I DO NOT WANT TO TALK

AN ESSAY ON THE THREEFOLD OF

ARTISTIC LABOR, SCULPTURAL AWARENESS AND PUBLIC PERCEPTION

(EMPHASIZING ROBERT MORRIS´S ANTI-POSITIONING IN POSTWAR ART HISTORY)

BY BORIS STEINER

MASTER THESIS LUCA SCHOOL OF ARTS BRUSSELS

FINE ARTS 2018 SUPERVISED BY STEFAAN VERVOORT

CONTENT

I DO NOT WANT TO TALK 5

INTRODUCTION 7

PART ONE 9

PART TWO 23

NEVERTHELESS I FIND MYSELF HERE AND TALKING 34

CONCLUSION 35

ACKNOWLEDGLEMENT 38

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“I do not want to travel to distant places to give talks about the people I have been close to. The people to whom I owe art I made half a century ago. does not need to so much either knew it or never will because it is too late hear from me. I do not want to travel to distant places to now. I do not want to document my starting points, turning give talks about art I made yesterday. Contemporary art is points, high points, low points, good points, bad points, making enough noise without me. I do not want to be filmed stopping points, lucky breaks, bad breaks, breaking points, in my studio pretending to be working. I do not want to dead ends, breakthroughs or breakdowns. I do not want to participate in staged conversations about art—either mine talk about my methods, processes, near misses, flukes, or others, past or present–which are labored and disguised mistakes, disappointments, setbacks, disasters, obsessions, performances. I do not want to be interviewed by curators, lucky accidents, unlucky accidents, scars, insecurities, critics, art directors, theorists, aestheticians, aesthetes, disabilities, phobias, fixations, or insomnias over posters I professors, collectors, gallerists, culture mavens, journalists should never have made. I do not want my portrait taken. or art historians about my influences, favorite artists, Everybody uses everybody else for their own purposes, and I despised artists, past artists, current artists, future artists. A am happy to be just material for somebody else so long as I long time ago I got in the habit, never since broken, of can exercise my right to remain silent, immobile, possibly writing down things instead of speaking. It is possible that I armed, and at a distance of several miles.” 1 was led into art making because talking and being in the presence of another person were not requirements. I do not want to be asked my reasons for not having worked in just one style, or reasons for any of the art that got made (the reason being that there are no reasons in art). I do not want to answer questions about why I used plywood, felt, steam, dirt, grease, lead, wax, money, trees, photographs, electroencephalograms, hot and cold, lawyers, explosions, nudity, sound, language, or drew with my eyes closed. I do not want to tell anecdotes about my past, or stories about

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The passage cited is Robert Morris’s all- an art history based on period and style. his fourfold essay “Notes on Sculpture” purpose document for replying to Perceived as a pioneer of Minimalism, (1966-1969), in which Morris discusses invitations for giving a public lecture. As Morris has produced works that can be the fundamental intentions of mid-sixties he clarifies himself, “[…] as an aging artist associated with Minimal Art, Concept Art, installation art, nowadays conceived as I am still on occasion invited to these Land Art, Anti Form, Process Art et cetera. Minimal Art. This series of essays also stupid shindigs. For years I made up Keeping his practice in constant evolution, describes how the seemingly simple excuses for not showing up.”2 It’s a truly Morris is, in a strange way, tolerant and gestures made by Minimal artists make sympathetic way of unchaining oneself submissive to everything that is bigger or the work a function of the relation from the expectations and obligations smaller than him, while at the same time between sculptural object, space, and the that are imposed on artists nowadays, he remains ungraspable for the orthodox viewer. Furthermore, this part will discuss namely, the idea that artists offer practitioners of art history. Morris’s essays “Anti Form” (1968) and guidance to the interpretation of, or even “Some Notes on the Phenomenology of explain, their work. Morris has always This essay will look into Morris’s Making: The Search for the Motivated” shown himself a great opponent of an positioning, —or, better said, anti- (1970), in which Morris tries to reveal the overtly explanatory approach to art. This positioning —in postwar art history, and unification of the creational execution emerges profoundly in his writings, but how his relentlessly fluctuating attitude is and the artistic result. By emphasizing a also in his unrestrained exploration and relevant for contemporary practice. The production process and method that are diversification of art and its modes of first part of this essay will primarily follow dominated by chance and determinism, production. Morris does not want his the volume Continuous Project Altered Morris proposes a totally different work to be seen from a singular Daily: The Writings of Robert Morris, approach to art-making. His refined, but perspective, and neither does he abide by which was published in 1993. It contains processual, work connects to an analysis of behavior in making, language as a system, and the mingling of object-based and performative arts. Here, I am curious to detect Morris’s intentions regarding his versatile approach in the use of medium, material and context. In the second part, I will 'test' Morris's position by revisiting it from a contemporary perspective. With the discussion of Morris’s writings in hand, I will discuss and compare texts by contemporary voices in art discourse and practice, like Rosalind Krauss, Jeff Wall, and Andrea Fraser. My ambition for both parts is, firstly, to offer insight in the elaborate writings of a very honorable artist, and, secondly, to flesh out the

