Post on 19-May-2015
ART 271
Ch. 20 Sixties Abstraction: Minimalism
What we are doing today:
Talk about Museum Paper: due Thurs. Dec 3
Lecture: Ch. 20 Minimalism: Artists: Donald Judd, Frank Stella, Richard Serra
Film Clip: Art21: Richard Serra – 15 mins
MAG Museum Paper
Reminders: This counts as 20% of your final grade Your paper should be 5-7 typewritten
pages in length. There are 4 parts to this paper. I prefer
your essay to be broken into 4 parts with Headers indicating the parts.
You need to provide me with a color reproduction of the work from the museum
MAG Museum Paper cont’d
You need proof of your gallery visit. A receipt stapled or taped to a sheet of paper.
Use complete sentences. Do not use txt abbreviations like lower case i.
Read your paper OUT LOUD to yourself to check for fluidity and correct grammar, typos, etc.
YOUR FINAL PAPER SHOULD BE STAPLED!!!!!!! DO NOT HAND IN LOOSE SHEETS OF PAPER AND ASK ME IF I HAVE A STAPLER
MAG Paper Cont’d
Papers are due AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS ON THURS. DEC 3. I do not accept papers via email or in my VAPA mailbox.
Late Policy: Each calendar day your paper is late will result in loss of a letter grade. After 4 calendar days it is a ZERO.
Also, MAG is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Check their hours and days of operation before you go!
MINIMALISM
L.A. & N.Y. - 1960s
Concerned formal challenges: Formal Reduction Strict geometry Use of industrial materials Interest in viewer’s physical space Focus on artwork as a physical
object Negation of representation,
narrative, and metaphor
Artists: Donald Judd, Frank Stella, Richard Serra
MINIMALISM
• Like Pop Art, Minimalism also emerged in the 1960s as the dominant mode of abstraction in New York.
• Minimalism was another transition away from Modernism and a rebellion against Abstract Expressionism
**In its strictest sense, Minimal art works do not allude to anything beyond their literal presence. Minimalist artists were interested in form and materials.**
20.46, Donald Judd: Untitled, 1965, Galvanized iron, seven boxes, each 9 x 40 x 31”, 9” between each box.
Donald Judd: “Specific Objects”
Donald Judd coined the term ‘specific objects’ to describe work that challenged traditional categories of painting and sculpture.
He creates “specific
objects:” meaning these works of art or objects do not offer any more information than their physical characteristics.
Critical Reaction to Minimalism(Judd, Untitled, 1965)
“an art whose blank, neutral, mechanical impersonality contrasts so violently with the romantic, biographical abstract expressionist style which proceeded it that spectators are chilled by its apparent lack of feeling or content.”
-1965, Barbara Rose
Donald Judd, Untitled, 1966, anodized aluminum & blue plexi-glass Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych, 1962, oil, acrylic, and silk screen
Frank Stella, The marriage of reason and squalor, 1959
“What you see is what you see” –Stella
Frank Stella, Avicenna, 1960, Aluminum paint on canvas
20.43, Stella, Agbatana III, 1968. Fluorescent acrylic on canvas, 9’ 11 7/8 in x 14’ 11 7/8 in.
20.56, Richard Serra, One Ton Prop (House of Cards), 1969.
Film Clip
From the PBS Series, ART21: Richard Serra. 15 mins