The Perceiving Body

Robert Morris (b.1931, Kansas City, Missouri; d. 2018, Kingston, New York) is a key figure in the history of art after 1960. As opposed to the model of the survey, in which many examples of work are brought together to demonstrate variety or range, Robert Morris. The Perceiving Body is organised as a constellation of seven discrete rooms, each containing a single installation or a group of related objects.

During the 60s and 70s, Morris produced what are now considered to be canonical works of Minimal and Postminimal art. The works were primarily concerned with acts of making and beholding. They were made by Morris (and, later, by others) from materials and means drawn largely from the construction industry. In form, these objects eschew the compositional conventions of modernist abstraction, being based instead on principles of repetition, permutation, and chance. In scale, they observe a direct, 1:1 relation between the sculptural object and the body of the artist or observer – the ‘perceiving body.’ This emphasis on an encounter – between the subject and object – has its roots in advanced art circles of performance and dance with which Robert Morris has worked closely. Placed directly on the floor, the objects are non-monumental yet big enough to fully engage the space of the room: they confront, obstruct, or intervene.