The Encrypted Object: The Secret World of Sixties Sculpture
Lead Research Organisation:
University of York
Department Name: History of Art
Abstract
'The Encrypted Object: The Secret World of Sixties Sculpture' analyses a body of sculpture produced in North America which has been neglected in the academic and critical literature on the period. Whereas conventional accounts of the period focus on the categories of Assemblage art, Pop art and Minimalism, this project seeks to complicate these accepted narratives and to theorise other models of influence and inheritance. I argue for an alternative account of sixties art which engages with issues of secrecy, the body, eroticism, and violence.
During the sixties Minimalist artist and critic Donald Judd published a small number of important monographic essays on an eclectic, and, for the most part, non-Minimal group of artists including John Chamberlain, Claes Oldenburg, Lee Bontecou and Dan Flavin. Each of these artists are also included in Judd's round-up of the 'best' new work in 'Specific Objects' (1965), a now-famous article which is typically understood as a polemic in support of Minimalism.
Another, less well-known article by Judd from the same period is titled 'Local History', in which Judd expands his arguments in 'Specific Objects' to address issues of style and influence, insisting upon what he terms the 'messiness' of art's history in the post-war years; a situation my own book takes seriously, with each chapter taking as its focus works of art that are somewhat out of kilter with traditional accounts of sixties sculptural practice.
Whilst several of the artists I discuss have, in recent years, begun to attract attention once again, they have been, for the most part, neglected since their heyday in the sixties; certainly in virtually all major critical and historical accounts of the period. However, I am not just asking that we reconsider the significance of a body of work which drew considerable attention in its own time but has been neglected in the recent art historical literature. Rather, I am arguing that our broader critical understanding of sculpture in the sixties needs to be modified if we are to take full account of the significant re-thinking of the sculptural object which took place at that time.
My proposed research is to write the final two chapters of my book. The first chapter is on Dan Flavin's use of industrial fluorescent light tubes. Although typically classed as Minimal works of art, I argue, drawing on the writing of Judd and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, that the affects of Flavin's work are in stark contrast to that model. Instead Flavin's light works disorient the viewer's position, they dismantle the structural logic of the room, and raise as many questions about darkness and loss as they do about light and clarity. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Bruce Nauman's parody of Flavin's work in which Nauman dramatises the way in which they both manipulate and incorporate the viewer's body.
The chapter I will write up in the second term of research leave addresses the return of Surrealism in the sixties. In particular I focus on a series of small-scale boxes by Lucas Samaras, situating them both in relation to the Minimalist cube but also the Surrealist 'found object'. I argue that the return to Surrealism at this time was not simply a retrogressive, nostalgic move, but in fact demonstrates a re-negotiation of the conceptual and formal boundaries of the sculptural object. This is discussed in light of the 1966 exhibition organised by Gene Swenson in Philadelphia called 'The Other Tradition' which drew also on the neglected legacies of the Surrealist object. This chapter focuses on issues of secrecy and concealment, drawing on the writings of Susan Stewart and psychoanalysts Abraham and Torok.
During the sixties Minimalist artist and critic Donald Judd published a small number of important monographic essays on an eclectic, and, for the most part, non-Minimal group of artists including John Chamberlain, Claes Oldenburg, Lee Bontecou and Dan Flavin. Each of these artists are also included in Judd's round-up of the 'best' new work in 'Specific Objects' (1965), a now-famous article which is typically understood as a polemic in support of Minimalism.
Another, less well-known article by Judd from the same period is titled 'Local History', in which Judd expands his arguments in 'Specific Objects' to address issues of style and influence, insisting upon what he terms the 'messiness' of art's history in the post-war years; a situation my own book takes seriously, with each chapter taking as its focus works of art that are somewhat out of kilter with traditional accounts of sixties sculptural practice.
Whilst several of the artists I discuss have, in recent years, begun to attract attention once again, they have been, for the most part, neglected since their heyday in the sixties; certainly in virtually all major critical and historical accounts of the period. However, I am not just asking that we reconsider the significance of a body of work which drew considerable attention in its own time but has been neglected in the recent art historical literature. Rather, I am arguing that our broader critical understanding of sculpture in the sixties needs to be modified if we are to take full account of the significant re-thinking of the sculptural object which took place at that time.
My proposed research is to write the final two chapters of my book. The first chapter is on Dan Flavin's use of industrial fluorescent light tubes. Although typically classed as Minimal works of art, I argue, drawing on the writing of Judd and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, that the affects of Flavin's work are in stark contrast to that model. Instead Flavin's light works disorient the viewer's position, they dismantle the structural logic of the room, and raise as many questions about darkness and loss as they do about light and clarity. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Bruce Nauman's parody of Flavin's work in which Nauman dramatises the way in which they both manipulate and incorporate the viewer's body.
The chapter I will write up in the second term of research leave addresses the return of Surrealism in the sixties. In particular I focus on a series of small-scale boxes by Lucas Samaras, situating them both in relation to the Minimalist cube but also the Surrealist 'found object'. I argue that the return to Surrealism at this time was not simply a retrogressive, nostalgic move, but in fact demonstrates a re-negotiation of the conceptual and formal boundaries of the sculptural object. This is discussed in light of the 1966 exhibition organised by Gene Swenson in Philadelphia called 'The Other Tradition' which drew also on the neglected legacies of the Surrealist object. This chapter focuses on issues of secrecy and concealment, drawing on the writings of Susan Stewart and psychoanalysts Abraham and Torok.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Jo Applin (Principal Investigator) |