Beke László (szerk.): Instruktiv + Inter + Konkret. Művészet Malom Szentendre, 21. November - 26. Januar 2015 (Sankt Augustin, 2014)
8. Dr. Ingo Glass
Constantin Bräncusi and minimalist plastic art Ingo Glass In four different areas, Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) introduced completely new ideas as his legacy in sculpture. These are the “groupes mobiles”, e.g. his ovoid works, the room as a work of art (also land art) where several sculptures are to be viewed together, the “installation”, and “minimalist” plastic art. The group of sculptures in Tärgu Jiu and his studio in Paris are the only realised and preserved works of this kind. Bräncusi, as aforementioned, was the father of “minimal“ sculpture, i.e. a minimalisation of plastic forms; plastic art reduced to its original geometrical shapes. Dan Flavin (born 1933 in New York) dedicated his first neon sculpture to Bräncusi, which he named „Diagonal of May 25, 1963“. The artist wanted to express that his work of art, which consists of one neon tube, owes its basic idea to Bräncusi’s polished bronzes, in which light and material are united. Had Flavin failed to quote Bräncusi in this manner, this exciting relationship may well have gone unnoticed. Richard Serra (born 1936 in San Francisco) may be the young American sculptor most influenced by Bräncusi (Brancusi's influence on his work outweighs that of Malewitsch). Other minimalist artists were also strongly and permanently inspired by Brancusi in many ways, particularly Carl André (born 1935 in Quincey) and Robert Morris (born 1931 in Kansas City). Barnett Newman, to my mind the most important minimalist painter, (born 1905 in New York, died 1970), only continued his work with three-dimensional objects in 1965 with “Here I”, in which he erected steel poles of equal height but different girths individually on pedestals, fixing the three pedestals onto a steel plate below in such a way so that each pole lies within a different plane of space - similar to “Table”, “Gate” and “Infinite Pillar” in Brancusi’s Tärgu Jiu ensemble. Of all the minimalist artists, Donald Judd (born 1928 in Excelsior Springs/Missouri), in the decisive genesis years of the “specific objects”, as he referred to them in a 1964 essay, found the most uncompromising form. His large square shapes consist of interconnected cubes, their visible sides constructed from rectangular, flat tubs, each sprayed a specific colour. Along the top and the sides, they run in the longitudinal direction of the square; on the front side they are vertical. We are confronted with a grid pattern of a different kind by Sol LeWitt (born 1928 in Hartford/Connecticut) in his oeuvre. Of all the minimalist artists, he makes use of the module-like pattern most decisively, in order to guide the viewer towards perceiving the overall form. Within the modular framework, which usually consists of cubes, he also works with the permutation of certain formal aspects. The Americans’ works are not without echo in Europe. 99
