Art Review: Hard core minimalist exhibition at Kiasma

Guggenheim loans complement Kouri collection

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By Timo Valjakka
     
      Kiasma, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, deserves congratulations for its latest exhibition, which is centred around part of the collection of American modern art of Pentti Kouri, in addition to loans from the Guggenheim Museum in New York
      The Full House exhibition, which opens on Friday, includes a number of important works by key figures in minimalism, which are rarely seen in Finland.
      Also on display is European art, whose relationship with minimalism is mainly based on the language of form, or the similarity of materials.
     
Works of Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Robert Morris represent the hard core of minimalism in Kiasma. It includes a sculpture by Carl Andre in another part of the building.
      The works of Robert Morris illuminate his striving toward objects that have only one characteristic. His felt work (1973) is a sculpture, which is soft, and “forgets” its own form.
      The importance for modern art of Robert Smithson, who died in a plane crash at a young age, is equivalent to that of Leonardo da Vinci for the Renaissance. The Hotel Palenque (1969-72) is a humorous slide show lecture of a Mexican hotel ruin, by an artist who crosses boundaries.
      The archetype of minimalism is found outside the realm of pictoral art. It is the black monolith which appears in the film 2001, a Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick, a rectangular block full of invisible power.
      Kubrick’s film was made in 1968, at the same time that young American artists were questioning both traditional works of art and the institution of art itself.
      They were united by an avoidance of self-expression, and a yearning for objectivity. They favoured basic geometric shapes and their repetition, as well as industrial materials and manufacturing processes. One of them, Frank Stella, crystallised the programme in one sentence: “What you see is what you see”.
     
However, the severe language of form did not lead to a simple viewing experience. On the contrary, the work of art became a negative centre, which directed people’s attention away from itself, making the viewer aware of both his or her own body and the space surrounding the work. American critic Michael Fried, the most severe critic of minimalism, defined the genre as theatrical.
      The theatre of minimalism takes over the main exhibition hall of Kiasma in a magnificent way.
      The large scale of American art is well suited for the museum, which was designed by the American architect Steven Holl.
     
Minimalism is not a style, and its works do not always resemble the monolith in Kubrick’s film.
      Common to all is a critical relationship with the commercialism of art, the established institutions of art, and to some extent, to the American political system.
      The birth of minimalism is linked with the political activism of the late 1960s.
      The question is one of an artistic revolution - one that is so strong that its spirit hovers in the exhibition rooms of Kiasma - in spite of the fact that the artists that are presented are currently recognised classical figures, and their works are commercial objects and collectors’ items.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 17.10.2008


Links:
  Kiasma: Full House 17.10.2008 - 18.1.2009

Helsingin Sanomat