-whcn it is exhaustion of information about it, us shape, and bound to it
condemned-for being boring. A tougher charge would he that it is because it remains constant and indivisible.
merely interesting.)
The interest or
a given work resides, in Judd's view, both in its The same note is struck by TOllY Smith in a statement the flrst
character as a whole and in the: sheer slXJcI1rcitlj of the materials of sentence of which Tquoted earlier:
which it is made:
I'm interested in the iuscrutabiltry and mysteriousness of the
~lost of the work involves new materials, either recent inventions thing. Something obvious OJ) the race of it (like a washing mao
or things not IISC(\ before in art. ... Msterinls vary greatly and chine Or a pump) is of IlO further interest. A Bennington earthen-
are simply materrals-e-Ionnica, aluminum. cold-rolled steel. l)lc:<i- ware jar, for instance, has subtlety of color, largeness of form, a
glas, red and common brass. and so forth. The)' are specific. }( general suggesrion of substance, generosity. is calm and reas-
-- - --- -- ----- ------- suring-e-qunlltles that take it beyond pun: utility. It continues to
IllI.' (1f)U between "art" and ~,t·; but also
NJ10Jl ... C>tahli~ht!d ciistinClioru
tn:my nourish us time and time agnln. \\le can't see it in a second, we
within the world of ('1111111'\."
irwlf--(lint hrlw('('tJ fonn flucl content. the Irivo- continue to read it. T1H.:reis something absurd in the fact that you
1011:<:ut<f thu s~i()l1". anti (a f.1vorite (If literary intellccreols) "hljlh" and
-II)'\~" culture. (Clp. 296-97) can go hack to a cube in the same way,
Tl't' truth ~ that the- distill(.'llo)lI between 01(' (ri\,,(I'O~~ .:m:1 Ihe ,.\'ri<M'~ beeomes Like judd's Specific Objects and Morris's gestalts or unitary forms,
mere ur;:T.t!nt.even nOs<llllle. 0"1:1')' dny, :lit<! the MltN'prifCj of the mOO<:1'11i:<t arts
lI)tlT(J p"rei)' moU\,;llt:o by tbe Ide 1IC'C'd to Pe1})Ch~'1IC Ill(' ~t.lll<klrd.s nud values
Smith's cube is always of further interest: one never fools that one
or tho llil!JI :ll t (lr (hI! 1l\'\.S(. has come to the end of it; it is inexhaustible. It is inexhaustible,
Michacl Fricd 146 Art and Objcclhcod 147

sculpture is, so to speak. eclipsed by the sculpture itself-which it is VIII

plainly meaningless to speak of .IS onl}' 1wltiy prescnt.) It is thh
conunuous and entire presentness, amounting. :15 it were. to the
perpetual creation of itsdf, that one experiences as a kind of instun-
faneoustless: 4IS thou~h if only one were infinitely more acute. a
single infinitely brief instant would he long enough to sec every-
thing, to experience the work in all its depth and flllIl1~, to be
forever convinced hy iI. [Here it is worth noting that the concept of
interest implte s temporality in the form of continuing attention di-
rected 51 the object. whereas the concept of conviction (foes not.) I
want to claim that it is by virtue of their presentness and instantane-
ousness that modernist painting and sculpture defeat theatre. In
Iaot, I am tempted Jnr beyond my knowledge to suggest that, faced
with the need to defeat theatre, it is 81)0\'e all to the oondition of
painting and sculpture-s-the condition. that is. of existing in. indeed
of seereung or eonsthuting. a continuous and perpetual present-s-
that the other contemporary modcmlst arts. most notably poetry
and music, aspire.'O
1" WI!.:It thi:< Il)<."ill~ in each Arl will n~lw:t")' be difIt:rC'11. For (';\~mplc.
