Notes on Sculpture 223

the iconologist, who, according to Panofsky, locates a common

meaning. There may indeed be a general sensibility in the arts at
this time. Yet the histories and problems of each, as well as the
NOTES ON SCULPTURE* by Robert Morris experiences offered by each art, indicate involvement in very sepa-
rate concerns. At most, the assertions of common sensibilities are
generalizations that minimize differences. The climactic incident is
Robert Morris is considered by many artists and critics to be one of the absent in the work of John Cage and Barnett Newman. Yet it is also
leading sculptors working in the new Minimal style. His works and ideas true that Cage has consistently supported a methodology of collage
have helped to delineate a variety of problems inherent in Minimal sculp-
ture. In the following notes, in two parts, Morris discusses some of these
that is not present in Newman. A question to be asked of common
problems, including those of viewer participation, size, scale, surface, and sensibilities is to what degree they give one a purchase on the experi-
of gestalt. ence of the various arts from which they are drawn. Of course this is
an irrelevant question for one who approaches the arts in order to
find identities of elements or meanings.
In the interest of differences it seems time that some of the dis-
Part I tinctions sculpture has managed for itself be articulated. To begin in
the broadest possible way it should be stated that the concerns of
"What comes into appearance must segregate in order to appear." sculpture have been for some time not only distinct from but hostile
-GOETHE to those of painting. The clearer the nature of the values of sculp-
ture become the stronger the opposition appears. Certainly the con-
tinuing realization of its nature has had nothing to do with any dia-
There has been little definitive writing on present-day sculpture.
lectical evolution that painting has enunciated for itself. The primary
When it is discussed it is often called in to support a broad icono-
problematic concerns with which advanced painting has been
graphic or iconological point of view-after the supporting ex-
occupied for about half a century have been structural. The struc-
amples of painting have been exhausted. Kubler has raised the ob-
tural element has been gradually revealed to be located within the
jection that iconological assertions presuppose that experiences so
nature of the literal qualities of the support. 2 It has been a long
different as those of space and time must somehow be interchange-
dialogue with a limit. Sculpture, on the other hand, never having
able.! It is perhaps more accurate to say, as Barbara Rose has re-
been involved with illusionism could not possibly have based the
cently written, that specific elements are held in common among the
efforts of fifty years upon the rather pious, if somewhat contradic-
various arts today-an iconographic rather than an iconological
tory, act of giving up this illusionism and approaching the object.
point of view. The distinction is helpful, for the iconographer who
Save for replication, which is not to be confused with illusionism,
locates shared elements and themes has a different ambition than
the sculptural facts of space, light, and materials have always
" Part 1 of this article is reprinted from Artfarum, February, 1966; Part II is functioned concretely and literally. Its allusions or references have
reprinted from Artfarum, October, 1966. not been commensurate with the indicating sensibilities of painting.
1 "Thus Strukturfarschung presupposes that the poets and artists of one If painting has sought to approach the object, it has sought equally
place and time are the joint bearers of a central pattern of sensibility from
which their various efforts all flow like radial expressions. This position agrees 2 Both Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried have dealt with this evolution.

with the iconologist's, to whom literature and art seem approximately inter- Fried's discussion of "deductive structure" in his catalogue, "Three American
changeable." George Kubler, The Shape of Time, Yale University, 1962, p. 27. Painters," deals explicitly with the role of the support in painting.
Robert Morris 224 Notes on Sculpture 225

