6.2 minimalism california

California Light + Space Movement

Art 109A: Art since 1945 Westchester Community College Fall 2012 Dr. Melissa Hall

West Coast Minimalism On the West Coast, a number of artists explored ideas that paralleled New York Minimalism

The Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, 1962 Artnet

West Coast Minimalism

“By the mid-1960s California artists had embraced Minimalism and given it a uniquely West Coast spin in the Los Angeles Fetish Finish and Light and Space movements. Artists such as Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Craig Kauffman, and DeWain Valentine were incorporating into their work the latest technologies of the Southern California based engineering and aerospace industries to develop sensuous, light-filled objects” http://www.ocma.net/index.html?page=past&show=exhibit&e_id=401

The Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, 1962 Artnet

West Coast Minimalism John McCracken created Minimalist works that incorporated pop references in their titles and slick lacquer finish

John McCracken Image source: http://venice-in-venice.com/mccracken-john.html

West Coast Minimalism Designed to lean directly against the wall, his “planks” exist in an uncertain place between painting and sculpture

John McCracken, Think Pink, 1967 Image source: http://artobserved.com/2011/02/go-see-turin-john-mccracken-at-castello-di-rivoli-through-june-19th-2011/

West Coast Minimalism

John McCracken, Think Pink, 1967 Image source: http://artobserved.com/2011/02/go-see-turin-john-mccracken-at-castello-di-rivoli-through-june-19th-2011/

“McCracken began producing his vibrant lacquered monochrome "planks" in 1966. While the polished resin surface recalls the aesthetic of 1960s southern California surfboard and Kustom Kar cultures, the title was drawn from advertising slogans in fashion magazines. The plank's interaction with both the floor and wall is meant to call attention to the space occupied by both viewer and object. ‘I see the plank as existing between two worlds’ McCracken says, ‘the floor representing the physical world of standing objects, trees, cars, buildings, human bodies, and everything, and the wall representing the world of the imagination, illusionistic painting space, human mental space, and all that.’” Museum of Modern Art

West Coast Minimalism Larry Bell began working with the minimalist form of the cube, using glass to explore the complexities of perception

Larry Bell with cube at Jacobson Howard Gallery, New York City, 2005. Photo by Jennifer Lynch http://artandliving.net/2008/05/13/art-spotlight-interview-with-ed-moses-and-larry-bell/

Larry Bell, 20" Untitled 1969 (Tom Messner Cube), 1969 Guggenheim

“With their enclosed rectilinear shapes, the cubes bear a resemblance to Minimalist sculptures that were being made contemporaneously in New York. But like other Light-and-Space artists active in Los Angeles in the 1960s, Bell was interested less in literal, material objects than in the nature of our perception. At the same time that they carve out and define a given volume of space, works like 20" Untitled 1969 (Tom Messer Cube) become a continuum of their surrounding space, partly reflecting whatever happens to be in the environment while also permitting the viewer to see through them from every angle. By setting some of his cubes on clear Plexiglas pedestals, Bell further collapses their physical presence and produces a sense of weightlessness. The gray-tinged cube of this work seems more substantial than its invisible base and appears to hover in the air.” Guggenheim Museum

Larry Bell, Untitled, 1969 http://www.quotestemple.com/Quotes/larry-bell-quote-hes-not-going-to-win-but-my-vote-is-a-vote-for-having-more

California Light and Space Movement The California light and space movement included artists such as Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, and James Turrell

Robert Irwin in the Robert CaplanArtist-in-Residence Studio MCASD Jacobs Building, on July 11, 2007. Photograph by Stephanie Diani http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/robert-irwin-2/

California Light and Space Movement They used light and scrims to create extraordinary perceptual experiences that border on mind-altering encounters

Doug Wheeler, Light Encasement, 1968

Doug Wheeler, 68 VEN MCASD 11, 1968/2011. Exhibition view Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface.

Robert Irwin, Untitled, 1968 Synthetic polymer paint on aluminum and electric light, Disc 60 3/8" (153.2 cm) in diameter Museum of Modern Art

“This untitled work is a convex, spray-painted disk held a foot or so out from the wall by a central post. Its subtle, tactile surface modulates delicately from center to edge, and it is softly lit from four angles, creating a cloverleaf pattern of shadow. The white center of the disk can seem to lie level with the white wall, so that the eye spends time trying to understand what it sees—what is nearer and what is farther, what is solid and what is immaterial light, or even light's absence. For Irwin, the result is ‘this indeterminate physicality with different levels of weight and density, each on a different physical plane. It [is] very beautiful and quite confusing, everything starting and reversing.’” Museum of Modern Art

