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Writing

Xiyue Wang

Carmen Winant

Contemporary Art

Dec 11th 2014

Confidence on Minimal

Minimalism art communicates to its viewer with power of confidence. For those audiences who come from a traditional art background such as abstract expressionism just in a decade precede, they may find minimalism art does not qualify as “art” at the first glance. As the critic Barry Schwabsky wrote in his “Donald Judd, Tate Modern London” essay, in order to truly understand minimalism, “it sometimes seems, you'd need to forget a great deal of what you've understood of the art that preceded: burn what you have worshipped, worship what you have burned”.(119) To me, minimalism is such a formidable art. It is simple, but it has a power of confidence to occupy the space, to return all emotional additives back to viewers. It speaks of structure and discipline. Due to this great power of confidence, minimalism can be considered one of the most influential arts that contribute and reshape the appearance of the world from 1970s. It broadly infiltrated into science, architecture, graphic design, product design, and fashion that few other art movement comparable. It influences me to find the balance and confidence in my art and life.

To talk about the confident spirit of Minimalism, it is inevitable to start with the man how gives it the definition. It is never easy to introduce a new form of art. In 1960s, Donald Judd for sure had the guts to do so. As Schwabsky described in Tate Modern, Donald Judd “seems to have been a born curmudgeon, never more at ease than when he could feel himself slugging it out along against an uncomprehending world filled with mediocrities and their imitators.”(119) A pioneer spirit, and an uncompromising personality defined Judd's work as well as his notion of “specific object”. In Judd's essay, he introduced this new form of art by belittling both two-dimensional painting and three-dimensional sculpture. As Judd said in “Specific Objects”, "But now painting and sculpture are less neutral, less containers, more defined, not undeniable and unavoidable. They are particular forms circumscribed after all, producing fairly definite qualities.”(Judd 1) Such harsh and non-negotiable critiques that relentlessly point out deficiencies of mainstream art forms, speak to Judd's “curmudgeon” qualities. From his prospective of specific object, this new art form does not contain “a movement's first principles or delimiting rules....The use of three dimensions is an obvious alternative. It opens to anything...But there are some things that occur nearly in common.” (Judd 1) Instead of the style, the assertive, decisive and resolute character is commonly shared among minimalism artists.

The assertive characteristic of artists alone does not make minimalism sharp and powerful. However, more significantly, the art itself emits a strong aura of solemn silence within its balanced literal form. For the most experience of viewing an art, “works of art are intentional objects. Ignoring the intentions of their makers, they can hardly be understood at all.” (Schwabsky 119) Minimalist art confidently challenged this traditional art viewing method and overturning the “fully understood” theory. It did not bring the intention of artist to the work. Oppositely, it intentionally separates the meaning, the emotion, and the subjectivity of the artist from the artwork. By making it neutral and emotional dry, the literal part can be profound. As Judd defined, “material, space, and color are the main aspects of visual arts.”(Schwabsky 119) You never need to “fully understood” minimal art with anything behind it. Judd writes in an essay republished in the Tate catalogue, “everyone knows that there is material that can be picked up and sold, but not space. Clearly to him, structure, space and balance are more important.” (Schwabsky, 119) Geometric shapes and forms, especially cubes, are widely used on Judd’s specific object. He was not the first people using geometric form, but he does amplified it and made it grant by confidently empty it out. As Claus Peder Pedersen said on Cubes and Concepts: Notes on possible relations between minimal art and architecture, “geometry seems to be perceived as an abstract system devoid of connotations. It mainly serves as a vehicle that allows general conceptual ideas to enter into physical form. The properties and rules of geometry make it possible to develop and translate general principles.” (64) By using the simplest geometry, the work becomes a “container” as Judd described in his “Specific Object”. It can receive viewer’s opinion, but the resolute power makes it no way to re-define it.

The material empowers the Minimalism as well as it does with the form. As Judd said “Most of the work involves new materials, either recent inventions or things not used before in art....They are specific. If they are used directly, they are more specific. Also, they are usually aggressive. There is an objectivity to the obdurate identity of a material...It must be neural, but powerful. The use of three dimensions makes it possible to use all sorts of materials and colors.” (Judd 5) The industrial material itself shows a strong and dedicated power. As an example, the spotless surface of galvanized iron on Judd’s work makes an extraordinary but subtle connection from pricy household furniture to a work in museum. In one hand it is strong and durable, in the other hand it is easily to be scratched and become imperfect.

