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

I'm tired of playing the Cassandra and want to end with a note of humor. For when taking leave of Minimalism, those artists who went on to spearhead Conceptual art knew that laughter always provides the best exit. That said, we didn't have to wait for Waters to make us chortle: Witness Mel Bochner's hilarious cast list Minimal Art--The Movie, a 1966 drawing, which figured at MOCA among the artist's bibelotesque models, humorous themselves in their dinginess and kindergarten math. Sean Connery as Judd? Kirk Douglas as Andre? Fred Astaire as Morris? Frank Sinatra as Leo Castelli? Far from absurd, if you give it some thought. All that's lacking is a script to set the actors in motion, and that's precisely what I missed all along.

Yve-Alain Bois is Joseph Pulitzer Jr. Professor of Modern Art at Harvard University and a contributing editor of Artforum. (See Contributors.)