mwi.c·> sillMtlOll i.~~~F«'iallydim~lll in tbut n.u~ic ~bur('.s widl 11'("llre the
eonventton, If j mil)' eoll il 11'3t, o! durarion-s-u couvenuen that. r am <\I$:'-
J;~lillg. h.3_<Ibelf become !n~~s-ill~)' IIte"hk~1. Bu~;t1M', the I>hy,;iC:lJ drown·
lOl.lDC(') (I( " t.'Ol'll"e'ftclosely resomble those of 1\ Ih~mtrlC:l1 p('riorm.)llce. It mny
have bel:" the dt':<irc fOl ~ornl'thing like J)lc)cnllle:.~ that, nt Ieust to some ('.~-
tent. led Brecht 10 advocate a nOlulllllliulli<Ck thcntre. iI' whk:h [(II' example
thl! ~t,llI(Clrclltin{! wmdd I~ visible to (he nudience, in whkh tIle nctors WIXI!d
IIOt ilil!11l1f)' wid, the (·hnl;tclc:.r~ th(',Y pIli)' but ...\tlW.1 would sbow LItem forth,
lind in which tt.'f11Jl(Jmlit}, itJ;(:lI would be 1)1('<('"1110(\ ill a new ",.1)';
This essay will he read as an attack 011 certain ;u·tisl<; (and critics)
and ax a defense of others. Alld of course it is true that the desire to
diselnguish between what is to me the authentic art of our lime> and
other work. which, whatever the dedication, passion, und intclli-
gence of its creators. seems to me to share certain characteristics
nssocintcd here with the concepts of lltcralisrn and th,,·nt((·. has
largely motivated what I have written. In these 1,ISl sentences. hnw-
ever, 1 want to ~1I attention (0 the utter pcrvasiveucss-s-the virtual
uuiversality-s-of the sensibility or mode of boing that I have charac-
terized as corrupted or perverted b)' theatre. \Vc are all JilcraJists
most or ~IU of OUI' lives. Presentness is grace.
--------- -- -- -- ------
But illst ;as the ('\I)()<('(I lightinl_( Otccht adVOI'MC':< 1\l4~ lX'(l()(II(' 1llt:1d)' unoiher
kind of tl~ntrlC:ll oonvcntion (Ol~, moreover. th:ll art",) pln}'~ ;1Il illlpn.tilnt
role in the ptt:.sl:ntalion of III<.<wl!lOtwork, a~ tile i~l;lllariofi "I('\V of Judd'"
ii.\-eube ~I'~ in the 0",.... 11 Cnll('IY $ht)w~), It i.~not elcnr wll<'th.:r Ille hnu-
<Ilinr. of rlrne Breoht call:; (or h tanturnount 10 alltllt:lI~k !lXt~s(."ntrle)::\,or merely
to .mudtl'r 1:1".0 II! 1'''·M;m;-e-i..c .. to tl,(, 1"l')lClltll\ent d lime il!<rlf :Il' though
It were some sort o! IIIt'raJist (lbf<'Cl. In Jloct1')' the n~et! ro: pr('j;('lIll1~~ mani-
f~ls itl'('\( in tll(! lyrh: poem: thts i): iI whjcrt th..,t retlllirn it" own heatm<mL
For dlb<CII.~(it>llj;(If theatre muV:tnt to chfll ~~y see C;lvcll':. ~'<n)' (In neck-
Mt's E,lcT-('.cIJlt), '"EJldllll,t till' ""alllll).! C::llIlC," fllIO oul'l)!! Avoidnuce nl Love:
A HC:lwng of KII,}! Lear." to be published in .\fuft Wt' Mf'~1II W/,"/ We Sa!!?

J lL~t I\~ tho actor nn longer hn-, ttl pl:n<II"de thl' nudlr-uee t1'al it u thl'
1\1,1(1)01'5 cbnracter nnd not himself that i<; sbndlnl: on the <;I"gc, ';0 also III~:
need nM pretend I I!.:It the events wking place Oil the S(:\.I:(' have oever been
rebenrsed, Rod "t~ nlm bUPP('''1linl! for the 6r<:t and ()lIly time. Schiller's dis-
tincti(ln ill no )t>ngcr valid: lnoat (he rl~p$odi!St has to treat hi~ IOnteti:lI 01\
w)lolly in the pust ; the mime hi..~, os whcJll)' here and now. lt should be
IlPP:HCtlt IIJI tbrollg)1 h!~ I)ed(lrm.'1ncc tlt:tt 'even at the start nnd in thl! DI/d-
dle he klt(l\\'~ how [t ends' and lit:' must 'th\IS mnintain n c-alm tudepcndenec
througbout.' He n:iTfnt~ tbe story of his charactrn by vivid porlr3Y.lI, always
\;n()\vin? 010r(' than It docs :lIld lI<."iltinjt 'IIm'" and 'here' not a..1 n pretence
mnde prno~lbll!by (be fIII~ <If tlle ~me but as .~MIlClhing to br- di~tinp:uWlod
(lOin }'C$lerdn)' and soiee otJl('T place, so liS to mnke visible the knotting
togcthur of the events. (p, 194.)