contemporary relevance of Morris’s Figure 1: Robert Morris "Continuous Project Altered Daily", 1969 benefaction to an art-form that is Earth, clay, asbestos, cotton, water, grease, plastic, felt, wood, thread waste, electric lights, photographs, and tape significantly process-based. recorder, dimensions variable. Installation at the Leo Castelli Warehouse, New York, March 1-22, 1969.

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PART ONE

THE LITERALITY OF SCULPTURE,

THE THREE L’S,

TRANSMITTING A BODILY CONFRONTATION,

AN ENDS-MEANS HOOKUP,

AND PROBLEM-SOLVING.

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The work of Robert Morris has been view of his group of seven grey-painted, to walk around the object and sense its If “Notes on Sculpture, Part 1" typically designated by the label Minimal plywood polyhedrons, shown first in 1963 mass and tactility. advocated a direct, immanent experience Art. Although this term was used by art at Green Gallery in New York, Morris Color, Morris continues in the of the work, which is contrasted to the critics more than by artists, it has spread stated that the sculptures need to be same essay, is bypassed for the reason more mimetic or 'indirect' meanings the now-common idea of Morris's work experienced and understood on a total that it is essentially an optical addition to historically coupled to painting, “Notes on being devoid of all symbolical and different level than painting, which is the shape. The physicality of sculpture Sculpture, Part 2” is mainly dedicated to discursive meaning. Minimalism, it is historically associated with mimetic, would bow down whenever color is used. size and scale in sculpture. “The often said, represses all content matter symbolic and expressive functions. The Even the color issued by materials like awareness of scale is a function of the that does not derive from the material tactile nature of sculpture, so Morris wood, for Morris, distracts viewers from comparison made between that constant, facticity, the matter-of-factness, of the indicates, should very clearly be distinct experiencing the physicality of the work; one's body size, and the object.”4 The work itself. Minimal Art cancels out any from the optical qualities that are at the neutral colors such as white or grey were Minimalist sculpture seems to fall in mimetic, symbolic or expressive function base of painting. Morris contradicts the therefore applied instead. On the other between the size range of either of the work. However, the clichéd idea literality of sculpture to the illusionism in hand, the same argument is used by monumental – or ornamental. Both that Minimalist Art is ‘meaningless’, painting, in “Notes on Sculpture, Part 1” Morris for the most immaterial influence polarities, the monument and ornament, namely, that it declines all external values, (1966). A sculpture should therefore not to the sculptural surface, which is light. engender a different perception of the is fully absent in Morris's work. In fact, the be hung on a wall, since it will try to deny But as immaterial as light is, it is also object. The ornamental has an intimate artist has consistently refuted the idea gravity. To perceive a three-dimensional naturally part of the space like for quality since its detail requires a closeness that his work has no content; he has only object, it is essential to place it on the example the floor is. The coincidence of of sight and examination. This notion, for differentiated his work from those ground. This also evades the limitation of light changes the perception of sculpture example, can be found at the doors of the meanings and experiences usually (and multiple ways of viewing since the floor is constantly but is embraced for its quality Baptistery of Saint John in Florence, which historically) associated with painting. In shared with the viewer, who is now able to confront the viewer with the are profiled with a number of fine bronze temporality of experiencing a three- reliefs that each portray biblical episodes. dimensional shape. A door is an architectural element that Morris rightfully stated, has an intimate quality to it since it “[s]implicity of shape does not necessarily requires touch to be opened and is equate with simplicity of experience.”3 passed along with little distance. A The sensatory experience of a gestalt is monumental piece, on the other hand, enlarged by the simplicity of the shape. requires spaciousness to be perceived as The elementary three-dimensional shapes a whole. Huge public squares and long like cubes or pyramids are best perceived stretched streets introduce monumental as a whole. The viewer will instantly sense pieces, which reaches high above the a simple polyhedron as a solid volume. viewer. A monumental piece is usually This does not mean that the perception is looked up to and is related to publicness less strong. The complexity in shape is rather than intimateness. This does not obviously harder to grasp with the senses, mean that a monumental piece requires and will cause a fragmentation in less of a bodily endeavor to perceive it. perception. The elementary shapes are One could say that a monumental piece more accessible to sense as a whole and requires even more of a physical therefore as factual. For this reason we approach since it literally requires

