Saturday 10 March 2012

Robert Morris at 'Sprueth Magers Gallery' - Berlin

http://www.spruethmagers.com/exhibitions/302

I don't usually develop such a fondness for minimal artwork, but I felt quite strongly in favour of Robert Morris's solo show at 'Sprueth Magers' in Berlin. Part of the reason for this was because some of the people I viewed the show with neither liked nor seemed to want to understand the work. It was almost as if they were holding grudges. 'Scatter Piece' is what I consider to be 'process based art'. The layout of the installation is described as looking like a 'sculptural production sight', where the arrangement of the piece reacts directly to the surrounding space, thus the installation manifests a temporary and changeable state of completion. We almost missed the piece completely, thinking at first that we'd stumbled across a show that was being installed.
I felt a kind of loyalty to this piece in particular, as I have recently realised how difficult it can be to represent a process, to freeze a moment of the creative process and represent time.

This is not to say, however, that I don't think the piece works independantly. I had a conversation with someone who made the statement "the artist hasn't actually done anything himself, he hasn't manipulated any materials at all, all he has done is throw them randomly in to a space." There are a few reasons why I disagree with this statement. Not only does Morris succeed in representing an unfinished state (which is arguably harder than representing something finished,) but he has ironically done this in a considered way. He has systemised and made presentable the somewhat chaotic and kinetic creative process. I think this is incredibly hard to do, to refine the balance between material and spatial awareness, and still manage to communicate creative thought process and decision making is no mean feat in my opinion. On the contrary the message is subtle yet incredibly skilful.