| In 1966 a group of American artists held an exhibition at the Jewish
Museum in New York. The exhibition was titled "Primary Structures" but the
work became better known as Minimal Art. As the title suggests this was
an art stripped of all decoration and reduced to its extremes. Minimal Art
embraced industrial materials such as concrete, stainless steel, lead and
glass while making elemental forces and structures its subject. Minimal
Maximal at the Chiba Museum traces the influence of this art on contemporary
art of the 1990's. There are 32 artists in the exhibition and about one
third of the work is Minimal Art from the 1960's and 70's. It includes some
of the most important and influential artists of the period including Donald
Judd, Sol Lewitt, Carl Andre and Robert Morris. There is a visual dialogue
between the established art and the more recent works, which sparks an energy
and interest throughout the exhibition sometimes using irreverent humor
to comment on this seriously formal period of art history. Piotr Uklanski's
work 'American Minimalism Meets Saturday Night Fever' is a small Plexiglas
dance floor which flashes in colors to a pulsating soundtrack. This dance
floor appears to mimic a combination of Carl Andre's 1969 floor piece of
steel-magnesium alloy squares and Dan Flavin's colored fluorescent tubes,
both of which are in the exhibition. The 'high' art of minimalism meets
the 'low' art of disco dancing. A photograph by British artist John Isaacs
exemplifies the exhibition's thesis of art talking about art. The photograph
depicts Isaacs as a blind man, wearing dark glasses and carrying a white
cane, tapping a cube Ð the very essence of a Minimal form. The photograph's
caption reads 'Ah! Donald Judd, my favorite!' This work is at once both
a student prank and cheap shot at the expense of Minimalism's guru, artist
Donald Judd, while also being a comment on the far-reaching influence of
Minimalism. Isaacs' work astutely suggests that the elemental concepts of
minimalism are such that even a blind man can 'see' them. In the same room
as Isaacs' photo is a 1961 cube by Robert Morris. This immaculately crafted
24.8 cm wooden cube has, emanating from inside, noises of a woodwork shop
Ð sawing, scraping and hammering. These are the noises of the making of
this box. Judd provides us with the ultimate simple object while capturing
the very essence of its creation. Sol Lewitt's sparse pure white cubic structures
are well known Minimalist icons. Three of his works from the late 60's and
early 70's are included in this exhibition. Accompanying them are more recent
works, which echo different aspects of Lewitt's art. For example Christian
Phillip Muller's pyramid of 35 white cubic plastic Ikea tables resembles
a Lewitt work while Franka Hornschemeyer's piece "DI 2750", a galvanized
metal frame from a demolished room, examines the architectural extremes
of Minimalism. Seeking to be the ultimate piece of minimal art is Lawrence
Weiner's hole in the wall. The work consists of a rectangle of plasterboard
museum wall removed to reveal a void and the skeleton structure of the building.
Minimal Maximal is an instructive exhibition for anyone wanting to better
understand the inspiration behind much recent contemporary art. It is also
a witty and entertaining exhibition. |
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