The grouping serves as an exploration of the relationship between minimal and conceptual art as established and expanded by these four artists. The gallery opened in October of 2017 with the inaugural exhibition, Donald Judd Progressions. This is its second show.

The work of this generation of artists was created with the deliberate intention to lead in a different direction than the previous Abstract Expressionism and Pop art generations. Initiated by Sol LeWitt’s ‘structures’ and Dan Flavin’s radically simple and transformative light installations, these artists embraced such things as simple structures, monochrome abstraction, elementary geometry, and the straight line as part of a new and incisive language of pure form. Operating independently of one another, each of the four artists represented in this show developed their own unique way of working – what Sol LeWitt was to call a ‘grammar.’ This simplistic (or minimalist) ‘grammar,’ once established, was to remain largely unchanged in their work throughout their careers.

Traditionally, On Kawara’s work has been designated ‘conceptual,’ yet the deliberately simplistic form and style (or ‘grammar’) of works, such as his Date Paintings, is markedly minimalist. As with much conceptual art, On Kawara’s paintings adopted the formal language of minimalism as one of seriousness, truth, directness, and reality. Similarly, the approach to form and space shown in the work of the so-called minimalist artists – Andre, Flavin, and LeWitt – is a distinctly conceptual one.

 

CARL ANDRE, DAN FLAVIN, ON KAWARA, SOL LEWITT: EARLY WORKS
960 Madison Avenue, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10021, USA