To talk about power and confidence on Minimalism, there is another force that we cannot overlook. Agnes Martin, is takes a different path from Judd but is lead to the same destination. Judd is two-dimensional while Martin is three-dimensional, they still share great commons on the solemn aura created simply by the piece. Martins’ painting can be considered as hermetic paintings. (Darwint 93) Martins’ over 30 years’ living in an adobe alone had grant her an internal and isolated power inside of every line she made on the grid. For the working process, “Martin often claimed to see finished works in her head in miniature, and then to scale their proportions up to six by six feet using mental arithmetic, rulers and bits of string. Two things strike you about this process: the first being its reliance on personality - or inspiration, to use Martin's preferred word; the second being its inbuilt imprecision.” (Darwint 92) “ Grids are about calibration: about providing an exact background against which the world - mathematical formulae, crosswords, Venn Diagrams, Mercator's Projection - can be plotted exactly. Martin's grids, by complete contrast, are handmade - every tremor of their pencilled lines a seismographic record of the personal. And, unlike any other grids, Martin's are ends in themselves.” (Darwint 92) Being classified as Minimalist, it is interesting that Martin calls herself Abstract Expressionist. Strongly influenced by Rothko, her abstract expressionism is not merely shouting expressions. It is about the concentrated and condensed power that expressed wholeheartedly, soberly, righteously, and godly in the thin line. As Charles Darwent described in “Slight hand”, Andy Wahol’s works, by comparison have “been hung busily, badly, three or four paintings deep against partitions covered in bizarre customized wallpaper. The message, right or wrong, is that the emphatic shallowness of Warhol's art requires that it be looked at quickly. By absolute contrast, the artisanal slowness of Martin's paintings - each canvas stretched and gessoed by the artist herself, its gridded lines worked out mathematically in her head and then drawn freehand onto the surface with a short ruler - calls for us to see them slowly. “ (92) There is an introverted confidence in Agnes Martin’s work, that strong enough to absorb the fickleness of the whole gallery room.

Certainly, questions arise about whether the confidence of minimalism art strong enough to support itself. As James Meyer mentioned in “The Minimal Unconscious”, “From the moment that artists like Judd, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, and Robert Morris began to exhibit their work, their practices fell under a veil of suspicion. The description of their practices as “minimal” pointed to two types of inadequacy, one morphological, the other conceptual. According to Michael Fried, the most articulate spokesman of this point of view, the Minimalists had brought the modernist impulse of reflexivity too far. They had rid the work of art of so many formal decisions, so all that remained was an uninflected shape-a shape that declared its condition as shape.” (143 ) Indeed, the uninflected shapes of minimalism share a degree of emptiness. But the emptiness is exactly its most intriguing and powerful part. As a form that dematerialize and deconceptualize the existing models, it maximized its openness as a “container”. (Judd 1)

Minimalism is never loquacious. It only “influences” us quietly but inexorably. That explains why nowadays minimalism infiltrates into every sides of life: from architecture, to furniture in a house, to small things like phone interface. No matter how the society and people’s preference changes, its power of confidence never deceases. It is like a sun, formidable in silence, bright up the world as well as my art path.

Bibliography

Pedersen, Claus Peder ."Cubes And Concepts: Notes On Possible Relations Between Minimal Art And Architecture." Town Planning & Architecture 35.1 (2011): 62-66. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 1 Dec. 2014.

Darwent, Charles. "Slight Of Hand: Agnes Martin's Hermetic Paintings." Modern Painters (2005): 90. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Prendeville, Brendan. "The Meanings Of Acts: Agnes Martin And The Making Of Americans." Oxford Art Journal 31.1 (2008): 51. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Murayama, Nina. "Furniture And Artwork As Paradoxical Counterparts In The Work Of Donald Judd." Design Issues 27.3 (2011): 47. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Schwabsky, Barry. "Donald Judd: Tate Modern." Modern Painters 17.2 (2004): 119. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Curtis, Brandon. "Secret Machines On Donald Judd." Modern Painters (2006): 63. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

HANSON, SARAH P. "Shining A Light." Art + Auction 37.11 (2014): 60-66. Art Source. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Meyer, James. "The Minimal Unconscious." October 130 (2009): 141. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Judd, Donald. “Specific Object”. (196 ) Arts Yearbook 8. Web. 12 Dec. 2014

Kitnick, Alex. "Brand Minimalism." Art In America 102.4 (2014): 86. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Work Cited

Schwabsky, Barry. "Donald Judd: Tate Modern." Modern Painters 17.2 (2004): 119. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Judd, Donald. “Specific Object”. (196 ) Arts Yearbook 8. Web. 12 Dec. 2014

Darwent, Charles. "Slight Of Hand: Agnes Martin's Hermetic Paintings." Modern Painters (2005): 90. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Meyer, James. "The Minimal Unconscious." October 130 (2009): 141. Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 12 Dec. 2014.