Durham E-Theses The Persistence of Minimalism BOTHA, MARC,JOHANN How to cite: BOTHA, MARC,JOHANN (2011) The Persistence of Minimalism, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4455/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 1 THE PERSISTENCE OF MINIMALISM MARC JOHANN BOTHA Ph.D. DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH STUDIES DURHAM UNIVERSITY 2011 2 CONTENTS List of Illustrations 6 List of Sound Examples 9 List of Video Examples 10 List of Abbreviations 10 Acknowledgements 12 PART ONE – MINIMALISM AS DYNAMIC MOVEMENT 1. INTRODUCTION a) Principal thesis and structural overview 14 b) Sub-theses in support of the principal thesis 18 2. MINIMALISM AS A DYNAMIC AESTHETIC MOVEMENT a) Minimalism as an existential modality 19 b) The tension between stasis and dynamis in the concept of an aesthetic movement 20 c) Naming minimalism 23 3. THE EMERGENCE OF MINIMALISM a) A path of austerity towards clarity 28 b) The minimalist transection of modern and postmodern 44 c) Institution and economy 48 4. THE AESTHETICS AND OBJECTS OF MINIMALISM a) Formalism and objecthood 55 b) Minimal forms and internal relation 60 c) Poietic immanence – impassive presence, repetition, and the demands minimalism makes of its perceiver 68 3 d) Minimalism between index and indifference – nonreferentiality, nonmediation, nonanthropomorphism 73 e) The problem of reduction and the questions of facture and process 83 5. A MINIMALIST TOPOLOGY OF THE REAL a) The pursuit of the Real as a transection of Being and existence 90 b) Species of realism 91 c) Clarifying the Real 97 d) Returning to the principles of ontological realism 102 e) A topology of the Real 106 f) The persistence of the Real 111 g) The facticity of the Real 114 h) A minimalist realism 118 PART TWO – MINIMALISM AS QUANTITATIVE ONTOLOGY 6. MINIMALISM AS QUANTITATIVE BEING a) Counting and the experience of existence 122 b) The loss of quantity and the ascendency of quality in the understanding of ontology 126 c) Sustenance and silence 127 d) Autotelism 131 e) Modular process as sonic quantity 135 7. THE QUALIFICATION OF QUANTITY a) The refusal of quantity 145 b) The One and the persistence of the universal 149 c) One and Multiple 152 8. THE COUNT a) The subtraction of novelty 166 b) Configuring the Count 171 4 9. MINIMALISM OF NEGATION AND THE TAKING PLACE OF QUANTITY a) Minimalist negation made manifest 178 b) Negation, sublation and lessness 184 c) Taking-place 197 10. THE TENSION OF NOTHINGNESS AND MINIMUM a) Nihilism and an approach to minimum 202 b) Nothingness and existence 207 c) The minimal presentation of nothingness 220 d) Aesthetic facticity – disappearance and persistence 230 e) The argument regarding minimalism and perception 241 f) Minimal intensity and existential appearance 253 PART THREE – MINIMALISM AS EXISTENTIAL TRANSUMPTION 11. THEORETICAL OBJECTHOOD a) Objects in search of a theory 255 b) The gains and risks of meta-theory 257 12. CONCRETE VISUAL ATOPIAS a) Preamble regarding minimalism and concretism 262 b) The visible traces of theurgical poiesis 263 c) Locating the atopia of poetry 271 d) Futurism and the poignancy of direction 283 e) An event between art and non-art 297 13. SONIC OBJECTS AS MINIMALIST POETRY a) Solid sounds 309 b) Intermediation as generic expression 315 c) Homonymy, homophony and solidity 318 d) Losing voice and concrete intensification 327 e) The technology of solid sounds 334 5 14. CONCRETISM AS AN EXEMPLARY VEHICLE FOR MINIMALISM a) A concrete continuum 339 b) The parameters of concretism 348 c) Synaesthetic concrete patterning 349 d) Quantitative categories and the role of the example 357 e) The example is para-ontological rather than para-epistemological 361 f) Exemplary force 365 g) Concretism as minimalist para-ontology 367 15. A TYPOLOGY OF MINIMALISM a) Transumption and the typology of minimalism 369 b) The minimalist logic of containment 371 c) The minimalist logic of distension 381 d) The minimalist logic of distribution 390 16. BIBLIOGRAPHY a) Primary sources 309 b) Secondary sources 406 6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: El Greco, Saint Francis Praying, 1580-85 30 Figure 2: The cell of St. Theresa of Avilla, Spain 32 Figure 3: Nelson Mandela's Prison Cell on Robben Island 32 Figure 4: Martin Boyce, Our Love is like the Earth, the Sun, the Trees and the Birth, 2003/2008 33 Figure 5: Dan Flavin, Monument 1 for V. Tatlin, 1964 34 Figure 6: Robert Morris, Untitled (Quarter-Round Mesh), 1967 34 Figure 7: Donald Judd, Untitled, 