Robert Morris (artist)
Robert Morris ( born February 9, 1931 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American sculptor, conceptual artist and writer.
He is together with Donald Judd as one of the most important exponents of Minimalism and made important contributions to the development of performance, land art, the process-based art and installation.
Life
Morris studied in the years 1948 to 1950 at the "Kansas City Art Institute " and at the "University of Kansas City," 1950/51 on the "California School of Fine Arts" in San Francisco and 1953-1955 at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. In 1961 he moved to New York in 1963 and received his Master of Arts degree in art history at the city's Hunter College.
Morris's works from the years 1955-1959 were initially strongly influenced by Abstract Expressionism, particularly influenced by Jackson Pollock. A photograph of Hans Namuth showing Pollock at work, brought him to the idea that art is the recording of a performance by the artist in the studio; this led him to an interest in dance and choreography. Morris moved in 1961 to New York, where he staged a performance based on the exploration of bodies in space, in which a vertical column falls on stage after a few minutes. Morris used the same idea in his first minimalist sculptures Two Columns (1961 ) and L Beams (1965). In the years 1963-1970 he composed and directed dance pieces and worked on film and theater projects.
Works (selection)
1963 Morris worked with thin sheets of lead, which he eindrückte with stamps, nick, described and combined with paper, wood and metal parts such as lock or Schlüselbund. Three of his lead images were donated to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA ) in New York City by Philip Johnson.
One of his most famous land art works is the " observatory " with a diameter of 91 meters. It is located in the Dutch province of Flevoland. Morris is made of earth, wood, steel and granite. He catches with the solstice in an archaic, doppelringigen plant in scene that is modeled on a bold reconstructed Stonehenge.