Thesis (Ph.D.)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010. / Prepared for: Dept. of Art History. Title from resource description page. Includes bibliographical references.

When the artist Mel Bochner described the reductive geometric forms on view in the "Primary Structures" exhibition in 1966, a show that announced the arrival of minimalism on the New York art scene, he claimed: "there is nothing behind these surfaces, no inside, no secret, no hidden motive."1 Yet after a careful examination of minimal art, and the ways in which it challenged a modernist trajectory set into place in the postwar period, I am arguing Bochner couldn't have been more wrong. With minimalism as its primary focus, my thesis considers how the political turmoil of the late 1960s- manifest in widespread social upheaval, the polemics of a contested war, and questions regarding the nature of the modern subject- disrupted the perceived self-referentiality of abstract art, particularly that adhering to a tradition of Greenbergian modernism. That is, when complicated by contemporaneous social relations and artistic debates, the formal language of minimalism, with its simple forms, precise lines, and industrial manufacture, becomes full of potential meaning, leaving the minimal box less hollow than Bochner would have us believe. To get at some of the complexities of the minimal project, both mainstream artists, such as Donald Judd and Robert Morris, and those more marginally related to the movement, like Barnett Newman, Jo Baer, and Eva Hesse, are considered. Setting the work of these artists into tension with one another and with the critical writings of Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried, the unique strategies used to mediate between individual artistic interests and larger social tensions are brought into focus. One primary area in which this was accomplished was in relation to the issue of viewership. Whether rethinking Morris' notion of "experience," Newman's conceptualization of "participation," or Baer's prioritization of "perception," these distinct modes of engagement signal what was at the time a shifting understanding of how politics is formulated in relation to the body of the viewer and how the art object is implicated in this process. Considering how this broke with previous formalist models, what these chapters show in different ways and from varying perspectives is that the authority of modernism was fracturing in the late 1960s, and that minimal art was central to this process. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

[pt] Este trabalho se propõe a pensar sobre os possíveis pontos de contato entre o neoconcretismo e o minimalismo, analisados a partir de duas formulações teóricas fundamentais sobre esses movimentos: as noções de não-objeto e objetos específicos, elaboradas por Ferreira Gullar e Donald Judd, respectivamente. Essas ideias buscavam conceituar o novo tipo de objeto de arte tridimensional, e nos dois casos consideravam uma superação dos meios artísticos tradicionais da pintura e da escultura. Apesar das semelhanças entre essas noções, a defesa dessa nova produção artística se fez, para cada grupo, em momentos nos quais a sua relação com a herança da história da arte europeia e a presença do modernismo se davam de formas distintas. A análise desses movimentos a partir da relação que estabeleceram com o modernismo, portanto, revela uma série de camadas textuais atreladas tanto à construção desses grupos de artistas enquanto movimentos, quanto à crítica e à história construída sobre eles - desde seu surgimento, até os dias atuais. / [en] This paper aims to think about the possible points of contact between neoconcretism and minimal art, analyzed from two fundamental theoretical formulations on these movements: the notions of non-object and specific objects, elaborated by Ferreira Gullar and Donald Judd, respectively. These notions sought to conceptualize the new type of three-dimensional art object, and in both cases considered an overcoming of the traditional artistic media of painting and sculpture. In spite of the similarities between these notions, the validation of this new artistic production was made, for each group, in moments in which its relation with the heritage of European art history and the presence of modernism occurred in different ways. The analysis of these movements from their relations with modernism, therefore, reveals a series of textual layers linked to the construction of these groups of artists as movements, as well as to the criticism and history built on them - from its inception to the current days.