Figure 2: Robert Morris, Installation view (Floor Beam, Wall-Floor Slab, Corner Beam, Cloud, Corner Piece), 1964-2016 can see a very strict use of principal distance and a moving around to see as a Painted Plywood, dimensions variable shapes in Minimalism. whole. Dia Art Foundation

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Morris was as much interested in sculptural forms as its effects on the viewer. This becomes very evidently in his (L-Beams) of 1965. The three pieces are all identically the same but positioned in different orientations. One is standing up, one is laying down and one is balancing on its side. Walking around the configuration of sculptures, the viewer would notice that the highest point of the upstanding L would reach just above their heads, with a length of just under two and a half meters, while the laid-down L could almost entirely be seen from above, its height being just 60 centimeters. The viewer would have to mentally unpuzzle the relationship of the objects, and also whether these forms are in fact identical or not. Morris would Figure 3 Robert Morris, Untitled (L-Beams), 1965 initially have imagined to fill the space Painted plywood, 243,84 x 243,84 x 60,96 cm with much more L-Beams, whereupon Green Gallery New York they could be orientated in an endless possibility of variations. He would soon notice, though, that there would eventually be only three possible Joseph Kosuth's One and Three Chairs ‘fact’ of the objects’ similarity belongs to a media. “The known constant and the orientations without imitating a previous (1965), comprising of a chair, its life-size logic that exists prior to experience; experienced variable.”6 While we have an one. Due to the simplicity that is inherent photograph, and its textual definition. The because at the moment of experience, or 'idea' of objects and environments, the to the shapes, the basic decisions about correspondence between Kosuth's and in experience, the Ls defeat this logic and true experience often contradicts what the object, like size, proportion, surface Morris's works alone challenges the are ‘different.’”5 Krauss even goes so far we think we see, causing a feeling of and placement, become essential for the categorization of the L's as Minimalist.). in saying that a privacy of the psyche is chaos and confusion. Exactly this dual particular quality that the work ought to In her book Passages in Modern reduced while experiencing the L-beams type of experience, this confrontation of generate. Thus viewers are left with Sculpture (1977), Rosalind Krauss very of Morris. The physical perception of the 'mind and body' (to invoke the title of a questions: Why has Morris chosen to accurately describes what is at stake in sculpture inevitably collides with the Morris retrospective of the early 1990s), show three versions? How do the three the paradoxical perception of the three mental projection of an idealistic is central to Morris's work and especially installations relate to the same 'ground L’s. As she writes, “no matter how clearly preconception, and the surface of the to his L-Beams. The experience is not so form'? Are we looking at one object, or at we might understand that the three L’s sculpture mirrors this. Indeed, Morris tells immediate as one would foresee with three? (Interestingly, a similar question, are identical (in structure and dimension), us much about the way we experience these straightforward gestures. now in relation to the object and its it is impossible to see them as the same. objects that are all around us, in urban varying representations, is posed by Therefore, Morris seems to be saying, the landscape, social interaction or digital

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transmits a bodily confrontation, through the sculpture, onto the viewer. Thus, the sculpture is to be perceived as it wore ‘alive’. This idea is fed by the performative charisma that Abstract Expressionists had attained in the fifties. Morris states that “of the Abstract Expressionists, only Pollock was able to recover process and hold on to it as part of the end form of the work.”7 Morris believed that there were many forms of art to be found within this process of art-making, forms that are usually relinquished or made subsidiary to the finalized object. For a long time, the process of art-making has been ignored in favor of the result, the 'masterpiece'. To reveal the process not

just would give away the secret of the Figure 4: David Weber-Krebs, Performance (Robert Morris revisited), 2015 artist, it would also involve challenging Screenshot of video documentation De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam the status of art as a collection of masterpieces, since, now, art would be rethought according to all parts and means involved in the making of the To understand the origin of the 1965 L- and rest on its side for another three and work. Moreover, to think about work in shaped pieces, we have to look back at a half minutes, whereupon the curtain terms of process and production is to one of Robert Morris’ first sculptural would close again. (Little known was, that rethink the emphasis of art on the strictly works, Two Columns of 1961. This piece Morris intended to stand inside the visual; is to include the temporal, material most certainly derived from a piece called column and push to make the transition. and perhaps even haptic features of the Column, he made for a concert organized Due to an unfortunate rehearsal, on the work. “Pollock's recovery of process," by the minimalist musician and composer morning of the performance, the injured Morris writes, "involved a profound La Monte Young in the Living Theater, an artist had to come up with another rethinking of the role of both material and experimental theater association based in solution to make the column tip over.) tools in making. The stick that drips paint New York City. A column, sixty by sixty A quite rigorous expression of is a tool that acknowledges the nature of centimeters wide and two and a half Morris, who had been developing a great the fluidity of paint. Like any other tool, it meter high, would be stationed behind interest for theater and dance. With is still one that controls and transforms the stage curtain. As the curtain would Column, the artist for the first time matter. But unlike the brush, it is in far open and reveal the column, it would explored the idea that making art was greater sympathy with matter because it stand there for three and a half minutes. somehow a record of the performance of acknowledges the inherent tendencies Out of nowhere, it would then tip over, the artist. In other words, the artist and properties of that matter […] To think

