The art in this exhibition is very much a part of the science fiction-tinged technological experimentation that seemed for a period, perhaps from 1963 to 1973, between the reign of Pop and that of Minimalism- to be quite literally the art of the future. But partly on account of technical difficulties-those ancient IBM programs no longer function, those light bulbs are long discontinued- and partly on account of the aesthetic amnesia required for art to continue at all, most of the work of that era has vanished. Curiously, what has survived, as the works on exhibition here demonstrate, are relatively traditional objects made out of tangible materials, actual things that we may now fetishize as singular objects d'art but which were, in the context of their original creation, almost the by-products of an enormous, exciting amount of nontangible research and development. All the artists in this show were touched by this idea of scientific collaboration, most notably Turrell and Irwin, and their close joint researches within the Los Angeles County Museum's Art and Technology program. Hence this show would have had an entirely different meaning and alternative presentation in 1971, when instead of being identified as unique, almost "sacred" objects, these works would have been presented as part of an ongoing, nonmaterial process of perceptual inquiry.
LARRY BELLOf the 1969 smoked patina of his cube design, historians would wax lyrical, casting comparison with renowned coffee tables of the era or some TV star's tinted sunglasses, as easily worn by Bell himself, whose dandyism was integral to his aesthetic- his innate sense of surface, sheen, shade. Indeed Bell's box has "style," but as Genet knew, "Style is to refuse," and its ultimate refusal is to both decorator and formalist, its character built to resist such modes.
ROBERT IRWINFrom our current digital perspective whereby every image and visual effect is ever more available and readily convened to our requirements, we forget how Irwin's work from this period was precisely just the opposite- a long process of difficult "work." Irwin knew what sort of optical resonance he wished to create, however diffuse or nebulous it might have seemed. Thus the "work" of art lay in solving the problem, achieving this intention, through the deployment and manipulation of absolutely physical objects.
CRAIG KAUFFMANBetween 1962 and 1972, precisely those crucial artistic years of 30 and 40, Craig Kauffman was led away from oil paint on linen, traditional materials used for centuries, to acrylic on Plexiglas. We recognize elements of any classic tableaux- the dimensions, the position on the wall, a shape presumably created from the artist's imagination- but we are not allowed the usual reassurance of the artist's hand, his literal touch. The warmth of the pattern and the hot colors all attract as "art" while the vacuum-formed texture and the weightless, mass-produced, anti-aura arrogantly challenge our aesthetic assumptions.
JOHN MCCRACKENSimplicity is McCracken's aim. As he puts it with enviable insouciance: "Making art is a process of uncluttering the mind and then just making things." Thus these sculptures operate as stabilizing, centralizing entities for those experiencing their presence. The sculptures serve almost as visual mantras shared between artist and eventual audience; they come into being naturally, approximations to the artist's ideal, and can be looked at naturally, without obligation or presumption.
FRED SANDBACKIt was at Yale in1967 that the visiting artist George Sugarman listened to a young Fred Sandback explain his problems with the formal limits of sculpture. Sugarman came up with an immediate and easy idea, telling him to "stretch a piece of string between two points and leave it be." Sandback's oeuvre is based on absolute precision, a rigorous, arguably obsessive, mathematical perfection and its application to a series of repeated spatial configurations, variants on an essential theme worthy of Bach-tight, taut, and resistant.
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