L’analyse de la réception critique des nouvelles formes d’art apparaissant dès la fin des années 1950 et se développant au cours des années 1960, en particulier dans le champ de la sculpture et des œuvres en trois dimensions, constitue le socle de notre réflexion. Celle-ci vise à mettre en lumière les profondes évolutions que connaissent les processus de conception et de production des œuvres en trois dimensions, chez des artistes que la réception critique « à chaud » puis l’histoire de l’art ont séparés en fonction de critères stylistiques : néo-dada, pop, minimal… L’observation de ces déplacements de la pratique, intégrant des matériaux et des modes de production industriels (ou résistant à ces derniers) offre une autre approche des enjeux de l’art de cette période, qui voit s’éloigner la figure archétypale et héroïque du sculpteur moderniste incarnée par David Smith, et s’élaborer la figure nouvelle de l’artiste « post-studio ». Parallèlement, apparaissent de nouveaux soutiens, institutionnels, financiers et surtout techniques, pour les artistes produisant des œuvres en trois dimensions et délégant tout ou partie de la fabrication à des sociétés industrielles. Un nouveau type d’entreprise voit le jour, spécialisé dans la fabrication d’œuvres en trois dimensions et de sculptures monumentales. Au début des années 1970, les nouveaux modes de fabrication expérimentés durant la décennie précédente sont parfaitement intégrés à l’économie générale de l’art. En proposer une forme d’archéologie afin d’en comprendre les motivations initiales vise à mieux penser les enjeux actuels des pratiques artistiques ayant recours à la fabrication déléguée / The analysis of the critical reception of the new forms of art appearing from the end of the 1950s and developing during the 1960s, especially in the field of sculpture and tridimensional works, constitutes the foundation of our thought. It aims at bringing to light the profound shifts in the conception and production processes of the works in three dimensions, made by artists separated by the critical reception then the art history according to stylistic criteria : Neo-Dada, Pop, Minimal, and so on. To observe these displacements of the art practice, integrating industrials materials and means of production (or resisting them) offers another approach of the art stakes in this period, which sees the archetypal and heroic figure of the modernist sculptor (embodied by David Smith) fading, and elaborating the new figure of the post-studio artist. At the same time, new supports (institutional, financial and especially technical) appear for the artists producing works in three dimensions and delegating all or any of the manufacturing to industrial companies. A new type of company, specialized in the manufacturing of works in three dimensions and monumental sculptures, is born. In the early 1970s, the new means of manufacturing experienced during the previous decade are perfectly integrated into the general economy of art. To propose a kind of archeology of these means in order to understand the initial motivations aims at a better thinking of the current stakes in the artistic practices turning to delegated manufacturing processes

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal. / Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal / Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

This dissertation is a study of the early career of the American architect-turned-artist Gordon Matta-Clark (1943–1978) that spans the years 1968 to 1972. Immersing himself in SoHo’s vibrant artistic community, of which he was both a catalyst and a nexus, Matta-Clark worked through the essential ideas and concerns that would inform his practice during this condensed but incredibly generative four-year period. The works that resulted are heterogeneous, united less by specific media than by a shared constellation of concepts. Foremost among these concepts is energy: a key trope in the cultural, theoretical, and artistic discourses of Matta-Clark’s late-1960s and early-1970s moment. In histories of this period (spurred, in part, by the attention paid to Matta-Clark’s peer, Robert Smithson), energy has often been aligned with entropy: a negative movement that leads to an ultimate stasis. In contrast, Matta-Clark marshaled energy as a creative force: a motor of the "metamorphic" processes that his works both enacted and pursued. By focusing on these four years, my study opens new perspectives on both Matta-Clark’s project and the artistic and discursive formation, Postminimalism, from which it is inextricable. In doing so, I defamiliarize art history’s current conception of Postminimalism, “requestioning” (to adopt Matta-Clark’s neologism) its central term, process, through his creative energetics.

Après 1945, Auguste Herbin (Quiévy 1882 - Paris 1960) devient le maître en France de l’abstraction géométrique, une référence pour la seconde génération d’artistes abstraits, à la fois en Europe et dans le reste du monde. Les peintures d’Herbin réalisées à partir de son alphabet plastique, c’est-à-dire de 1942 à 1960 posèrent les jalons d’expérimentations nouvelles dans le domaine de l’art optique, de l’art cinétique, de l’art concret et de l’hard edge. La plupart des travaux réalisés par les artistes présents dans le Paris de l’après seconde guerre mondiale, tels Baertling, Agam, Dewasne, Vasarely, Soto, Fruhtrunk etc., n’auraient pu se concevoir sans la connaissance et l’assimilation du vocabulaire herbinien. Avait-on véritablement pris la mesure du rôle d’Auguste Herbin dans l’histoire et l’évolution de l’art abstrait ? / After 1945, Auguste Herbin (1882-1960) became the leading French abstract, geometric artist and an inspirational figure to abstract artists in both Europe and the Americas. Herbin’s Plastic Alphabet paintings are the forerunners of the wider experimentation in op’art, concrete art and hard edge painting. Much of the work by artists dominant in Paris in the 50’s and 60’s, such as Baertling, Agam, Dewasne, Vasarely, Soto, Fruhtrunk, is unimaginable without the advance wich Herbin represents.