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that painting has some inherent optical Morris aimed to avoid subjective control internal characteristics. Another example nature is ridiculous.”8 This statement does over the material outcome and the 'look' of this specific approach would be Richard not fully comply with the carefully of his pieces. The manipulative act of the Serra’s Plinths from 1967. Serra would fabricated and highly polished minimalist artist’s hand could easily be replaced by a throw a fair amount of liquid lead into the sculptures of Morris. Sculptures that were dozen alternative ways to act but also corner of his studio, which would harden usually industrially manufactured to another dozen other hands. This would in contact with the wall and floor. The neutralize any signs of the artist hand. not seem reliable enough for Morris. He process would be launched by the artist

Any trace of the artist hand, and thus the would rather rely on the physical where after the decisive formal task making process, was left out in order to characteristics of the material and its would be handed over to the incidence of avoid any distraction from its literality. surrounding. The dropping of a piece of the material itself. The sculpture would But it was probably this literality, this felt cloth on a floor would result in a make itself, leading to an end-means realness, that had led Morris to introduce shape that corresponds with these hookup. a totally different approach in his art making. He articulates this approach in his contribution to the April 1968 issue of Artforum, an essay entitled "Anti Form." “In some cases these investigations move from the making of things to the making of material itself," he writes. "Sometimes a direct manipulation of a given material without the use of any tool is made. In these cases considerations of gravity become as important as those of space. The focus on matter and gravity as means results in forms that were not projected in advance. Considerations of ordering are necessarily casual and imprecise and unemphasized. Random piling, loose stacking, hanging, give passing form to the material. Chance is accepted and indeterminacy is implied, as replacing the matter will result in another configuration. Disengagement with preconceived enduring forms and orders for things is a positive assertion. It is part of the work's refusal to continue Figure 5: Robert Morris, Untitled (Pink Felt), 1970 estheticizing the form by dealing with it as Felt pieces of various sizes, overall dimensions variable a prescribed end.”9 As this text indicates, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Panza Collection, 1991

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Morris has described how ends and to polarities. Good and bad, high and low, discontinuous, irrational things in the the artist’s control. For the artist will the means have progressively come closer in beginning and end et cetera. A tendency most reasonable way.”12 It is important disorientating experience, the arbitrary, art of the 20th century, in his essay “Some towards one or the other. At the same not to forget that the disorientating and the motivated production process Notes on the Phenomenology of Making” time this binarism structures the system experience is posed to the viewer, not to generally go hand in hand. One could (1970). First of all, we can regard the of language effectively. We strive through the artist. But the semiotic function is state that in the moment of exposing an making of art as a form of behavior. clear distinction and a structure which binary. After the disorientating encounter artwork it presents itself with a minimum Psychologists, like Morse Peckham, have aims to reduce the arbitrary. of the piece the viewer will recognize of order and structure while its looked into the way artistic behavior can Given the correspondence of order and identify a pattern, which is production has been implicated with the function in a social or didactic way. Morris language and art it is not strange to see anyhow a projection. This is the biggest order and structure. is more so interested to see art making as that also art making clinches on finalization of the piece, the perception, a form of behavior an sich. He compares systematic methods. Some postwar artists projection and the provision of meaning this view to the anthropological were looking for ways to reduce the by the viewer. This is beyond examinations of the building structures arbitrary by seeking systems according to found in the Machu Pichu: "the significant which they could act. One of the first to meanings of this monument are to be do this was John Cage, who actually sought in reconstructing the particular systematized the arbitrary itself. A building activity – and not in a formal structural organization was applied in analysis of the architecture.”10 The order to implement his work with chance. structure of this century-old city can tell The system was not perceivable in the us a lot about the history of South final product so we could say he still kept America, its religion, social values et a division between the end and means. As cetera. As so the way it is build is a stated before, it was probably Jackson subject matter on its own. So the Pollock who first applied a systematic question raises, why are the activities method of working, which could very embodied in the process of art making much be perceived in the final product. not recognized as forms of behavior in Although Pollock did not necessarily itself and especially not spoken of when develop a preformulated logical system, art is discussed? Besides, in Morris words, but rather let natural laws take over, he “the simple fact that those who discuss was very aware of the limitations and art know almost nothing about how it possibilities within the interaction gets made,”11 there is something going between his body and the material. It on, that lies a bit deeper than being might be Jasper Johns who found a way to ignorant towards a creative process. In very literally hook up his systematic our culture there seems to be a natural working process with the end image, for habit to disconnect ends and means. If we example, in his 0 through 9 paintings of look in other forms of behavior that 1961. To feed an artistic process with correspond with art making, we can find a such systematic methodic reduces the same kind of opposition. Art, being a form subjectivity to a minimum, while the of communication, correlates with outcome might eventually be vague and language for example. Linguists have been confusing, and therefore raises the Figure 6 Jasper Johns, 0 through 9, 1961 very busy with binarism hiding in myths arbitrary for the viewer. “It is as though Oil paint on canvas, 137 x 105 and stories. People seem to be attracted the artist wants to do the most Tate London

