Minimalism : art and polemics in the sixties /
James Meyer.
- viii, 340 pages : illustrations (some colour) ; 27 cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
A minimal field -- Minimal polemics -- Spring 1966 -- A tour of "Primary Structures" -- 1959-1962 -- The early years -- 1963 -- The emergence of Judd and Morris -- Truitt at Andre Emmerich -- 1964 -- Introduction to the "minimal" 1: "Black, White, and Gray" -- Introduction to the "Minimal" 2: "Everyman's Infinite Art"; Di Suvero's Attack -- Introduction to the "minimal" 3: the art student's doubt -- Flavin, Judd, and Stella interviewed -- Enter Flavin; "Eleven Artists" -- "8 Young Artists" -- Morris's plywood show -- 1965 -- "Shape and Structure: 1965": the fight for Stella's "Soul" -- Andre's styrofoam show: Sculpture-as-Place -- "Specific Objects" -- "Minimal Art" and "ABC Art": popularization of the "minimal" -- 1966 -- Morris's "Notes on Sculpture" -- The serial attitude: Judd at Castelli, "Systemic Painting," and the Finch Shows -- Seriality as negation -- Andre's brick show -- LeWitt at the Dwan Gallery: displacement into conceptualism -- 1967: The Critiques of Greenberg and Fried -- "Recentness of Sculpture": minimalism and "Good Design" -- The case for Truitt: minimalism and gender -- The aesthetics of doubt: "Art and Objecthood" -- 1968: Canonization/Critique -- Judd's Whitney show and Battcock's anthology -- "The Art of the Real: USA 1948-1968" and the reception abroad -- "Minimal Art," "Anti Form," and the social critique of minimalism.
This volume shows how artists as diverse as Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and Anne Truitt came to be designated as minimalists during a series of exhibitions in the 1960s. Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. The author attempts to make sense of minimalism as an artistic moment. He points out that, at first, the term "minimalism" was derogatory, implying that the art was too reduced and abstract. In the late '60s, the label lost its stigma as the work was widely recognized by major museums, and minimalist art headed toward canonization. This work analyzes that process as well as the backlash against minimalism by leftists, especially in Europe, who associated it with American cultural imperialism. It also places minimalist art in a broader cultural context, noting the stripped-down, austere sensibility that prevailed in '60s fashion and design.
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Minimal art--United States. Art, American--20th century.