Michael fried 14.4 At1 and Objecrhocd 145

however, not because of any fullncss-awt is the inexhaustibility of The literalist preoccupation with time-s--moro precisely, wilh th{'
art-but hCC:1I1~c there is nothing there to exhaust, It is endless the duration of tlu: c:qWI'i<:ncl'-is, I suggest, l)tU'aciigtnati('.ullr thentri-
W,I)' a road might be: if it were circular, for example, cal: a.c; though thc.itre confronts Ihc beholder, and then-by 1\()late~
Endlessness, being able to go on and on, even having to go on and him, with the ...ndlessncss not just of objcethood but of timt:, OJ .1$
on, is central both to the COIH,'ept of Interest and to th .. t of object- though the sense which, al bottom. theatre :tddrt:sscs i:o. n S(>IlSt' uf
hood, In fact. it seems to DC the experience that most deeply excites temporality, of time both passing and 10 come, simllitllll(:()IMly (/p.
literalist ~nsibility, and that literalist artisL~ seck 10 ohjedify il) their ]>rQ(lClritl!!, and recedsn«, as if apprehended in an inlinite perspective
work-for example, by the repetition of idcntil'ltlllnits (Jlldd's "one •• ,Ill This, preoccupation marks n profound Ct.flCfC'Il(·l· between
thing after another"), which cnrrics the implicatiou that the units iu literalist work and modcrmst painting and sculpture. It is ~1SIboll~h
question could be multiplied at! illfi'l!lum,l'" Smith's account of his one's experience of the latter Iw~ no duration-e-nct because 011(' lit
experience on the unfinished turnplkc records thtlt excitement all but fact cxpertcnees a picture by Xolancl 01' Olitski or a sculpture by
explicitly. Similarly, ~rorris'~ claim that in the l~t new ' ....ork the Dav id Smith 01' Ca1'O in no time at all, but becaus« at (>w~rlJ l1lfHllClli
beholder is m ..dc aware that "he himself i..; establishing relationships lilG uiot]: it.sdf is wholly /lwn.i/l'.#, (This is true of sculpture despite
;1$ he apprehends the object from various positions and under vary- the obvious f:l<.'t that, being three-duncnsional, It can he seen (rom
ing conditions of light and spatial context' amounts to the claim that an infinite number of POIl1tS 01 view. One's experience of :l C<lTO IS
the beholder L~made aware of the endlessness and lncxhnustihility if not incomplete. and OI)("S convictlon :1:0. to it:.- quahty i$ Hot :-'IIS·
not of the ohjcct itself at 311)' rate of his experience of it. This peuded, simply because one has seen it ollly from where one I';
awareness is furl her exacerbated by what might ht' called the inclu- standing. Moreover, ill the grip of hi~ best work OIW'S view of the
Sit)(;1I8SS,of his situation, that is, by the fact, remarked earlier, thut
everything he observes counts ns part of that situation and hence is Uo1'I.~ CQulleI'llon between ~1>ati;!1 n:<.,('Hioll '11lt1 ~Im(' -ueh ,''(p~.,.it·lIl~ (Ir
tcmporal.t)'-almo..<t n... if rhl:' 6",,1 we-re :. :"incl of nntural m('I~phor fOT IIiit'
felt to bear in some W~>'that remains undefined On his experience of )'OOOtlu-i~ llrr<;'(!lIt In mild. Sum-Alht Illli"lin~ (0,;':,. I)., <';hil'il-v, Dnlr, Tan.,'!',
the object. M:I~rillt' , , .}. ;\(lXt'I)\"". lcmJl(lOlhty-:n.lni(".lt·d, for exnmple. M ~xprct:lCiun,
Here finally 1 wont to emphasize something that rna)' already drend an~it!tr. vrl~lllilllC'nt. 111C'mtJry, Iln,l.lIIo:I<I, ~\..;t.Sl<--i> (lrlll! the' (:xpUcit
have become clear: the experience in question persists III time, and .n,lJltlCt (_,( tllt"lt painlilll!;I, TIlu,: is, ill (IWI. .1 ell.. V .lffinity Il<'h,,·t'1I IiIe't~lli~ lll"u
Sum'lllbt ,.''1,lJlllhl)· ( .. I .my mh.!, ns the lnuer makn it-.:c'l( rdl in th~ \\'(»~ I)r
the presentment of endlessne ..... s that, I have been claiming, is central
thl' :rL(J~'(' painters}. \\ lrich otl~ht 1(1 1)1' 1I('tt!U, Bill!. MIll»!!}' InM\!Crr Ill:It i< nl
to literalist art and theory is essentially n presentment or endless. 01' nllt't! whoH.<r~: ..mil. ill :1 <cuse. IrJll!lnl'nlarv, jll~'()l'Ilpl" ... ~ bntn ,..~1I1 I., .1 :.;Imi·
indefinite, durauon. Once again Smith's account of his ui~ht drive is tar ,llllhtllIlOIIIOrt,hiring ,,( obl('(.'1!\ 01 cOIlIo:I(lml;'t:ltloOll> II! c>hjl~l< t III Snrr« ••lism
relevant, <'IS well as his remark, "'"II.'e('.'\I)'t see it (I,~.. the jar :\1\<1, by thr- II'>!! of d.t!ls .mel mnlllllkl'l<) I'II,l\;1"< thl~ .",p!idt}; bI..eh ,lit' CilP:IQ!t· nf ",chiC'V.