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by swinging overhead in a fully lighted room a small light at the end of a cord. The lights in the room fade as the cord is slowly let out until finally in total darkness only the moving point of light is visible as it revolves in the large space above the heads of the audience.”15 It’s indisputable that Morris’s oscillating approach in examining production process versus the finished piece has magnificently contributed to the sharpening of the modalities in artistic labor, spatial and sculptural awareness and public perception. Traversing between experimental performances in theater, Minimalist installation art in museal context, establishing terms as

Anti-Form and Process Art, and even Figure 7 Robert Morris, Arizona, 1964. Reconstruction featuring Andrew Ludke, 1993 journeys in to Land Art, Morris seemed to Screenshot of video documentation be anything but a formalist. His writings, Television Studio, Hunter College, New York which are determinate and precise, give a great inside in how Morris interests and

focus shift from, for example, language to architecture and theater to behavior. Why Lastly, in the same essay, Morris mentions this subject matter, but more so served as syntax in making the dances. Morris kept deviating in discipline and how the division between ends and concludes the essay with the Morris wanted to find a way to avoid the context is a hard question. Possibly he means not only is reduced within the beforementioned observation. We know antigravitational qualities, which enjoyed doing the unexpected or he plastic arts, but furthermore in time that the transition to his minimal traditionally are the foundation of dance, would get tired of doing the same thing related arts. As he writes, "there have sculptures have directly been facilitated but still deal with investigation of over and over. We cannot know and been recent moves made to reduce that by his 1961 theater performance Column. movement in space and time. The focus possibly will never know the motives and existential gap between the studio Insight on why and how he got interested should be on the literality of the body, its reasons of Morris; after all, he consciously preparation and the formal presentation. in the performative arts like theater and weight, its reach, and its ability to does not speak about the meanings of his Some theater and dance work now brings dance, is given in other writings published operate. The objects used in his dances, own work, only about 'sculpture' or 'art' in rehearsal and literal learning sessions for around that time, like Morris’s short essay for example a cord with a small light general, let aside give us hints of why he the performers into the public “Notes on Dance” (1965). In this text, he attached to the end, did not obtain a does what he does. What is certain, presentation. One could cite other states that the each of the five dances he distinct interest by Morris. He saw these however, is that Morris developed his instances in film and music where the had made “attempted to solve what was object as pure means for dealing with the work and practice around a great range of making process is not behind the scenes at the time seen as a problem or set of specific problems. “The establishment of interests, and that he was entirely but is the very substance of the work.”13 problems.”14 He describes how the a focus shifting between the egocentric tolerant as to alternative readings of, and Morris does not dive much deeper into problematic has and the exocentric could be accomplished perspectives on, his work.

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PART TWO

ANTI-DEPICTION,

CONCEPTUAL REDUCTION,

INTERNALIZED INSTITUTION,

AND THE ART EVENT.

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The transition from the plastic arts to a forms of art. “Modern and modernist art motionless and essentially admitted its domain which is tolerant to new forms is grounded in the dialectic of depiction own limitation. From the 1950s onwards, and external influences, has been and anti-depiction, depiction and its artists gradually started avoiding this type described by Jeff Wall in his essay-lecture negation within the regime of depiction," of representation and moved away from “Depiction, Object, Event” (2006). Wall Wall writes. "The self-criticism of art, that depiction, towards the object. It was art discusses three art-historical episodes phenomenon we call both ‘modernist’ critic Michael Fried who posed objection that issue what he considers the gradual, and ‘avant-garde’, originated in terms of to the transition from the pictorial arts to historical development from depiction to the arts of depiction and, for the hundred the ‘specific objects’ of the Minimal Art. object to event. Opening the essay, Wall years beginning in 1855, remained within Fried, having an expertise in late discusses long-established and common their framework.”16 The quality of the eighteenth century painting, forms of art, such as drawing, painting, work was determined by the ability to demonstrated against the Minimal Art by sculpture, the graphic arts, and capture movement from reality and stating it was a form of art which photography. Traditionally, these art perhaps even to suggest it, without neglected its own autonomy. He faced forms also happened to all be depictive actually embodying it. The was absorbing quality conducted by an artwork against the theatrical detachment of the artwork and its audience. The last aiming at Minimalist tendencies of making the viewer aware of a shared experience in observing and mentally constructing an image. Fried refused to admire any of this, but at the same time, it was his extensive criticism which became the most accurate formulation on Minimal Art’s intentions. Unintentionally, Fried announced the future chapter in the history of art: "I want to make a claim that I cannot hope to prove or substantiate but that I believe nevertheless to be true: viz., that theatre and theatricality are at war today, not simply with modernist painting (or modernist painting and sculpture), but with art as such - and to the extent that the different arts can be described as modernist, with modernist sensibility as such. […] The success, even the survival, of the arts has come increasingly to depend on their ability to defeat theatre.”17

