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 Giverny fellow, I had the opportunity to discuss my project with artist Tania Mouraud and with a number of esteemed scholars, including Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, Stephen Bann, John Davis, and Veerle Thielemans, all of whom offered invaluable advice. I should further like to thank Vito Acconci for welcoming me to his studio in Brooklyn and for thoughtfully answering each of my questions. My research and graduate studies have been generously supported by grants from a number of institutions: a Stip Scholarship from the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden; a VSB vi Scholarship from the Dutch VSB Bank; a Fulbright Scholarship from the Institute of International Education and the Netherlands America Commission for Educational exchange; a Jack G. Taylor Memorial Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Fine Art, an M.K. Hage Endowed Scholarship in Fine Arts, a Cornelia and Meredith Long Centennial Scholarship, and a Marshall F. Wells Endowed Scholarship from the College of Fine Arts of the University of Texas at Austin; a Sherry Smith Graduate Scholarship in Art History from the Department of Art and Art History of the University of Texas at Austin; a Continuing Tuition Fellowship, a David Bruton, Jr. Fellowship, and a University Co- op/George H. Mitchell Award for Excellence in Graduate Research from the Office of Graduate Studies of the same university; a Henry Luce Foundation (program) grant; a Getty Library Research Grant from the Getty Research Institute; a Smithsonian Institution Predoctoral Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution; a Kress Travel Fellowship for the History of Art from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation; a Terra Summer Residency in Giverny Fellowship from the Terra Foundation; and a Cultuurfondsbeurs from the Dutch Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds. I appreciate the assistance of the staff members of the various archives, libraries, and museums at which I had the opportunity to conduct research, such as the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin; the Archives of American Art and the libraries of the Hirshhorn Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.; the Getty Research Institute; the library of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the New York Public Library; the Courtauld Institute in London; the Paula Cooper Gallery; various libraries of the University of California, Berkeley; the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in the Hague, the Netherlands; the vii libraries of the University of Amsterdam, the Vrije Universiteit, and the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen; the library of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; the library of the Centre Pompidou, the Bibliothèque Kandinsky, and the Bibliothèque National in Paris; and the library of the University of Turin, Italy. I also thank Glenn Peers and Maureen Howell of the University of Texas at Austin for their assistance with all sorts of important technical matters. I am further indebted to Frances Colpitt and Kent Rush for allowing me to teach a graduate seminar on the topic of my dissertation at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where I was employed as Senior Lecturer during the 2005 Fall semester. I also greatly appreciate the patience of my future colleagues Jos Koldeweij, Wouter Weijers, Volker Manuth, and Lieske Tibbe of the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, the Netherlands, who were kind enough to postpone the starting date of my job as Universitair Docent (Assistant Professor) by a full semester while I finished this dissertation. Special thanks is due to several supportive fellow graduate students of the University of Texas at Austin, some of whom have embarked on successful careers, including Ellie Handler Berkowitz, Zan Dumbadze, Ann Goodyear, Jenny Hylton, Adrian Kohn, Jim Lawrence, and Maia Toteva. I am also grateful for other friends in the United States who kept up my cheer during the research and writing process, such as Katherine Bash, Carol Goodyear, Mark Doroba, Miguel Figliozzi, Gwen Fubiani, Irma Gomez, Jeremy Milton († 2006), Naomi and Hanan Moller, Rachel Schimelman, Yuki Suzuki, Julie Taylor, and Michael Wynkoop. viii I would like to take this opportunity to thank Elliott and Juana Antokoletz for the loving and unfailing support they have given me over the past few years. I have also much appreciated the merry mental support of my uncles Joost and Joris Gieskes, and the warm encouragement of my aunts Jes Heuts-Schreurs, Simoneke Gieskes-van Bottenburg, and Barbara Gieskes-Burke. Most of all, I thank Vibeke Gieskes, Saša Radenovic, and Constant Radenovic for being the best big sister, brother-in-law, and little nephew anybody could ask for, and Rie Gieskes-Schreurs and Winfried Gieskes for being the most devoted and very best parents on this planet. Rie and Winfried are my “rocks in the surf,” yet have been wise enough to “send me off like an arrow.” Last but certainly not least, I am immensely grateful for the patience, intellectual stimulation, excellent editing skills, and affection of my precious friend and fiancé Eric Antokoletz. Finally I wish to extend my sincere and warm thanks to my dissertation advisor Richard Shiff, whose discerning and creative mind, brilliant scholarship, and subtle sense of humor have made an indelible impression on me. I cannot think of another art historian whose work is as original, undogmatic, and profound as Richard’s, and I will always be honored to have had the opportunity to be his research and teaching assistant and student. ix The Politics of System in the Art of Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, and Vito Acconci, 1959 – 1975 Publication No._____________ Mette Gieskes, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 Supervisor: Richard A. Shiff During the 1960s and early 1970s, a considerable number of American artists explored the subversive and liberating potential of the use of systems. This dissertation examines the political connotations of systemic practices in the early work of Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, and Vito Acconci, each of whom represents a different dimension of the investigation of systems in art. To determine what the versatile notion of system might have meant for American artists during this period, this study considers similar concerns in the parallel arts of music, literature, and film, and places the adoption by artists of systemic procedures in the context of a widespread contemporary discourse on technological, natural, and political systems.