New York, November 2000 - Minimalism and After features key examples of Minimalist art from the 1960s juxtaposed with contemporary examples that follow two opposing directions of its heritage. One section of the exhibition highlights the rigid geometry of the cube, while another examines the interest in a form of anti-composition - a dispersal or scattering of form - exemplified in later works by an all-over distribution of materials in floor sculptures. Featuring paintings and sculptures by artists such as Janine Antoni, Donald Judd, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Robert Morris, Richard Serra, Tony Smith, and Sue Williams, among others, the exhibition is on view from November 5, 2000 through January 30, 2001 as part of Open Ends, Minimalism and After is organized by Kirk Varnedoe, Chief Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture.
From the late 1960s to the 1990s, artists involved with the legacy of Minimalism have imbued the apparent absolutes of geometry - such as the neutral shape of the cube-with dynamic contingencies of weight, torsion, and process. Tony Smith's iconic work Die (1962) has been a model for many contemporary artists working from its timeless cubic form. Giovanni Anselmo, for instance, introduced elements of weight and balance, tension and resistance, into the stasis of cubic geometry. His sculpture Torsion (1968), a recently acquired work, is a 5,500 pound cube of concrete with webs of leather emerging from the top, twisted forcefully by a large wooden handle braced against the wall. Another work, Janine Antoni's Gnaw (1992), comprises two 600-pound cubes, of chocolate and of lard, that have been gnawed by the artist. The chewed substances were subsequently molded into heart-shaped candy boxes and tubes of lipstick, referring to consumerism and the pursuit of beauty in a way that subverts the masculine, industrial connotations of early Minimalism, and brings instead a new set of feminist concerns to sculpture.
Another section of the exhibition focuses on a new interest in the dispersal or scattering of form that stemmed from the Minimalists' reconsideration of the poured paintings of Jackson Pollock. Such reconceptions of the materials and boundaries of sculpture focused on Pollock's method of painting on the floor, and on the way "all-over" webs or skeins of paint seemed to emerge from his liberated use of industrial materials such as house paint. Robert Morris's Untitled (1968), for instance, is a scattered floor sculpture of felt particles, asphalt, mirrors, wood, copper tubing, steel cables, and lead. A much later work, Felix Gonzalez-Torres's floor sculpture, "Untitled" Placebo (1991), is a field of foil-wrapped candy intended to be devoured by viewers, piece by piece, until it disappears. Such active involvement of the viewer goes beyond the Minimalists more abstract considerations of the body, and Gonzalez-'Torres's use of the shiny seductions of candy is a conscious satire of early Minimalism's rough-and-tough severity.