Abstract Painting and the Minimalist Critiques: Robert Mangold, David Novros, and Jo Baer in the 1960s

Description

This book undertakes a critical reappraisal of Minimalism through an examination of three key painters: Robert Mangold, David Novros, and Jo Baer. By establishing their substantive engagements with Minimalist discourse, as well as their often overlooked artistic exchanges with their sculptor peers, it demonstrates that painting crucially informed the movement’s development, serving not only as an object of critique but also as a crucible for its most central tenets. It also poses broader disciplinary implications as it historicizes and challenges Minimalism’s "death of painting" critiques that have been so influential to theories of modernism and postmodernism in the visual arts. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Copyright Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Systemic Painting: A Medium at a Crossroads "A Current American Tendency” "Systemic” Defined The Installation The Critical Response 2. Robert Mangold: Minimalist Dialectics in the Walls and Areas Minimalist Dialectics Dialectics in Formation "Flat Art”: Painting Between Object and Concept "Just Nothing,” “Minimal,” “Third Stream” Prefabricated Architecture and Decorator Colors Lippard’s Impossible Synthesis Mangold’s Sublation 3. David Novros: Painting in the House of Literalism Novros and Judd in Dialogue Judd on Painting Discovering the “Painted Place” Novros at Park Place The Dwan Shows The Fiberglass Paintings A Specific Fresco 4. Jo Baer: Painting Reframed Baer’s Minimalism New York to Los Angeles and Back The Koreans: “Paintings, Not Pictures” Baer, Beckett, and the Framing of Subjectivity  The Fischbach Show, Diptychs, and Triptychs Painting and “The System” The Frames of Sixties Painting Why Don’t You Use Pink?”: Baer Amongst the Modernists The Artforum Letter Coda: Framing the Self(ie) 5 Conclusion: Against Endgames Index