implication. the cube] in a second, we continue to read it," Morris. Inj.! remurk.ible 4'ff("I~ of "presence". ,md hOlh tcnd 10 41q,Ioy ;10.1 hot,,,,
o;'iec:to< "lid (II r:SIlnj; III A;lI.wlwn,<-thc ('\'h"d rollOI\ unrl the .11~IIlII)n('(1 afllikt.lll
too, has stated explicitly. "The experience of the work necessarily
l:'IILI-C",ll)~ ,lrC' M Iml)O)rlOlnl co SIUll-.l1i<m :I" til lit"'I'~Ii<r\l (Tour Smith, it will
exists in tilllC" -though it would make no difference if he had not. h._' r ...cnlk-d, (i('<C""ibccl tht! rrln.lrip:<. e-k., II> "SurTcnll,,\ IIIndst"l>t.'<," ) "h1> nmllity
(".\11 be i,unlmed lip h) $01)'101: that SUrTcnll<t , ..-tI>1bllit)'. 3( 111.1m£C'<t...<I in d ...
'rbut i<. the &lr.luCl[ number of ~uch \11,[\$ in .l Io:i~'en pieee I~ (dt to Iw :lrbi.
I·
::r.try,and the plece itsdf-de<l)itt! the litC'r.1ti<1 preocC\lS'alilm willi whnlbtic
work or (,<."tain JI,ti~t.s. !lilt! lih'r.,Ii>t 'C'II'<ihilily "r~ both thC<Jltir.n1. ] do "l)t
wl~h, hlm'\""tl, to b ... understood " ... :urlnp: 11m! h,"("Il.<c tt... ~ nre' 111('.1lriC'nl. ;,11
fOlln_i ...seen :t~ a rlllj!l)~nt 0(, or cut into, ,:,on1t!IJlillg IIIll1litd)' l:tr~("T, 'llli.s j~
Slll...,..tli~t \\'m'\;~ .Iut ,.hore the nbove chllr.1ctN'I<"('~ mil ,.'" 31t; :\ lOIl~'P"'\'''Il.'<
one 01 lhe- m~t Important di/Te:rcnCt:~ hch veen htNa)i~1 W(lt~ and motkrnlst C'l:~mJll~ of m,ljur wnr], thllt C1l11he cl'''''Il.'rilx·(.l ." tlll'lICril "I i, Ci,wmlwll i'" Sur-
poh,tillt;. which /1:1.> rnnde i~'dr lX'~pon.dhJ~ for IN phy).i('lll limit,; I'" never \>e.
rt!.llht "ttlll'lut~, 0" the (lth,'1' lunn, it i!l 11('/)):1£1'not wilJllIll1 sis.:ni6r:III1:C ihot
[ore. Kobnd's ~1IIr;l()lit~ki'< pWlltin!lS are tWI) obvious, alld dlffurt'lIt, coses in SmitJ ..~ supreme ~.xamJlIt! of ., Sll.fn:nl~l l:IIIt1S.c.1I)C \\11:< Ih~ pnrade ~'I'(l'"ltl
point. It is in this conll('ctwLI. too, thut the itllpOTt,'nc~ I)f th~ puinl('<l h.md<
around 1l1I: hottern nnd tho top 0( Olilsl:i'!I scu.lpture, lJllrtJ,!fJ. tw(.'OmeJ; clttllr. :it ~"r~tnb~S!