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