This study, "Minimalist Sculpture: The Consequences of Artifice", was
initially prompted by the wish to examine the case for a materialist approach
to modern sculpture. Such an inquiry needed to address not only the
substantiality of material and its process, but also the formative role of
ideology on those choices of governing materials and procedures.
The crux of this study began as, and remains, an inquiry into physical
presence, and, by extension, the idea that Minimalist sculpture somehow
returns the viewer to the viewer. At the core of any materialist position is the
certainty that experience contains an element of passivity. If nothing exists
but matter and its movements and modifications, then consciousness and
volition depend entirely on material agency. The hierarchy of such a scheme
underpins the socio-economic and cultural level with that of the biological,
and, in turn, the biological with the physical. However, perception is not a
matter of automatically recording external stimuli, but requires active
elaboration. A hermeneutic process, therefore, is not one of unbridled pure
thought; rather, it requires the recognition of an external and constant
measure that gives form to thought. Recourse to the 'given' fact of an
external reference, therefore, depends upon a relationship between
materiality and signification-the resultant heuristic method of perceptual
hypothesis that is established remains perpetually open to questioning. C.S.
Peirce is invaluable to this study in providing a theoretical framework for these
considerations.
The manner in which modern sculpture was realized experienced a
decisive change with the emergence of Minimalism. The dominant aesthetic
of Vitalism was brought into question as never before by the materialist
programme set in motion by Minimalism. The key issue of adherence to a
Vitalist or Minimalist aesthetic is invaluable when clarifying the position of
artists such as Tony Smith and Robert Smithson.
Earlier sculptural forms generated by Constructivism utilized aspects of
industrial mimesis but did not engage with sheer physicality to the extent that
Minimalism did. One reason for this major difference was the consideration
accorded to scale rather than size by the Minimalists. Such a consideration of
scale and the experience of spatio-temporality, understood as inextricably part
of the sculptural situation, gave rise to site-specificity and its ramifications as
Minimalist concerns.
Approximately the first third of this study examines Vitalism as the
dominant and enduring theme and background for modern sculpture. Vitalism
formed an inherited intellectual situation that was directly challenged by the
materialism of the Minimalists.
In the second part of the study, Barnett Newman and Constantin
Brancusi provide the two central historical precedents for the re-introduction of
the precinctual into contemporary sculpture. Newman's interest in place as a
spatio-temporal experience, and his extension of the artwork to include the
interstice between the viewer and the artwork was an extremely important
step for Minimalism. Brancusi is of interest mainly for his addressing of
temporality as a sculptural concern, and the relationship of material to place.
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His early use of assemblage, as a method of drawing with materials in space,
facilitated not only the Minimalists but also modern sculpture at large.
A section of the study is devoted to the sculpture of Richard Serra and
the idea of critical distance, something that he shares with Newman. This
intellectual attitude aids Serra in his declaration of the space of sculpture as
parallel to, and critical of, its context. The work of Robert Smithson is
examined in the light of site-specificity and ubiety, and, in particular, his use of
symbols as structural prompts. Smithson's dystopian Futurism is examined
as a significant way of helping to draw the distinction between his intellectual
position and that of a Vitalist.
The study concludes with a consideration of contextualization in general,
and of Maya Lin's site-specific memorial to the causalities of the Vietnam War.
What has emerged from this study is that precinctual space was firmly
re-established in contemporary sculptural practice by the Minimalist sculptors.
I have used the term ubiety to describe the re-emphasis, and re-emergent
awareness, of place as an interstitial space that was associated with the
Minimalists. Ubiety is understood to be the condition of being in a particular
place, and comes from the Latin 'where'. In contrast, ubiquity is the condition
of being everywhere. In the light of ubiety, sculpture, particularly site-specific
sculpture, is discussed and understood as a spatio-temporal event.