1965 34 Figure 8: Martin Boyce, Our Love is like the Earth, the Sun, the Trees and the Birth, 2003/2008. Installation view 35 Figure 9: Martin Boyce, Our Love is like the Earth, the Sun. the Tress and the Birth, 2003/2008. Installation view 35 Figure 10: Great Stone Dwelling House, Enfield Village, New Hampshire, 1837-41 37 Figure 11: Shaker kitchen and furniture, Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, undated 38 Figure 12: Shaker wall with built-in cupboards, Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, undated 38 Figure 13: Ivan Zvesdin, School 518, 1935 39 Figure 14: Walter Gropius, Bauhaus Dessau, 1924-5 39 Figure 15:Gerrit Rietveld, Zig-zag Chair, 1934 40 Figure 16: Donald Judd, Chair 84/85, 1991 40 Figure 17: Agnes Martin, Untitled #12, 1997 43 Figure 18: Agnes Martin, Untitled #9, 1990 43 Figure 19: Dirk Jan Postel, Glass House in Almelo 53 Figure 20: Morger & Degelo, House in Dornach 53 Figure 21: Gluckman Mayner, Helmut Lang Flagship Parfumerie, New York, 1997 54 Figure 22: Francisco Costa (for Calvin Klein), Pre-fall, 2011/12 54 Figure 23: Carl Andre, Fall, 1968 56 Figure 24: Sol LeWitt, Incomplete Open Cubes, 1974 56 Figure 25: Frank Stella, Tomlinson Court Park, 1959 58 Figure 26: Barnett Newman, cathedra, 1971 58 Figure 27: Yves Klein, IKB 82, 1959 59 Figure 28: Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon 1958 59 Figure 29: Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting Black (A), 1954-9 59 Figure 30: Brice Marden, Grove Group I, 1972-3 61 Figure 31: Frank Stella, Delaware Crossing, 1961 62 Figure 32: Donald Judd, Untitled, 1970 62 Figure 33: Donald Judd, Untitled, 1990; first type 1965 62 Figure 34: Aram Saroyan, Untitled poster-poem, 1965-6 64 Figure 35: Heinz Gappmayr, ver, 1966 64 Figure 36: Robert Wilson, Part of stage design for Einstein on the Beach, 1976 70 Figure 37: Dan Flavin, untitled (to Robert, Joe and Michael) 1975-81 71 Figure 38: Olafur Eliasson, The Weather Project, 2003 71 7 Figure 39: Walter de Maria, The Lighting Field, 1971-7 71 Figure 40: Ian Hamilton Finlay with Alexander Stoddart, Apollon Terroriste, 1988 74 Figure 41: Ian Hamilton Finlay, Apollo/Saint-Just (after Bernini), 1986 76 Figure 42: Ian Hamilton Finlay, The Garden Temple (To Apollo, His Music, His Missiles, His Muses), 1982 76 Figure 43: Sol LeWitt, Serial Project No. 1 (ABCD), 1966 77 Figure 44: Donald Judd, Untitled series, 1982-6 78 Figure 45: Ellsworth Kelly, Spectrum IV, 1967 78 Figure 46: Paul Mogensen, Copperopolis, 1966 78 Figure 47: Steve McCaffery, from Panopticon, 1984 81 Figure 48: Ronald Bladen, The X, 1967 85 Figure 49: Robert Mangold, Red Wall, 1965 86 Figure 50: Topology of the Real with Respect to Being, event and occurrence of entities 107 Figure 51: Sol LeWitt, HRZL, 1990 140 Figure 52: Sol Le Witt, 1 2 3 4 5 6, 1978 140 Figure 53: Don Eddy, Private Parking V, 1971 141 Figure 54: Robert Morris, Untitled (Battered Cubes), 1966 162 Figure 55: Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting No. 5, 1962 163 Figure 56: Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting No. 5, 1962; three different exposures of contrast and brightness juxtaposed 164 Figure 57: Frank Stella, Empress of India, 1965 164 Figure 58: Frank Stella, Die Fahne Hoch!, 1959 165 Figure 59: Kenneth Noland, Turnsole, 1961 165 Figure 60: Dan Flavin, the nominalist three (to William of Ockham), 1964 173 Figure 61: Eric Andersen, I Have Confidence in You, 1965 177 Figure 62: Ad Reinhardt, Study for a Painting, 1938 182 Figure 63: Ad Reinhardt, Collage, 1950 182 Figure 64: Ad Reinhardt, Number 107, 1950 183 Figure 65: Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting (Red), 1952 183 Figure 66: Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting, 1957 183 Figure 67: Bruce Nauman, No, No, New Museum, 1987 187 Figure 68: Carl Andre, Cedar Piece. 1959, reconstructed 1964 195 Figure 69: Richard Serra, Splashing, 1968 196 Figure 70: Hansjörg Mayer, from fortführungen, 1964 197 Figure 71: Heinz Gappmayr, Untitled, 1964 197 Figure 72: Cy Twombly, Cold Stream, 1966 218 Figure 73: Cy Twombly, Arcadia, 1958 219 Figure 74: Still from opening of A Zed and Two Noughts, Peter Greenaway, 1985 238 Figure 75: Sequence of two stills from opening of A Zed and Two Noughts, Peter Greenaway, 1985 239 Figure 76: Sequence of stills from Peter Greenaway, A Zed and Two Noughts, 1985 240 Figure 77: Robert Morris, Untitled (L-Beams), 1965-7 248 Figure 78: Dan Flavin - untitled (Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin), 1996.