Minimal Conditions explores the expansion of sculpture into phenomenal and perception-based practices in and around the Los Angeles area in the 1970s, a time when California Light and Space art played a key role in the evolution of minimal art toward dematerialization. Focusing on the contingent and embodied nature of work by such artists as Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Doug Wheeler, Larry Bell, Eric Orr, and Maria Nordman, author Dawna L. Schuld proposes a method of analysis that considers these pieces not as discrete objects, but as diverse species of experience. Schuld’s compelling study identifies perceptual, philosophical, and historical common ground shared by minimal artists working on both coasts and in the desert landscape.

About the Author

Dawna L. Schuld teaches modern and contemporary art history in the Department of Visualization at Texas A&M University. Her previous work has included contributions to books such as Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface and Beyond Mimesis and Convention: Representation in Art and Science.

List of Figures and Plates • ix
Preface: Situating Ourselves • xi
Acknowledgments • xv

Introduction • 1
1. Robert Irwin and the Presence of the Situation: From Post-Painterly to Post-Object • 16
2. In a Fog: Light, Space, Obfuscation, and Emergence • 37
3. Cave Dwelling: Resolution and Dissolution • 55
4. Being Nowhere: Desert Situations • 75
Conclusion • 103

Notes • 107
Bibliography • 127
Index • 137

Reviews

"Schuld elaborates a broader and more complex historiography in which minimal art is expanded to include phenomena such as spatiality, perceptual depth, transparency and disorientation. . . . she achieves [her goal]."
— Espace

"Schuld’s scholarship, which is excellent, blends archival research, oral histories, philosophical inquiry, and direct observation in a clear, compelling, and deeply humanist manner. One of her great strengths as an author is that she articulates complex ideas in a clear and approachable manner. This book is suitable for all curious and creative readers."—Robin Clark, Director of the Artist Initiative, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

“By the end of Dawna Schuld's book, we have acquired a very solid understanding of what is at stake in light and space art and the implications of its ambitions. It is art that is contingent, situational, and often very beautiful.”—Craig Adcock, author of James Turrell: The Art of Light and Space

"Schuld analyzes non-object-based artworks, including Light and Space art and earthworks. Drawing on previous scholarship and incorporating her own experiences, her case studies provide an original context for the art at hand."—Frances Colpitt, Professor and Deedie Potter Rose Chair in Art History, Texas Christian University, and author of Minimal Art: The Critical Perspective and Abstract Art in the Late Twentieth Century

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews