Robert Morris (b. 1931, USA – d. 2018, USA)
Document, 1963

Oh well, here I am cheating on myself again, taking in another work of an artist already represented in the blog. But I have just realised how critical this work is for my discussion about “location” of art, nature of the expressivity in art and sharing of responsibility for artistic experience between the artist and the audience. Currently I am strongly erring on the side of the audience, as it is them who “fill in the gaps”, make interpretation of the work, even decide whether they would acknowledge something as art or not. Of course, there are artworks and artists that guide their audience very strongly, leaving little room for interpretation, but then again, that kind of art is more likely to be religious art, propaganda art, didactic art, social realism art – varieties of art that are so deeply rooted in social conventions that one might even think that the artist is not so much “guiding” the audience as delivering upon very specific demand from the audience, yet again placing the audience in the driver’s seat.

Thus, I am quite curious what leeway there is for the artist to do something of their own, really. How significant their choices are, and from what perspective. To what extent and in what sense can an artist “control” their work. And why should they? In this context a work from which artist has withdrawn all aesthetic content, as it is confirmed in a notarised statement, is a very pertinent contribution to the discussion.

In a way, my attempts and Morris’ gesture are going in opposite directions. He is “emptying” the work in order to exercise control over it, while I may be “emptying” mine in order to loose control (or to avoid pretending to have control that is not really there). But result – “emptied work” – is the same. Or is it? Or is it even emptied? Some psychoanalytically minded audience members are happy to see “me” even in my gesture of not presenting anything, while I can still see some aesthetic forms in the work officially “emptied” by Morris…