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Contemporary Art :, A Short History of Minimalism by Kyle Chayka - Coggle…

- - - - New 3D work of the mid-1900s does not fit neatly into a certain art category. The term painting is too limited when it comes to surface and measurement of the work. Yet, sculptures are typically composed part by part and are of neutral colors. For sculpture, there is a wide range of forms and the "whole" is what is interesting. Recent forms break down the "whole" into their individual components and basic shapes. The new work is depended on the viewers' experiences and uses more industrial materials than traditional. The new work could be considered as somewhere between painting and sculpture.
    - - Literalist art defines the position it occupies- the shape or wholeness determines the object. Paintings have to defeat their own objecthood while literalist art considered shape as a property of objects if not an object itself. In reduction, it is defined as an object in a situation that includes the viewer. The viewer coming across literalist art creates an awareness of presence between the two without communication. Yet, there is a war going on between theatricality and objecthood. Art is no longer limited to being an object, but an experience like theater, therefore; the art must prove it isn't theater. It is through the condition of perpetual presence and instantaneousness that painting and sculpture defeat theater.
    - - The category of "sculpture" has evolved to become almost infinitely malleable. Minimalist sculpture, for example, reduced art to physics and geometry more than aesthetics. Sculpture has its own internal logic- a commemorative representation; it mediates between location and design. Modernist sculpture is homeless as it is not reliant on its location for perception. In the 1960s, sculpture began to be a series of exclusions- what was in a room/landscape that was not part of the room/landscape. Sculpture as an art form is suspended between different structural possibilities that our culture has only recently comprehended. The logic of postmodernism is organized based on the terms that feel to be in opposition with its cultural situation. A logical structure to hart history would explain this evolution of sculpture in a more comprehensible way than chronologically.
    - - Sculpture Artist
        
        Mary Miss creates site-specific sculptures that are built into the natural land. Her work remains mostly untitled. In Untitled (1973) she placed four panels with circles cut out of the middle in a line in the middle of nowhere desert. The view of the piece depended on the environment- placement of the sun in the sky, cloud cover for shadows, etc. In Sunken Pool a path leads the viewer along the edge of a soccer field only to have the path interrupted by a steel and wood structure twenty feet in diameter. There is water in the structure yet the viewer is unsure of where the bottom is. Mary Miss transformed sculpture to become one with the environment. Perhaps better characterized as structure, her work proved that it did not fit a familiar form and wasn't something in particular, just a presence within an environment that worked with the environment.
    - - Cubi XII (1963)
        
        Cubi XII is an abstract, stainless steel sculpture that consists of two rectangular prisms and four cubes set up very precariously. They appear as if the whole structure could fall at anytime. There is a mystery to the construction of the piece. Smith could be considered as starting the movement for making the components of a structure objects themselves. The piece doesn't rely on anything other than itself for its existence. Yet the pieces do not fit a familiar form so it is an object yet not a classified structure.
    - - Die 1962
        
        Smith created a six foot steel cube and place it in a gallery space. There is no meaning or metaphor just its existence. Yet this is indeed art because of its existence and opportunity to be viewed and experienced. Contrary to parts equaling a whole during the Objecthood movement, there is simply one whole object and nothing more. The outside version of this piece is site-specific and made of mirrors. The viewer's experience of the piece is dependent on outside conditions. Like Mary Miss, Smith brought attention to the relationship between an object and its environment while proving that existence and experience are philosophically proven to be art even without any meaning.
    - - Early One Morning (1962)
        
        During the modernist sculpture movement, Caro created this piece of red-painted geometric shapes of think rectangular prisms and flat sheets of metal arranged in an abstract form. The piece feels anthropomorphic as it balances precariously and appears awkward yet aesthetic. Early One Morning relies only on line and shape for its existence. Caro made line and shape objects in themselves rather than abstract concepts. The individual pieces create the whole, causing the viewer to look at the piece as one whole from several individual objects of shape and line.
    - - Spiral Jetty (1970)
        