hard to dematerialize itself on the way. Clearer distinctions between Color as it has been established in painting, notably by Olitski and
sculpture's essentially tactile nature and the optical sensibilities in- Louis, is a quality not at all bound to stable forms. Michael Fried
volved in painting need to be made. has pointed out that one of their major efforts has been, in fact, to
free color of drawn shape. They have done this by either enervating
Tatlin was perhaps the first to free sculpture from representation drawing (Louis) or eliminating it totally (recent Olitski), thereby
and establish it as an autonomous form both by the kind of image, establishing an autonomy for color that was only indicated by Pol-
or rather non-image, he employed and by his literal use of materials. lock. This transcendence of color over shape in painting is cited here
He, Rodchenko, and other Constructivists refuted Appollinaire's ob- because it demonstrates that it is the most optical element in an
servation that "a structure becomes architecture, and not sculpture, optical medium. It is this essentially optical, immaterial, non-con-
when its elements no longer have their justification in nature." At tainable, non-tactile nature of color that is inconsistent with the
least the earlier works of Tatlin and other Constructivists made physical nature of sculpture. The qualities of scale, proportion,
references to neither the figure nor architecture. In subsequent years shape, mass, are physical. Each of these qualities is made visible by
Cabo, and to a lesser extent Pevsner and Vantongerloo, perpetuated the adjustment of an obdurate, literal mass. Color does not have this
the Constructivist ideal of a non-imagistic sculpture that was inde- characteristic. It is additive. Obviously things exist as colored. The
pendent of architecture. This autonomy was not sustained in the objection is raised against the use of color that emphasizes the opti-
work of the greatest American sculptor, the late David Smith. Today cal and in so doing subverts the physical. The more neutral hues,
there is a reassertion of the non-imagistic as an essential condition. which do not call attention to themselves, allow for the maximum
Although, in passing, it should be noted that this condition has been focus on those essential physical decisions that inform sculptural
weakened by a variety of works that, while maintaining the non- works. Ultimately the consideration of the nature of sculptural sur-
imagistic, focus themselves in terms of the highly decorative, the faces is the consideration of light, the least physical element, but one
precious, or the gigantic. There is nothing inherently wrong with that is as actual as the space itself. For unlike paintings, which are
these qualities; each offers a concrete experience. But they happen always lit in an optimum way, sculpture undergoes changes by the
not to be relevant experiences for sculpture, for they unbalance incidence of light. David Smith in the "Cubi" works has been one of
complex plastic relationships just to that degree that one focuses on the few to confront sculptural surfaces in terms of light. Mondrian
these qualities in otherwise non-imagistic works. went so far as to claim that "Sensations are not transmissible, or
rather, their purely qualitative properties are not transmissible. The
The relief has always been accepted as a viable mode. However, it same, however, does not apply to relations between sensations....
cannot be accepted today as legitimate. The autonomous and literal Consequently only relations between sensations can have an objec-
nature of sculpture demands that it have its own, equally literal tive value . . ." This may be ambiguous in terms of perceptual
space-not a surface shared with painting. Furthermore, an object facts but in terms of looking at art it is descriptive of the condition
hung on the wall does not confront gravity; it timidly resists it. One that obtains. It obtains because art objects have clearly divisible
of the conditions of knowing an object is supplied by the sensing of parts that set up the relationships. Such a condition suggests the
the gravitational force acting upon it in actual space. That is, space alternative question: Could a work exist that has only one property?
with three, not two coordinates. The ground plane, not the wall, is Obviously not, since nothing exists that has only one property. A
the necessary support for the maximum awareness of the object. single, pure sensation cannot be transmissible precisely because one
One more objection to the relief is the limitation of the number of perceives simultaneously more than one property as parts in any
possible views the wall imposes, together with the constant of up, given situation: if color, then also dimension; if flatness, then tex-
down, right, left. ture, etc. However, certain forms do exist that, if they do not negate
Robert Morris 226

the numerous relative sensations of color to texture, scale to mass,

etc., do not present clearly separated parts for these kinds of rela-
tions to be established in terms of shapes. Such are the simpler
forms that create strong gestalt sensations. Their parts are bound
together in such a way that they offer a maximum resistance to
perceptual separation. In terms of solids, or forms applicable to
sculpture, these gestalts are the simpler polyhedrons. It is necessary
to consider for a moment the nature of three-dimensional gestalts as
they occur in the apprehension of the various types of polyhedrons.
In the simpler regular polyhedrons, such as cubes and pyramids, one
need not move around the object for the sense of the whole, the
gestalt, to occur. One sees and immediately "believes" that the pat-
tern within one's mind corresponds to the existential fact of the
object. Belief in this sense is both a kind of faith in spatial extension
and a visualization of that extension. In other words, it is those Robert Morris: Untitled. 1965. Fiberglass. 3' x 3' X 2'. In the collection of the
aspects of apprehension that are not coexistent with the visual Owan Gallery. Photograph courtesy of Leo Castelli Gallery, New York.
field but rather the result of the experience of the visual field. The
more specific nature of this belief and how it is formed involve
perceptual theories of "constancy of shape," "tendencies toward
simplicity," kinesthetic clues, memory traces, and physiological fac-
tors regarding the nature of binocular parallax vision and the struc-
ture of the retina and brain. Neither the theories nor the experiences Robert Morris: Untitled. 1967. Steel. 31" x 109" x 109". In the collection of the
of gestalt effects relating to three-dimensional bodies are as simple Owan Gallery, New York. Photograph courtesy of Leo Castelli Gallery, New York.
and clear as they are for two-dimensions. But experience of solids
establishes the fact that, as in flat forms, some configurations are
dominated by wholeness, others tend to separate into parts. This
becomes clear if the other types of polyhedrons are considered. In
the complex regular type there is a weakening of visualization as the
number of sides increases. A sixty-four-sided figure is difficult to
visualize, yet because of its regularity one senses the whole, even if
seen from a single viewpoint. Simple irregular polyhedrons, such as
beams, inclined planes, truncated pyramids, are relatively more easy
to visualize and sense as wholes. The fact that some are less familiar
than the regular geometric forms does not affect the formation of a
gestalt. Rather, the irregularity becomes a particularizing quality.
Complex irregular polyhedrons (for example, crystal formations) if
they are complex and irregular enough can frustrate visualization
almost completely, in which case it is difficult to maintain one is
Robert Morris 228

