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Against Design |
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A Modicum of Minimalism |
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Upholstery turned inside out; a chest of drawers whose drawers won't open; wall cabinets only an inch deep. These are some of the devices used by the artist's in Against Design to pull their low-born forms out of the day-to-day world and into the realm of art. These devices de-functionalize the forms, making them as utilitarian (or non-utilitarian) as any painting or sculpture.
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Once this is accomplished, and with the help of the museum context, the forms' flat, undecorated surfaces and rectangular shapes inevitably invoke consideration in terms similar to those used of geometric art. |
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Mondrian |
Tobias Rehberger "Untitled," 1998 |
Rehbeger's shelf-ish wall group clearly echoes Mondrian. However, the majority of the artist's in Against Design prefer to align their work with the much more recent phenomenon of Minimalism.
Roy McMakin, "Untitled
(3-door wall cabinet, closed)," 1997
Minimalism demonstrated that an artwork can be utterly simple yet still be worth looking at. This worth may not be of the same kind as a Cezanne still life or a Rembrandt self-portrait. But it is equal to these in terms of offering the eyes something they can enjoy seeing. Its imagery offers nothing in the way of a subject and nothing in the way of a story. There's only this object of perception; all for the eyes, with little for the mind to do.
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| Martin Puryear, "Self," 1978 |
The extent to which Minimalism achieved this somewhat mystical sounding goal is revealed in the way that people began to see its works as objects of meditation and transcendence. In turn, this inspired the idea of museums housing such works as temples of text-free, hence dogma-free, spirituality and prayer.
Well, you can forget about such lofty inspiration where this exhibition is concerned. While the Minimalists more or less believed in this kind of stuff, artists today wouldn't dare; not without first lacing it with a strong dose of cynicism; a sentiment whose scent is strong throughout.
Importantly, too, one of Minimalism's essential ingredients was a highly distilled quality of beauty. The artists in "Against Design" want none of that either.