        Smithson moved over 6,000 tons of rocks into a spiral formation on the edge of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Primarily constructed of salt crystals, mud and basalt rocks it is a 1500 foot-long counterclockwise coil. It is meant as an experience through geologic time as viewers walk along the jetty. Water used to come to the top of the rocks, then it rose to the point where it covered the sculpture but then drought made the jetty visible again. It is an experience of the evolution of these rocks over time. Once again, no longer is a sculpture an object, it is a durational experience; a demonstration of the passage of time that is instantaneous in experience.
  - - - The material world is an illusion: it is only formed by our perceptions. The concept of form is forever existent no matter the material. The form is defined as how the material is presented while the material is the what of the form. Material thinking results in representations while formal thinking results in models. Painting can be seen as a process where material seeing takes a leading role while formal seeing can be represented in film and cinema as they are immaterial. The appearance of material is form. It is important to distinguish the two and understand their relationship to fully appreciate the evolution of sculpture, painting and expanded media artwork.
    - - The Holy Virgin Mary 1996
        
        A mixed media representation of Mother Mary was highly controversial, yet incredibly effective. He portrayed her as a Black woman with exaggerated stereotypes such as a large nose and lips and even used elephant dung on the chest and placed it on either side of the painting on the ground. By putting these hurtful stereotypes on a figure that is representative of White culture, Ofili demonstrated how Whites only care about stereotypes when they apply to them and are blindly turning their eye to the hurtful stereotypes they are perpetuating. Ofili put the white world in the Black community's shoes with this painting.
    - - Ceramic Artist
        
        Robert Lugo grew up poor in the Philadelphia area and began working with graffiti before switching to ceramics. Lugo works to bring art into less fortunate communities. Art is often associated with museums and a wealthy, upper class yet people of all wealth classes deserve to be exposed to the world of art. Lugo makes clay from dirt. He gathers dirt or soil from a particular place, mixed it with water, and creates ceramic bowls right in front of people on the street. He transforms the ground we walk on into something we drink or eat from- showing that you can transform your background into inspiration. Lugo demonstrates that no matter your social or racial background you are capable of creating.
    - - RSVP Series
        
        Nengudi was known for working with nylon pantyhose. Oftentimes she was so abstract in her work that Black artists didn't respect her because her work didn't speak on social justice. In her RSVP Series, she stretched nylon pantyhose filled with sand in a corner of a room but stretched to touch the surrounding walls. Nengudi was demonstrating the changes that her body underwent during pregnancy. By using a material typically used as clothing to cover up a body she is taking off this cover fabric and using it as a symbol of the body being stretched and curved.
    - - Body of Work (1937-present)
        
        Edwards was primarily a welder. He took scrap metal pieces and welded them together to represent an experience of the Black community in history. For example, in Some Bright Morning (1963) Edwards used iindustrial materials to represent a lynching through a chain hanging from a wall connection. In Cotton Hanging (1966) he references the cotton picking industry through the title. He created the shape of hanging figure out of the same metal tool that is used to press cotton. Edwards was very intentional both with his choice of material and his use of it.
- - - - A blank white canvas with the world I AM A MAN in black on it. As a Black artist, Ligon felt that he had to prove his humanness because of his race. The piece was a response to the book Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison which addresses the difficulties of being a Black individual in a white-led world.
  - - - This was a video installation in the Eastern State Penitentiary. She used the 1969 Stonewall riots as a starting point to bring about change. Handelman wanted to speak on the treatment of gay and transgender inmates. Transgenders are held in the section of their original biological sex, often putting them in a danger situation. Because of the danger, transgender inmates are often left in solitary confinement for their own protection. Just as the outside world is adapting to include the whole gender spectrum, it is important that the prison system adapt as well for the safety of the inmates.
  - - - During the Syrian refugee crisis, a photograph of a drowned toddler's body washed ashore became famous as a symbol of the horrific tragedy. Ai Weiwei decided to recreate the photograph in the same location but with his own body. It was a form of performative protest to the United States' response, or lack thereof, to the crisis. The drowning of a child should not be politically loaded. This piece was very controversial as it was the stimulus for the Pentagon to retract its approval of the Ode to the Sea exhibit. The Pentagon then banned detainees from passing art to anyone and decided that inmates' artwork would now be property of the United States government.