experiencing a gestalt. Complex irregular polyhedrons allow for

divisibility of parts insofar as they create weak gestalts. They would
seem to return one to the conditions of works that, in Mondrian's
terms, transmit relations easily in that their parts separate. Complex
regular polyhedrons are more ambiguous in this respect. The sim-
pler regular and irregular ones maintain the maximum resistance to
being confronted as objects with separate parts. They seem to fail to
present lines of fracture by which they could divide for easy part-to-
part relationships to be established. I term these simple regular and
irregular polyhedrons "unitary" forms. Sculpture involving unitary
forms, being bound together as it is with a kind of energy provided
by the gestalt, often elicits the complaint among critics that such
works are beyond analysis.

Characteristic of a gestalt is that once it is established all the in-

formation about it, qua gestalt, is exhausted. (One does not, for
example, seek the gestalt of a gestalt.) Furthermore, once it is
established it does not disintegrate. One is then both free of the
shape and bound to it. Free or released because of the exhaustion of
information about it, as shape, and bound to it because it remains
constant and indivisible.

Simplicity of shape does not necessarily equate with simplicity of Robert Morris: Untitled. 1967. Fiberglass. Eight sections: fO\Jr sections (47" x
experience. Unitary forms do not reduce relationships. They order 48" x 47%"); four sections (47W' x 85" x 47W'). Photograph courtesy of Leo
them. If the predominant, hieratic nature of the unitary form func- Castelli Gallery, New York.
tions as a constant, all those particularizing relations of scale, pro-
portion, etc., are not thereby canceled. Rather they are bound more
cohesively and indivisibly together. The magnification of this single
most important sculptural value-shape-together with greater uni-
fication and integration of every other essential sculptural value
makes, on the one hand, the multipart, inflected formats of past
sculpture extraneous, and on the other, establishes both a new limit
and a new freedom for sculpture.

Part II
Q: Why didn't you make it larger so that it would loom over the
observer?
A: I was not making a monument.
Robert Morris 230
-
Notes on Sculpture 231