Figure 8: The Theater of Eternal Music performing at The Living Theatre in 1965. From left to right, Tony.Conrad, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and John Cale

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Besides the anti-depictive trends, Wall also mentions that reduction was the central term throughout the sixties and seventies. The turn to the purely formal expressions of the Minimal and even more so the materialistic absence of the Concept Art demonstrate this. Wall speaks about "conceptual reduction," addressing how artist like Joseph Kosuth and Lawrence Weiner moved passed the rhetoric of the Minimal by diminishing the object. “Object and work are superseded Figure 9: Lawrence Weiner, “TO SEE AND BE SEEN”, 1972. Installation:, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1993 by their replacement with a written Photo: David Heald explication of why the written explication itself cannot be denied status as a generic instance of art—and furthermore why logically and historically, this text not only Due to the elimination of leads to what we can best describe as just as effectively as, for example, the cannot be denied such status, but is in possible alternatives within the events. Plain image or object was no ready-made object did. From this logic, fact the only entity that can authentically by the Concept Art, the only way out for qualification of art, the focus shifted to the focus on time-bound works has made possess it, since it alone has become, or artists was to invest in other areas of the incident of the artwork. Evidently its appearance in the visual arts. A well- remained, art while having ceased to be a cultural activity. This is the third field that there were correlations to be found on known case of this is Andy Warhol's specific ‘work of art’. This reduction Wall describes, the event. In Conceptual the border of visual art and performance Factory, the workshop where pieces of art renders everything other than itself a Art, it was no longer necessary to relate arts. I have mentioned Morris’s dances of were constantly produced, while the member of a single category, the category to reality by means of a physical work of course, in which the actions were essence of the artwork laid not in the of less historically and theoretically self- art; a single idea sufficed. Artists had been executed with the least amount of pieces that were made but in the process conscious gestures—mere works of art. given the opportunity to take cultural dramatics or mishmash. But one could that persisted. "As ends and means are From the new judgement seat of strictly processes from their surroundings and also consider John Cage’s 4’33’’ (1952), more unified, as process becomes part of linguistic , all other modes introduce them in the field of, and as, art. which parallels Robert Rauschenberg’s the work instead of prior to it, one is or forms are equally less valid. All are These cultural processes are time- and White Painting (1951) considering its enabled to engage more directly with the equivalent in having fallen short of the space-bound and in one way or another silence. Because of the affinity with the world in art making because forming is self-reflexive condition of the have a social function. Artists imitate the art of movement, the idea raised that an moved further into the presentation,” as reduction.”18 processes in reduced form, which in turn event can attain the status of an artwork Morris declared.19

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that the caravan was art or had any connection with the exhibition. For the coincidental passer-by, it was nothing more than an ordinary caravan. “What Asher thus demonstrated is that the institution of art is not only “institutionalized” in organizations like museums and objectified in art objects. It is also internalized and embodied in people. It is internalized in the competencies, conceptual models, and modes of perception that allow us to

produce, write about, and understand art, Figure 10: Michael Asher, “Installation Münster (Caravan)” or simply to recognize art as art, whether Parking position: between Siegelkammer and Pferdegasse. as artists, critics, curators, art historians, Skulptur Projekte Münster dealers, collectors, or museum visitors. And above all, it exists in the interests, aspirations, and criteria of value that According to Andrea Fraser, the failure of speaks about the institute of art as a trap orient our actions and define our sense of the avant-garde is inevitable, because without possibility of breaking out. But worth. These competencies and their means could never measure up to the institute of art should not be seen as a dispositions determine our own the goal they wanted to achieve. In her building or object but as a social universe. institutionalization as members of the essay “From the Critique of Institutions to She specifies this idea on the basis of field of art.”21 An artist cannot escape the an Institution of Critique” (2015), she Michael Asher's Installation Münster world of art because this world is inside states, “It is artists – as much as museums (Caravan), which was on display every ten the artist. It is a psychic isolation that or the market – who, in their very efforts years from 1977 to 2007 at Skulptur ensures that everything that the artist to escape the institution of art, have Projekte in Münster. The work consists of does falls under the heading of art. Of driven its expansion. With each attempt a rented caravan that is parked every course, the artist has a choice that he or to evade the limits of institutional week on different sites in the city during she does not come along, but in fact lies determination, to embrace an outside, to the exhibition. In the museums, which to himself by opposing the institute of art. redefine art or reintegrate it into serve as reference points for the At this moment the artist simply cannot everyday life, to reach “everyday” people exhibition, visitors could find information escape the limitations of autonomy within and work in the “real” world, we expand about where the caravan could be viewed art. It is therefore the limitations that our frame and bring more of the world that particular week. On the location become certain, and maybe even the into it. But we never escape it.”20 Fraser itself, however, there was no indication quality of art.