Robert Irwin, Untitled, 1968 Synthetic polymer paint on aluminum and electric light, Disc 60 3/8" (153.2 cm) in diameter Museum of Modern Art

“The idea, in part, extends the Abstract Expressionist notion of an infinite, all–encompassing, allover field, but with the qualification that for Irwin, ‘To be an artist is not a matter of making paintings or objects at all. What we are really dealing with is our state of consciousness and the shape of our perceptions.’” Museum of Modern Art

Robert Irwin, Untitled, 1968 SFMOMA

“To be an artist is not a matter of making paintings or objects at all. What we are really dealing with is our state of consciousness and the shape of our perception.” Robert Irwin


“My art has never been about ideas . . . . My interest in art has never been about abstraction; it has always been about experience . . . . My pieces were never meant to be dealt with intellectually as ideas, but to be considered experientially.” Robert Irwin


“What I would like to do is to make you aware that you see and that, by not being able to prejudice the situation, you suddenly become party to an entirely different structure of the state of the real. It’s you that does it, not me. So it can’t really manifest itself as an idea, or an object, or an event because any of these things becomes distracting and at least in part about itself.” Robert Irwin


“If light is the medium and space is the medium, then, in a sense, the universe is the medium. I know the impracticality of it right now but when I say that the medium is the universe, that maybe the world is an art form, then the gardening of our universe or our consciousness would be the level of our art participation . . . . That’s the reason for my participation in some other activities.” Robert Irwin

James Turrell James Turrell’s work is based on his studies of psychology and perception

James Turrell at Roden Crater http://www.rodencrater.com/james.html

James Turrell, Alta (White), 1967

“Turrell’s work involves explorations in light and space that speak to viewers without words, impacting the eye, body, and mind with the force of a spiritual awakening. ‘I want to create an atmosphere that can be consciously plumbed with seeing,’ says the artist, “like the wordless thought that comes from looking in a fire.’” James Turrell Art:21 (PBS)

James Turrell, Live Oak Friends Meeting House, 2001 Houston, Texas

“James Turrell has been building rooms to which he has given the name 'Skyspace' since 1974. A chamber of certain dimensions is constructed; containing only seating, lighting and an aperture in the ceiling, in which visitors can sit and gaze at the sky.” James Turrell Deer Shelter (Art Fund Comsion)

James Turrell, Deer Shelter, 2006 Yorkshire Sculpture Park, U.K.

“The reason I started the Skyspace series was to get a situation where the sky was actually brought down in close contact -- there’s long been an art where light is the subject, I want it also to be the material. How these things are brought close to you so they become part of your territory is something very important to me.” James Turrell

James Turrell, Tall Glass, 2007 Pace Wildenstein

“Whether harnessing the light at sunset or transforming the glow of a television set into a fluctuating portal, Turrell’s art places viewers in a realm of pure experience” James Turrell Art:21 (PBS)

James Turrell, Night Passage, 1987 Rectangular cut in partition wall, fluorescent and tungsten lamps, and fixtures Guggenheim Museum

Manipulating light as a sculptor would mold clay, James Turrell creates works that amplify perception. Unlike pictorial art that replicates visual experience through mimetic illusion, Turrell’s light works—one cannot call these shimmering events ”objects“ or ”images“—give form to perception. Each installation activates a heightened sensory awareness that promotes discovery: what seems to be a lustrous, suspended cube is actually the conjunction of two flat panels of projected light; a rectangle of radiant color hovering in front of a wall is really a deep, illuminated depression in the space; a velvety black square on the ceiling is, in reality, a portal to the night sky. With such effects, Turrell hopes to coax the viewer into a state of self-reflexivity in which one can see oneself seeing.” Guggenheim Museum

James Turrell, Frontal Passage, 1994 MOMA

“Throughout history, the artist has been a shaper of matter, whether the pigment of an image or the solid substance of sculpture. A Frontal Passage, like other works by Turrell, breaks from those ancient traditions in that it has no mass. Instead, Turrell shapes light.” Museum of Modern Art


“To view A Frontal Passage, the visitor passes through a darkened entryway into a chamber, also dark—but divided diagonally by a radiant yet crisply defined wall of red light. Instead of diffusing freely from one side of this wall to the other, the light ends abruptly in space, as if it had density. The power of the work lies in this paradox, in which nothingness gains physical presence.” Museum of Modern Art


”My work is more about your seeing than it is about my seeing” James Turrell

California Light and Space Movement Turrell’s most recent project is Roden Crater -- an extinct volcano that the artist is transforming into a celestial observatory

James Turrell, Roden Crater, near Flagstaff, Arizona

James Turrell, Roden Crater, near Flagstaff, Arizona

6.2 minimalism california

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