Copyright by Mette Gieskes 2006
The Dissertation Committee for Mette Gieskes certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:
The Politics of System in the Art of
Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, and Vito Acconci, 1959 – 1975
Committee:
Richard A. Shiff, Supervisor
John R. Clarke
Eric Drott
Linda D. Henderson
Kathleen M. Higgins
Ann M. Reynolds
Kitty Zijlmans
The Politics of System in the Art of
Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, and Vito Acconci, 1959 – 1975
by
Mette Gieskes, M.A.
Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Texas at Austin December, 2006
For Rie and Winfried Acknowledgements
This dissertation has its roots in several intellectually stimulating classes that I attended at both the University of Texas at Austin and the Haags Gemeentemuseum, the
Netherlands. The lecture series ‘Sound Sculpture,’ held at the Gemeentemuseum by professor Kitty Zijlmans of the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, inspired the topic of my
Master’s thesis—the relationship of the ideas and work of composer John Cage to the visual arts of the 1950s and 1960s. Although my doctoral dissertation differs significantly from my Master’s thesis, it is in many ways an extension of my earlier study on Cage, which alerted me to the widespread adoption of systemic procedures in art between the late 1950s and early 1970s. I am grateful to Kitty for encouraging me to pursue my interest in interdisciplinary topics and for the enthusiasm she showed when I decided to enroll in a doctoral program in the United States.
Also inspirational was Elliott Antokoletz’s class on twentieth-century music, which I took during my year as exchange student at the University of Texas at Austin. I remain absolutely impressed with Elliott’s passion for music, the extent of his knowledge, and his fantastic teaching style. I must furthermore—on a slightly different note—thank him and his wife Juana for having introduced me to their son Eric, who is now my fiancé. The second chapter of my dissertation stems in part from a paper I wrote for Elliott’s seminar in 1996 about the connections between aleatory and serial music.
Two further seminars that I attended at that time have also proved indispensable to my dissertation project. Linda Henderson’s excellent seminar on Marcel Duchamp spurred
v my interest in the connections between art and science, while visiting professor Charles
Harrison’s stimulating seminar on conceptual art introduced me to many insightful ideas, texts, and works of art created since the 1950s. Linda has continued to be a superb resource and wonderful mentor, always ready to share relevant material about such subjects as game theory, cybernetics, the Scientific American, and the Whole Earth
Catalog.
After the completion of my coursework, I audited Ann Reynolds’s provocative seminar on structuralism and art of the 1960s. This refreshingly open-ended seminar was instrumental for the conception of my dissertation and introduced me to the work of
Roland Barthes and Alain Robbe-Grillet, whose ideas have become central to this study.
Other professors who have assisted me, both knowingly and unknowingly, are Alexandra
Wettlaufer, Peter Jelavich, Thierry de Duve, and my dissertation committee members
Kathleen Higgins, Eric Drott, and John Clarke, who have offered helpful suggestions. I
am also grateful for the encouragement of Virginia Mecklenburg of the Smithsonian
American Art Museum, Phyllis Rosenzweig of the Hirshhorn Museum, and Annette
Carlozzi of the Blanton Museum of Art. In the Summer of 2003, as a Terra Summer
Residency in Givern