Passages in Modern Sculpture

325 Pages·1977·32.411 MB·English

by  Rosalind E. Krauss

SI 3.95
Not. long ago the respectable Tate Gallery in
London came under heavy public: altac I; for
purchasing a sculpture by the yo'mg A rican
Carl Andre, because it seemed to De no more
than a double layer of old bricks. Critics
defended the work, but the public continued
to believe that it was a “put-on” and failed to
accept it as art. In doing so, they were enacting
the familiar drama of modern art, whereby
something that is difficult to grasp is thought of
as fraudulent. For this public, Rodin’s sculp­
ture would constitute a standard of clarity and
accessibility, while the works of artists such
as Andre, Robert: Smithson, and Michael 1 Iei/er
are rejected its meaningless. Rut it can be
argued that Rodin’s work is itself defined by
the same attitudes toward the body and its
movement that were proposed a century later
by these young artists.
In this brilliant study of modern sculpture
from Rodin to the present, Rosalind Krauss
examines major works in the light of different
approaches to general sculptural issues in
order to illuminate the connections between
them. By focusing clearly on such different
examples as Brancusi’s Bird in Space, Picasso's
Construction in Metal Wire, David Smith’s
Tanklolcm /, and Robert Morris’s Columns,
I by
the author allows us to observe and understand
klind E. Krauss
the logical progression from the figurative
works of the nineteenth century to ihe range of
final Iron Works:
abstract styles of the 1970s.
Sculpture of David Smith
The book is illustrated with many fine
photographs of the works discussed, several
made especially for this book. Since one of the
most difficult problems involved in a sensible
and clear analysis of sculpture is the photo­
graphing of the works themselves, this book is
a valuable contribution to the literature on
visual grounds as well as on critical and
historical levels.
Jacket design by
Rosalind E. Krauss tuith Alan BuchslfSjtim
B 6L3
Rosalind E
K r a u s s
THE VIKING PRESS NEW YORK
In memory of my father, Matthew Epstein
Copyright © Rosalind E. Krauss, 1977
All rights reserved
First published in 1977 by The Viking Press
625 Madison Avenue* New York, N.Y. 10022
Published simultaneously in Canada by
Penguin Books Canada Limited
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Krauss, Rosalind E.
Passages in modern sculpture.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Sculpture, Modern—20th century. I. Title.
NB198.K69 735\29 7641914
ISBN 0-670-54133-8
Printed in the United States of America
Set in Linotype Bodini Book
acknowledgments
The process of acknowledging the intellectual debts a
writer incurs in the making of a book is often identical
with the explanation of how a given project was arrived
at and why it took its particular form. In the case of this
work, two groups of individuals helped to shape my sense
of the need and purpose for a critical history of modern
sculpture. First of all, there were my students—at M.I.T.,
Princeton University, and Hunter College—to whom my
efforts at clarifying certain issues and developing a lan­
guage of description were initially addressed. For their
patience and endurance I am obviously grateful. But more
than that, it was their probing questions and their un­
willingness to accept partial explanations that led me to
reconsider the adequacy of what might be called the
V
canonical view of twentieth-century sculpture’s develop­
ment. In response to their need for clarity, and mine, I
was motivated to write this book.
In attempting to achieve that clarity, I had recourse to
several sources of powerful intellectual aid from colleagues
and friends among critics, scholars, and sculptors. Leo
Steinberg, whose essay on Rodin (now collected in Other
Criteria) I had read in the early 1960s, first demonstrated
to me the impossibility of a view by which modern sculp­
ture was seen as being antithetical to Rodin’s work. My
treatment of Rodin in these pages owes a tremendous
debt to that essay, and while specific passages by Profes­
sor Steinberg are cited within the text, I wish to acknowl­
edge here the more general dependence I have had on his
conception of Rodin’s relation to modernism.
To Annette Michelson I am indebted not only for the
cumulative effect of the critical essays she has been pub­
lishing on sculpture and film over the last ten years but
for the many conversations during which she has frankly
and generously criticized my own work. The effect of her
thinking has had a great deal to do with the importance
which issues of temporality assume in the discussion that
follows.
More generally, the community of exchange with fellow
critics, made possible by my associate editorship of
Artforum from 1971 to 1975, was incalculably valuable.
In addition to my connection with Annette Michelson and
Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, I wish to acknowledge the impor­
tance of my association there with John Coplans and
Robert Pincus-Witten. The criticism of the latter, written
and oral, continually called to my attention aspects of
contemporary sculptural production which I had tended to
overlook.
The task of assessing the sculpture of the past decade
has meant evaluating my own sense of the import of that
work in the light of conversations with several of the
sculptors who made it, particularly Richard Serra, Robert
Smithson, Mel Bochner, and Robert Morris. For their
friendship and generosity, both past and present, I am
extremely grateful.
At different stages of its development, parts of this
text were read by, and discussed with, some of my friends
vi
in the art-historical community, particularly Nan Piene,
whose work on kineticism I have found consistently illu­
minating, and Andree Hayum. For their suggestions and
those made by Karen Kennerly and the painter Susan
Crile, I am deeply indebted. My editor at Viking, Barbara
Burn, provided the help and encouragement necessary to
a project of this kind. I am grateful for her tact and
expertise.
Since this book is, in large part, addressed to students,
it is my hope that it reflects a sense of those questions
and demands raised by the initial encounter with aesthetic
objects. To my own parents, Matthew and Bertha Epstein,
who first sharpened my own sense of this experience, both
as a problematic and a pleasurable one, I offer my deepest
thanks.
Dimensions indicate height if there is only one figure, height pre­
ceding width if there are two, and height, width, and depth if there
are three.
VII

contents
introduction 1
1 Narrative Time: the question of the Gates of Hell 7
2 Analytic Space: futurism and constructivism 39
Forms of Readymade: Duchamp and Brancusi 69
4 A Game Plan: the terms of surrealism 105
5 Tanktotem: welded images 147
0 Mechanical Ballets: light, motion, theater 201
7 The Double Negative: a new syntax for sculpture 243
notes 289
bibliography 299
index 303
IX
Passages in
Modern
Sculpture