Page 58 - Studio International - September 1969

4
Joseph Kosuth
presentation of
I. Alatter in General (Art as Idea)
1968
coll. Eastern New Mexico University, Portales.
New Mexico
from catalogue of Seth Siegelaub's summer show,
July, August. September 1969
5
Robert Morris
Felt 1967-8
Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris
6
Morris Louis
Beth-beth 1958
acrylic on canvas, 90 x 1434 in.
courtesy Waddington Galleries
7
Douglas Huebler
documentation for
Duration piece no. 9 1969
typewritten sheet, 84 x 11 in.

Andre and Kosuth as working in the area of painters studied. Morris Louis's greatness painting has tended over the last few years to
sculpture, and that one should not, for a communicates itself as much through our lose touch with the broader changes in
moment, consider either as drawing upon the understanding of his remarkable painting perception and thought with which sculpture
present area of painting (although both, as process as through the 'visual thrill's the paint- has increasingly concerned itself. The area
instanced here, so far as they present any- ings offer. The physically demanding nature of covered by 'When Attitudes become Form' is
thing have tended to present it flat on a flat this process and the apparent relevance of not the area where painting and sculpture
surface), is a measure of the present preced- Louis's work for later developments outside meet; it is the broad area of investigation
ence of sculpture over painting as an area for painting (such as Robert Morris's felt sculp- now open to three-dimensional work. 'It's not
potential action. tures) suggest that the future of painting, for that sculpture can be seen as more things and
Many of the American minimal sculptors the moment at least, lies in its potential prox- and in new ways within an expanding con-
began as painters. Many of the most com- imity to sculpture and not in the further ex- vention, but that the premis of sculptural
pelling recent uses of colour (for a long time ploitation of its flatness. thought and engagement is showing itself as
the traditional preserve of painting) have Ad Reinhardt, who must emerge as one of a more sound and relevant basis for operation
been in sculpture (e.g. Roelof Louw's painted the most influential painters of his genera- in the culture' (Barry Flanagan 6).
tubular frame sculptures). Many of the most tion, has received comparatively little atten- One freedom which has always been available
decided extensions of the concepts of painting tion from those concerned with the hermetic to those who can see off the wall is freedom to
and drawing have been made by artists who development of painting, perhaps precisely use different time levels. Now that the 'steady-
are primarily sculptors (e.g. Bruce McLean's because his example has encouraged a con- state' of the object is no longer to be seen as an
`landscape paintings', Walter de Maria's ceptual liberation from the captivating de- absolute priority in art, artists are free to use
mile-long lines in the Nevada desert, Sol Le- lights of the painted surface. the experience of time and distance as means
Witt's wall drawings). Pure painting has come to seem, paradoxic- to isolate the particular idea they wish to
Pure painting at the moment is an art form ally, what the most advanced sculpture is assert. Much of the most exciting and potent
of reduced possibilities. Attempts to safeguard rapidly ceasing to be: an activity devoted to of recent art has been concerned with time as
its status, however intelligently and rigorously the production of expensive and 'special' duration, and with distance spanned as a
argued, can in the end only speed it into objects. (Robert Ryman's painting is the means of invoking the passage of time through
academicism. It has never been enough exception which seems to prove the rule: his the spaces embraced by the mind. In
merely to sustain equivocation upon a flat preoccupation with paint as paint relates his Douglas Huebler's Duration piece no. 9 two
surface through the deployment of colour and work to that of sculptors with a similar con- different aspects of time and distance are in-
line. The study, to the exclusion of much else, cern for the unconcealed quality of their volved: the time (six weeks) required for a
of the intensification of this surface in these materials.) package to trace a line across America from
terms has tended to obscure the nature of the Following the Greenbergian logic of develop- Berkeley, California to Hull, Massachusetts
greater contribution made by many of the ment through self-criticism in separation, much through the agency and at the pace of the