what they want to mean betrays them artistically.
There is hardly any aesthetic surprise in Minimal
Art....Aesthetic surprise hangs on forever—it is
there in Raphael as it is in Pollock—and ideas
alone cannot achieve it.^10
LOUISE NEVELSONAlthough Minimalism
was a dominant sculptural trend in the 1960s, many
sculptors pursued other styles. Russian-born Louise
Nevelson(1899–1988) created sculpture that com-
bines a sense of the architectural fragment with the
power of Dada and Surrealist found objects to express
her personal sense of life’s underlying significance.
Multiplicity of meaning was important to Nevelson.
She sought “the in-between place....The dawns and
the dusks”^11 —the transitional realm between one
state of being and another. Beginning in the late 1950s, she assembled
sculptures of found wooden objects and forms, enclosing small sculp-
tural compositions in boxes of varied sizes, and joined the boxes to one
another to form “walls,” which she then painted in a single hue—usu-
ally black, white, or gold. This monochromatic color scheme unifies the
diverse parts of pieces such as Tropical Garden II (FIG. 36-17) and cre-
ates a mysterious field of shapes and shadows. The structures suggest
magical environments resembling the treasured secret hideaways dimly
remembered from childhood. Yet the boxy frames and the precision of
the manufactured found objects create a rough geometric structurethat the eye roams over freely, lingering on some details. The parts of a
Nevelson sculpture and their interrelation recall the Merzconstruc-
tions of Kurt Schwitters (FIG. 35-30). The effect is also rather like view-
ing the side of an apartment building from a moving elevated train or
like looking down on a city from the air.LOUISE BOURGEOISIn contrast to the architectural nature
of Nevelson’s work, a sensuous organic quality recalling the evoca-
tive Biomorphic Surrealist forms of Joan Miró (FIG. 35-52) pervades
the work of French-American artist Louise Bourgeois(b. 1911).
Cumul I (FIG. 36-18) is a collection of round-headed units hud-
dled, with their heads protruding, within a collective cloak dotted
with holes. The units differ in size, and their position within the
group lends a distinctive personality to each. Although the shapes
remain abstract, they refer strongly to human bodies. Bourgeois uses
a wide variety of materials in her works, including wood, plaster, la-
tex, and plastics, in addition to alabaster, marble, and bronze. She ex-
ploits each material’s qualities to suit the expressiveness of the piece.
In Cumul I,the alternating high gloss and matte finish of the
marble increases the sensuous distinction between the group of swell-
ing forms and the soft folds swaddling them. Like Barbara Hepworth
(FIG. 35-58), Bourgeois connects her sculpture with the body’s multi-
ple relationships to landscape: “[My pieces] are anthropomorphic and
they are landscape also, since our body could be considered from a
topographical point of view, as a land with mounds and valleys and
caves and holes.”^12 However, Bourgeois’s sculptures are more personal
and more openly sexual than those of Hepworth.Cumul I represents
perfectly the allusions Bourgeois seeks: “There has always been sexual
suggestiveness in my work. Sometimes I am totally concerned with
female shapes—characters of breasts like clouds—but often I merge
the activity—phallic breasts, male and female, active and passive.”^13EVA HESSE A Minimalist in the early part of her career,Eva
Hesse(1936–1970) later moved away from the severity characteriz-
ing much of Minimalist art. She created sculptures that, although
spare and simple, have a compelling presence. Using nontraditional
sculptural materials such as fiberglass, cord, and latex, Hesse pro-
duced sculptures whose pure Minimalist forms appear to crumble,36-17Louise Nevelson,Tropical Garden II,
1957–1959. Wood painted black, 5 111 – 2 10 113 – 4
1 . Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris.
The monochromatic color scheme unifies the diverse
sculpted forms and found objects in Nevelson’s
“walls” and creates a mysterious field of shapes and
shadows that suggest magical environments.36-18Louise Bourgeois,Cumul I,1969. Marble, 1 10 –^38 4 2
4 . Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Art © Louise Bourgeois/Licensed by VAGA, New York.
Bourgeois’s sculptures consist of sensuous organic forms that recall the
Biomorphic Surrealist forms of Miró (FIG. 35-52). Although the shapes
remain abstract, they refer strongly to human figures.980 Chapter 36 EUROPE AND AMERICA AFTER 19451 ft.
1 ft.