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Art does not withstand in a hermetic today. Precisely these large-scale events high number of visitors attracted to these processes that have been taken directly condition. It will have to go outside to underline the social character of gigantic . It offers a perfect from the “real” world. The event seems, confront the world in which utility is the contemporary art, exploiting “events platform for art that admits its audience. regarding the absence of a predefined indicator of value and, essentially, the containing events, platforms inducing Art is no longer self-contained but is fed format, to have developed into the reason for existence. The beauty is that event-structures—tentative, yet by social, political, economic and cultural ultimate contemporary art form. the contemporary artist has the freedom spectacular models of new social forms, interpretations. In addition to this, it is Contemporary art seems to have fought to walk the line that separates these rooted in community action, ephemeral tested to what extent the event brings itself free from the eternal discussion worlds. A successful artist will therefore forms of labour, critical urbanism, out a spectacle. The traditional quality about autonomy. The medium-based also act according to the forms of deconstructivist tourism, theatricalized requirements of the work seem far- thinking was broken down by the avant- behavior that both worlds require of him, institutional critique, anarchic interactive fetched, while not aggressively garde, in order to achieve unlimited with the risk to always undergo a certain media games, radical pedagogies, abandoning or negating other forms, like conditions in the production of art. isolation. Not fully in the one, neither in strategies of wellness, hobbies and the Concept Art had done at the end of However, they failed to create a freer the other but always in between. You therapies, rusticated technologies of the sixties. You could say that the situation. Any discussion that takes place could call it chameleonic, fragmentated or shelter, theatres of memory, populist depiction, albeit more in the within the boundaries of art will only be even schizophrenic, in any case the artist historiographies, and a thousand other representative sense than the illustrative, able to broaden the domain of art, but chooses himself as he decides to enter ‘stations’, ‘sites’, and ‘plateaus’,” as Wall has made its return. The representation never break borders. the domain of the artistic. This is different listed it. Not to forget the astonishingly of events, as reduced forms of interactive for the museum visitor, art collector or critic. They also attach themselves to the institute of art on a voluntary basis, but have a much clearer function or task once inside. The artist's activity can, after the many departures and returns of traditional forms, but also taken the exponential growth of new forms in the past hundred years, no longer be captured within the walls of the studio. The job description of the contemporary artist goes far beyond making images. Developing plans, giving lectures, applying for subsidies, maintaining a website, expressing an opinion and of course mingling with colleagues at a tactically selected event… it is part of the job. Therefore, it is not surprising that the big names in the art world operate as a company, the artist works together in a team of specialists who operate in name of the artist's studio. It is self-explanatory that the Figure 11: Still from The Square (2017) directed by Ruben Östlund biennials and other major art events are dominating the perception of what art is

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“Nevertheless I find myself here and talking. What shall I talk about? First everything. Then fragments, questions, doubts, memories and more questions. Everything in the universe is at the fundamental level, so far as we know, made up of particles in fields of forces. Although more recent theoretical speculations about space-time involve holographic projections, the surfaces of black holes, and infinitesimal vibrating strings, I will here draw on the earlier model of fields and particles for my metaphors. But from such speculations about physical existence, vanishingly evanescent as they are, how, asks John Searle, do we account for consciousness, free will, language, hatred, voting, money, and the millions of other things that make up our lives? I think that I decided to come here and talk, but I also think I could have said no, that it was my choice. I take free will for granted. But I also think that above the quantum level where all is chance, at the macro level, every event has a necessary and sufficient cause. My belief is suspended in a contradiction between causality and free will. There is no solution. For some things there may be no answers. So much for everything”22

