Specific objections: Yve-Alain Bois on Donald Judd in London and minimalism in New York and Los Angeles

ArtForum, Summer, 2004 by Yve-Alain Bois

It is not by chance, perhaps, that the two rare moments of my visit to the Guggenheim that were not plain stupid, enraging, or simply tedious, occurred in some of the larger orthogonal galleries. True, installing any art along the spiral ramp is nearly always a losing proposition, but the space looked even more inane than ever, with paintings preposterously aligned parallel to the sloped floor rather than to the vertical supports that separate the various niches (ergo: you have to cock your head to look at a Brice Marden or a Robert Ryman). As for sculpture's installation, it's as if the curators were trying to convey the message that Wright's architecture is utterly useless and should be given over to skateboarders while another museum is built elsewhere in its place. Alas, I'm afraid, their big boss's candidate, Frank Gehry, won't do the trick.

While the Guggenheim's show was as bad as one could expect from the failing institution, the story is different with LA MOCA's "A Minimal Future? Art as Object 1958-1968," an ambitious retrospective account of Minimalism, which was prepared with great care. I wish I could be ecstatic, for obviously curator Ann Goldstein devoted great energy to this enterprise. Her effort is clear, especially with regard to the impressive loans and the many surprises she concocted--but only to those happy few who already know pretty much what it's all about. Regrettably, the show offers not the tiniest bit of scenario. No chronology, no typology, no label explanations whatsoever, resulting in an exasperating feeling of pure randomness for anyone not already in the loop. I should make clear that I am not in favor of endless wall texts, and nothing distresses me more than to observe spectators religiously listening to the banalities of audio guides instead of looking at what's in front of them. But a minimum of guidance is usually required for museumgoers to feel welcome rather than excluded--especially for a subject as utterly complex, in its apparent simplicity, as Mimimal art. Even if I were to concede that the ideal format of an exhibition conceived as art history without words was possible in this case, which I am not ready to do, one would still need a story to tell in order to have even the remotest chance of succeeding.

The exhibition consists of an enfilade of rooms, each devoted to one or two artists, thrice three, once four. The groupings often make sense--for the cognoscenti, that is--which is even more frustrating. Why not give the visitor some clue? If such-and-such a grouping of artworks is not based on anything visual, as is often the case, how is someone to surmise that its justification resides in some specific yet hidden event or contextual occurrence? The first room of the show is filled with four 1959 black Stellas plus one of 1958 and a sampling of Carl Andre's work spanning a decade. Fair enough, scrumptious even, especially for anyone who has salivated on imagining the intense discussions the two artists must have had during the brief year, 1959, in which they shared a studio. Indeed, everyone agrees that this marks the birthdate of Minimalism, or at least the planting of its seed. But what of those poor souls not apprised of such specialized knowledge? The next room switches to the West Coast and to John McCracken's and Craig Kauffman's surreal Finish Fetish. The Kauffmans are somewhat disappointing, less sexy than they are reputed to be, and a bit vain in their preciosity. Most of the McCrackens, however, are impressive, especially the large Red Slab in Two Parts, 1966, which immediately brought to my mind the ominous slab disturbing the life of our prehistoric ancestors at the beginning of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. There again, the East Coast/West Coast dichotomy would have been an engaging way to begin the narrative (even if James Meyer's excellent catalogue essay shows this "bicoastalization," as he calls it, to be somewhat of a stereotype in need of being dialecticized). But then, why not go all the way? Why show Larry Bell and Irwin almost at the other end of the exhibition, next to Anne Truitt, of all people?