Q: Then why didn't you make it smaller so that the observer whole work. The intimate mode is essentially closed, spaceless,
could see over the top? compressed, and exclusive.
A: I was not making an object. While specific size is a condition that structures one's response in
-Tony Smith's replies to questions about his six-foot steel terms of the more or less public or intimate, enormous objects in the
cube. class of monuments elicit a far more specific response to size qua
size. That is, besides providing the condition for a set of responses,
The size range of useless three-dimensional things is a continuum large-sized objects exhibit size more specifically as an element. It is
between the monument and the ornament. Sculpture has generally the more conscious appraisal of size in monuments that makes for
been thought of as those objects not at the polarities but falling the quality of "scale." The awareness of scale is a function of the
between. The new work being done today falls between the ex- comparison made between that constant, one's body size, and the
tremes of this size continuum. Because much of it presents an image object. Space between the subject and the object is implied in such a
of neither figurative nor architectonic reference, the works have comparison. In this sense space does not exist for intimate objects. A
been described as "structures" or "objects." The word structure ap- larger object includes more of the space around itself than does a
plies either to anything or to how a thing is put together. Every rigid smaller one. It is necessary literally to keep one's distance from large
body is an object. A particular term for the new work is not as objects in order to take the whole of anyone view into one's field of
important as knowing what its values and standards are. vision. The smaller the object the closer one approaches it and,
In the perception of relative size the human body enters into the therefore, it has correspondingly less of a spatial field in which to
total continuum of sizes and establishes itself as a constant on that exist for the viewer. It is this necessary greater distance of the
scale. One knows immediately what is smaller and what is larger object in space from our bodies, in order that it be seen at all, that
than himself. It is obvious, yet important, to take note of the fact structures the non-personal or public mode. However, it is just this
that things smaller than ourselves are seen differently than things distance between object and subject that creates a more extended
larger. The quality of intimacy is attached to an object in a fairly situation, for physical participation becomes necessary. Just as there
direct proportion as its size diminishes in relation to oneself. The is no exclusion of literal space in large objects, neither is there an
quality of publicness is attached in proportion as the size increases exclusion of the existing light.
in relation to oneself. This holds true so long as one is regarding the Things on the monumental scale, then, include more terms neces-
whole of a large thing and not a part. The qualities of publicness or sary for their apprehension than objects smaller than the body,
privateness are imposed on things. This is because of our experience namely, the literal space in which they exist and the kinesthetic
in dealing with objects that move away from the constant of our demands placed upon the body.
own size in increasing or decreasing dimension. Most ornaments A simple form like a cube will necessarily be seen in a more public
from the past, Egyptian glassware, Romanesque ivories, etc., con- way as its size increases from that of our own. It accelerates the
sciously exploit the intimate mode by highly resolved surface inci- valence of intimacy as its size decreases from that of one's own
dent. The awareness that surface incident is always attended to in body. This is true even if the surface, material, and color are held
small objects allows for the elaboration of fine detail to sustain itself. constant. In fact it is just these properties of surface, color, material,
Large sculptures from the past that exist now only in small fragments that get magnified into details as size is reduced. Properties that are
invite our vision to perform a kind of magnification (sometimes not read as detail in large works become detail in small works.
literally performed by the photograph) that gives surface variation Structural divisions in work of any size are another form of detail. (I
on these fragments the quality of detail it never had in the original have discussed the use of a strong gestalt or of unitary-type forms to
 -
Robert Morris 232 Notes on Sculpture 233

avoid divisiveness and set the work beyond retardataire Cubist~ these details pull him into an intimate relation with the work and
esthetics in Notes on Sculpture, Part I, above.) There is an assump- out of the space in which the object exists.
tion here of different kinds of things becoming equivalent. The term Much of the new sculpture makes a positive value of large size. It
"detail" is used here in a special and negative sense and should be is one of the necessary conditions of avoiding intimacy. Larger than
understood to refer to all factors in a work that pull it toward body size has been exploited in two specific ways: either in terms of
intimacy by allowing specific elements to separate from the whole, length or of volume. The objection to current work of large volume
thus setting up relationships within the work. Objections to the em- as monolith is a false issue. It is false not because identifiable hollow
phasis on color as a medium foreign to the physicality of sculpture material is used-this can become a focused detail and an objection
have also been raised previously, but in terms of its function as a in its own right-but because no one is dealing with obdurate solid
detail a further objection can be raised. That is, intense color, being masses and everyone knows this. If larger than body size is neces-
a specific element, detaches itself from the whole of the work to sary to the establishment of the more public mode, nevertheless it
become one more internal relationship. The same can be said of does not follow that the larger the object the better it does this.
emphasis on specific, sensuous material or impressively high finishes. Beyond a certain size the object can overwhelm and the gigantic
A certain number of these intimacy-producing relations have been scale becomes the loaded term. This is a delicate situation. For the
gotten rid of in the new sculpture. Such things as process showing space of the room itself is a structuring factor both in its cubic shape
through traces of the artist's hand have obviously been done away and in terms of the kinds of compression different sized and propor-
with. But one of the worst and most pretentious of these intimacy- tioned rooms can effect upon the object-subject terms. That the
making situations in some of the new work is the scientistic element space of the room becomes of such importance does not mean that
that shows up generally in the application of mathematical or engi- an environmental situation is being established. The total space is
neering concerns to generate or inflect images. This may have hopefully altered in certain desired ways by the presence of the
worked brilliantly for Jasper Johns (and he is the prototype for this object. It is not controlled in the sense of being ordered by an
kind of thinking) in his number and alphabet paintings, in which the aggregate of objects or by some shaping of the space surrounding
exhaustion of a logical system closes out and ends the image and the viewer. These considerations raise an obvious question. Why not
produces the picture. But appeals to binary mathematics, tensegrity put the work outside and further change the terms? A real need
techniques, mathematically derived modules, progressions, etc., exists to allow this next step to become practical. Architecturally
within a work are only another application of the Cubist aesthetic of designed sculpture courts are not the answer nor is the placement of
having reasonableness or logic for the relating parts. The better new work outside cubic architectural forms. Ideally, it is a space without
work takes relationships out of the work and makes them a function architecture as background and reference, that would give different
of space, light, and the viewer's field of vision. The object is but one terms to work with.
of the terms in the newer aesthetic. It is in some way more reflexive While all the aesthetic properties of work that exists in a more
because one's awareness of oneself existing in the same space as the public mode have not yet been articulated, those which have been
work is stronger than in previous work, with its many internal rela- dealt with here seem to have a more variable nature than the cor-
tionships. One is more aware than before that he himself is establish- responding aesthetic terms of intimate works. Some of the best of
ing relationships as he apprehends the object from various positions the new work, being more open and neutral in terms of surface
and under varying conditions of light and spatial context. Every incident, is more sensitive to the varying contexts of space and light
internal relationship, whether it be set up by a structural division, a in which it exists. It reflects more acutely these two properties and is
rich surface, or what have you, reduces the public, external quality more noticeably changed by them. In some sense it takes these two
of the object and tends to eliminate the viewer to the degree that things into itself as its variation is a function of their variation. Even
 -
Robert Morris 234 Notes on Sculpture 235

