Post-Minimal Sculpture

Richard Long, Carrara Line, 1985.
Marble stones, 4 feet 5-1/4 inches x 46 feet 11 inches (1.35 x 14.3 m)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Panza Collection, Extended loan.


By the mid-1960s, another orientation to sculpture emerged out of Minimalism in the work of such artists as Eva Hesse, Martin Puryear, and Richard Serra. Their art is a synthesis of Abstract Expressionist gesture and improvisation coupled with the literal nature of Minimalism.

Sometimes named Post-Minimal, this work tends to be more sensual and organic than Minimal art exploiting the elasticity and tactility of unconventional materials. On the other hand, artists like Richard Long and Robert Smithson expanded the idea of the Minimal object s relationship to its site and created works outdoors, in the landscape. Motivated by the desire to increase the scale of their work and extend its longevity, and to undermine the conventional system of presenting art in a museum or commercial gallery, they executed projects that became permanent or long-term fixtures of their surroundings.

Abstraction in the Twentieth Century

Total Risk, Freedom, Discpline

The Pioneers

Between the Wars

Abstract Expressionism

Monochrome Painting

Minimal Sculpture

The Museum of Non-Objective Painting

Abstraction in:

Photography

Music

Theater

Architecture

Poetry

Film

Dance