[pt] Este estudo focaliza a aquisição do aspecto verbal no português, no contexto de uma teoria da aquisição da linguagem que visa a caracterizar o modo como a criança percebe informação gramaticalmente relevante, visível nas interfaces fônica e semântica da língua com os sistemas perceptual/articulatório e conceputual/intencional, respectivamente, a partir do início do segundo ano de vida. A dissertação baseia-se nos pressupostos do Programa Minimalista (Chomsky, 1995; 1999) e numa proposta teórica que visa a uma articulação entre teoria lingüística e psicolingüística no estudo da aquisição da linguagem (Corrêa, 2005a; 2006). A hipótese de trabalho é a de que a criança reconhece aspecto como um traço formal da língua inicialmente a partir de variações morfofonológicas na classe fechada dos afixos verbais, em termos de formas marcadas e não marcadas, ainda de maneira indissociada da informação pertinente a tempo, e que distinções relativas a perfectividade são posteriormente estabelecidas com base no processamento na interface semântica. Investiga-se em que medida informação referente a traços semânticos da raiz verbal concernentes a aspecto lexical (como telicidade, por exemplo) interage com a informação relativa a perfectividade proveniente de variações na forma dos afixos verbais. Com este fim, uma metodologia experimental é desenvolvida, com vistas a dissociar a percepção de informação proveniente das interfaces fônica e semântica relativa a tempo/aspecto. Explora-se o paradigma da detecção de novidade, tradicionalmente utilizado no estudo do desenvolvimento conceptual não-lingüístico, na percepção de informação fônica (formas marcadas de tempo/aspecto como novidade) e conceptual (evento concluído como novidade). Um experimento-piloto, conduzido com crianças de 18-28 meses, é relatado. Um segundo experimento, com crianças de 3 e 5 anos, conduzido com a técnica da manipulação de brinquedos, é reportado, no qual telicidade e perfectividade são variáveis manipuladas. Os resultados são discutidos com relação à metodologia para o estudo do processamento na interface semântica, e em relação a dados da produção de distinções aspectuais na fala espontânea de crianças e hipóteses correntes na literatura em aquisição da linguagem quanto ao papel de informação semântica no estabelecimento de distinções gramaticais. / [en] This study focuses on the acquisition of verbal aspect in Portuguese, in the context of theory of language acquisition that aims at characterizing the way children perceive grammatically relevant information at the interface levels between language and articulatory/phonetic and conceptual/intentional systems - phonetic and semantic interfaces, respectively. It is based on the assumptions of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995; 1999) and on a theoretical approach to language acquisition requiring articulation between a linguistic model of language and psycholinguistic models of language processing (Corrêa, 2005a; 2006). The working hypothesis is that the child initially recognizes aspect as a formal feature on the basis of morphophonological variations in the closed class of verbal affixes (marked vs. unmarked forms), when tense and aspect are undissociated. Distinctions concerning perfectivity would be established later on, on the basis of processing at the semantic interface. The extent to which information pertaining to semantic features of the verbal root (such as telicity) interacts with information concerning perfectivity provided by variation in the form of verbal affixes is considered. An experimental methodology is developed, which is intended to enable the perception of information concerning tense/aspect from the phonetic and the semantic interfaces to be dissociated. The novelty detection paradigm, traditionally used in the study of conceptual development, was explored here so that novelty could be detected both in the perception of the form of affixes and in the perception of a visually presented event. A pilot- experiment conducted with 18- 28 month old children is reported. An acting-out experiment, conducted with 3-5 year olds, is also presented, in which telecity and perfectivity were the independent variables. Questions concerning methodology for the study of processing at the semantic interface are considered, and the results are discussed in relation to children´s spontaneous production data regarding aspectual contrasts and current hypotheses on the role of semantic information in the establishment of grammatical distinctions.

[pt] O trabalho examina a especificidade das relações culturais e das intermediações sociais instauradas pelas obras de Tony Smith, Frank Stella e Donald Judd, pelos eventos performáticos do Grupo Fluxus, pelas Aktionen de Joseph Beuys, e pela Pop Art de Andy Warhol. O texto é conduzido pela hipótese de que tais poéticas foram fundamentais para uma renovação estatutária da arte, obtida, principalmente, via sucessivas inaugurações de modos inéditos de trocas públicas. Os anos seguintes ao fim da Segunda Guerra Mundial exigiram sérias reavaliações e respondem até hoje pelos mais díspares comportamentos. A seleção pressupõe, em segundo plano, a incidência de um significativo ápice poético estimulado pelas urgências morais. As obras de arte resultantes desse aperto existencial distinguem-se, dentre outras tantas inovações estéticas, por uma extravagante apresentação e uma controvertida índole: fermentaram a contracultura do final da década de 1960, encaminharam os movimentos da seguinte e alimentaram os debates pós-modernistas dos últimos vinte anos. / [en] The present work examines the specificity of the cultural relations and social intermediations established by Tony Smith's, Frank Stella and Donald Judd works, by Fluxus's Grup performatic events, by Joseph Beuys's Aktionen, and by Andy Warhol's Pop Art. The text is driven by the hypothesis that such poetics were fundamental for a statutory renewal of the art, obtained, mainly through successive inaugurations of completely new ways of public exchanges. The following years after the end of the World War II demanded serious revaluations which answers until today to the most disparate behaviors. This present selection of works and authors presupposes, in a second plan, the incidence of a significant poetic apex stimulated by moral urgencies. The resulting works of art of this existential configuration stand out, among other so many aesthetic innovations, by an extravagant presentation and a controverted disposition: they fermented the counterculture of the end of the decade of 1960, guided the movements of the following years and fed the post-modernists debates of the last twenty years.