its most patently unalterable property-shape-does not remain through the overbearing visibility of the modular unit. So much of
constant. For it is the viewer who changes the shape constantly by what is positive in giving to shapes the necessary but non-
his change in position relative to the work. Oddly, it is the strength dominating, non-compressed presence has not yet been articulated.
of the constant, known shape, the gestalt, that allows this awareness Yet much of the judging of these works seems based on the sensing
to become so much more emphatic in these works than in previous of the rightness of the specific, non-neutral weight of the presence of
sculpture. A Baroque figurative bronze is different from every side. a particular shape as it bears on the other necessary terms.
So is a six-foot cube. The constant shape of the cube held in the The particular shaping, proportions, size, surface of the specific
mind but which the viewer never literally experiences, is an actual- object in question are still critical sources for the particular quality
ity against which the literal changing, perspective views are related. the work generates. But it is now not possible to separate these
There are two distinct terms: the known constant and the experi- decisions, which are relevant to the object as a thing in itself, from
enced variable. Such a division does not occur in the experience of those decisions external to its physical presence. For example, in
the bronze. much of the new work in which the forms have been held unitary,
While the work must be autonomous in the sense of being a self- placement becomes critical as it never was before in establishing the
contained unit for the formation of the gestalt, the indivisible and particular quality of the work. A beam on its end is not the same as
undissolvable whole, the major aesthetic terms are not in but de- the same beam on its side.
pendent upon this autonomous object and exist as unfixed variables It is not surprising that some of the new sculpture that avoids
that find their specific definition in the particular space and light varying parts, polychrome, etc., has been called negative, boring,
and physical viewpoint of the spectator. Only one aspect of the nihilistic. These judgments arise from confronting the work with
work is immediate: the apprehension of the gestalt. The experience expectations structured by a Cubist aesthetic in which what is to be
of the work necessarily exists in time. The intention is diametrically had from the work is located strictly within the specific object. The
opposed to Cubism with its concern for simultaneous views in one situation is now more complex and expanded.
plane. Some of the new work has expanded the terms of sculpture
by a more emphatic focusing on the very conditions under which
certain kinds of objects are seen. The object itself is carefully placed
in these new conditions to be but one of the terms. The sensuous
object, resplendent with compressed internal relations, has had to be
rejected. That many considerations must be taken into account in
order that the work keep its place as a term in the expanded situa-
tion hardly indicates a lack of interest in the object itself. But the
concerns now are for more control of and/or cooperation of the
entire situation. Control is necessary if the variables of object, light,
space, body, are to function. The object itself has not become less
important. It has merely become less self-important. By taking its
place as a term among others the object does not fade off into some
bland, neutral, generalized or otherwise retiring shape. At least most
of the new works do not. Some, which generate images so readily by
innumerably repetitive modular units, do perhaps bog down in a
form of neutrality. Such work becomes dominated by its own means

Ilil