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This is a passage from Robert Morris’s manages to create art which is them and at the same time justify their lecture performance “A few thoughts on confronting the animative processual cause. In this essay I have not managed to bombs, tennis, free will, agency features with the presented result. An art meditate very thoroughly on the topic of reduction, the museum, dust storms, and which is alive, just like the artist in the Institutional Critique, but do consider a labyrinths" at the Reva and David Logan studio is alive. Morris is relentless in little resistance against establishment Center for the Arts on November 15, questioning the limits of art and suitable in a time where the 2013. It is the response Morris posed to challenges the idea that art is a sacred commodification of everything, not only his all-purpose document for replying to concoction by the artist, “art is, at a very art, is making ludicrous turns. I don’t think invitations for giving a public lecture, simple level it is a way of making."23 The boycotts or activist demonstrations are which he wrote two years earlier, and process of realizing the work should the appropriate way to exercise this which is cited in the beginning of this therefore be seen as more meaningful resistance, though. The contemporary essay. Morris did actually perform a than the completed object itself. I believe conditions of art are made up out of public lecture, in which this response was that this is at stake in all of Morris’s work. unavoidable requirements which are to publicly enunciate, after Morris had Whether the work is an object, a space, a be endured. I would like to see a world in reiterated the antagonistic passage. What movement, a dance, a writing, a lecture, a which these artistic requirements are makes me very fond of Robert Morris is photograph or a brochure, the route confronted with the necessities that we that he, genuinely, is not taking in a towards the destination is worth most. already have to put up with as a human position. All the stuff he wrote, all the How is this relevant for the being. So sleep during you shitty job as a stuff he made, and all the stuff he present time and contemporary art museum guard, make love to a generous eventually said becomes, as soon as it practice? Obviously the second part of funder, organize breakfast, lunch, dinner leaves him, public domain. This allows the this essay reaches out the declaration of and drinks in your studio and attend an public to respond to these matters, but the institute of art. The imperative opening in your sweatpants. just so, allows Morris himself to do so. It is condition for the appearance of art as art, a distinct contradiction to speak about thus, inevitably brought about, and why you don’t want to speak, but Morris impossible to resist. Is this a tragedy? I stresses that a human being is no don’t think so. Does this confine a free different from a tree or a star, on the level will? I don’t think so either. What we can that everything is in progress. I find learn from Morris is that the most Morris’s statement, about his belief being important pursuit of the artist is to create suspended in a contradiction between a situation in which your own interest and causality and free will, one of great aspirations can thrive. Furthermore, a courage. It’s exactly this aspect which also resistance to commodity and limpidity is is the establishment of the quality in his also promoted by Morris. The way he work. Morris respects the privacy of will fluctuated in discipline, moving from although the will is presumably not theater to sculpture, Process Art to Land autonomous and must be provoked to Art, from very conceptual pieces to emerge. materials that shaped them self, assured The first part of this essay is Morris not to be subsumed and classified focusing primarily on the threefold of into art categorization. I believe that artistic labor, sculptural awareness and nowadays, meaning is generated by the public perception, to present it in very terminology of art. Every megalomaniac stiff jargon. For me, however, did Morris business needs art to keep an eye on

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

1 Robert Morris, “Looking for Silence,” 13Idem, 91. 2011, online at 14 Robert Morris, “Notes on dance”, in https://critinq.wordpress.com/2011/09/2 Robert Morris (The MIT Press, Cambridge, 3/robert-morris-on-silence/, (accessed 5 Massachusetts), 16. May 2018). 15 Idem, 3. 2 Idem. 16 Jeff Wall, in “Depiction, Object, Event”, 3 Robert Morris, “Notes on Sculpture, Part Hermes Lecture 2006, 12. 1,” in Continuous Project Altered Daily: 17 Michael Fried, “Art and Objecthood”, in The Writings of Robert Morris (The MIT Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts), 8. (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago), 4 Robert Morris, “Notes on Sculpture, Part 148. 2,” in Continuous Project Altered Daily, 13. 18 Jeff Wall, in “Depiction, Object, Event”, 5 Rosalynd Krauss, “The Double Negative: 18. a new syntax for sculpture” in Passages in 19 Robert Morris, “Some Notes on the (The Viking Press, New Phenomenology of Making,”, 92. York), 267. 20 Andrea Fraser, “From the Critique of 6 Robert Morris, “Notes on Sculpture, Part Institutions to an Institution of Critique”, 2,”, 17. in Artforum (September 2015), 104. 7 Robert Morris, “Antiform,” in Continuous 21 Idem, 103. Project Altered Daily, 43. 22 Robert Morris, "A Few Thoughts on 8 Idem, 43. Bombs, Tennis, Free Will, Agency 9 Idem, 46. Reduction, the Museum, Dust Storms, 10 Robert Morris, “Some Notes on the and Labyrinths." In Critical Inquiry 41, no. Phenomenology of Making,” 2 (2015) in Continuous Project Altered Daily, 73. 23 Robert Morris, “Some Notes on the 11 Idem, 73. Phenomenology of Making,”, 71. 12 idem, 83.

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