ART-PRESENTATION: Objects and Bodies at Rest and in Motion

Based mainly on the Moderna Museet collection, the exhibition “Objects and Bodies at Rest and in Motion” aims at examining the relationship between objects and the human body in the works of Minimalist artists and choreographers who emerged between the late ‘50s and the early ‘70s in North America and Europe.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Moderna Museet Archive

The Minimalists’ work has been described as “theatrical” and “scenic”, meaning that each piece is a non-illusionistic object that shares the gallery space with the viewer, instead of functioning like a window onto another world. Viewers become actors on a stage in which the artwork serves as a kind of prop or architectural frame. The relationship between the human body and the solid object is clarified by innovative choreographers such as Simone Forti, Yvonne Rainer, and Trisha Brown who worked with many of the same artistic issues as their contemporaries in the visual arts. This relationship is perhaps most distinctly manifested in the collaborations between Simone Forti and Robert Morris. Another example is Donald Judd and Trisha Brown, where the former designed the sets for two of Brown’s choreographies. Although not everyone entered into proper collaborations, several artists and choreographers shared artistic concerns and ideas at this time. Artists such as Richard Tuttle and Eva Hesse also explored the relationship between body and object, but without the cold rationalism often associated with minimalism. Tuttle’s “Paper Octagonal”, for example, is a piece whose dimensions are related to the artist’s own body, and in Franz Erhard Walther’s work the focus is on the relationship between the viewer’s body and the artist’s fabric objects. The exhibition includes works by: Carl Andre, Jo Baer, Trisha Brown, Eva Hesse, Dan Flavin, Simone Forti, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, Walter De Maria, Agnes Martin, Bruce Nauman, Yvonne Rainer, Joel Shapiro, Frank Stella, Richard Tuttle, Franz Erhard Walther and Hannah Wilke.

Info: Curator: Magnus af Petersens & Andreas Nilsson, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm, Duration: 12/3-12/6/16, Days & Hours: Tue 10:00-12:00 Wed-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.modernamuseet.se