ART-PRESENTATION: Primary Structures

When the exhibition “Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors” (27/4-12/6/66) opened at the Jewish Museum in New York Curated by Kynaston McShine, it was a watershed event that introduced Minimal art to American audiences before it was called Minimal art. Featuring the work of seminal American and British artists the exhibition introduced an entirely new visual lexicon to Western art history.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: MMK Archive

Among the holdings of the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main is an important collection of outstanding works of minimal art of the ‘60s and ’70s. In “Primary Structures” a major survey featuring nearly 50 artists, the MMK is now presenting the masterworks of this collection comprehensively for the first time. The works by American minimalists of the early ‘60s made its way into the museum when the city of Frankfurt purchased the former Karl Ströher Collection in 1981. An acquisition of 2006, now of the works amassed by the former gallery owner and collector Rolf Ricke, further enhanced the MMK holdings with outstanding examples of post-minimalism. With this title, the presentation at the MMK 2 also makes direct reference to the very first exhibition of Minimal Art. The MMK exhibition starts with the reconstruction of two historical installations that  originally presented at the legendary Heiner Friedrich gallery in Munich in 1968, the year that marked the beginning of the reception of minimal art in Germany: Carl Andre’s floor sculpture “22 Steel Row” and Dan Flavin’s light installation “Two Primary Series and One Secondary”. The two artists designed. During the first half of the exhibition (22/2-14/5/17)  the MMK 2 features the reconstruction of Carl Andre’s floor sculpture, and in the second half (starting on 16/5/17), that of the work by Dan Flavin. Carl Andre’s “35 Timber Line” (1968) is on view in an MMK exhibition for the very first time. The work has belonged to the holdings since the museum’s opening in 1991, but for reasons of space has never been placed on display. The work manifests Carl Andre’s artistic creed, to create a tension charged relationship between a sculpture and its immediate surroundings. In addition to masterworks by the most important exponents of minimalism in 1960s U.S.A. and Germany, the MMK 2 also presents examples by members of younger generations, whose installations bear a strong relationship to the minimalist current. Among these artists are: Jo Baer, Bruce Nauman, Robert Barry, Robert Mangold, Charlotte Posenenske, Peter Roehr, Lewis Stein and William Forsythe, but also and above all their successors, for example Michael Beutler, Benedikte Bjerre, Ceal Floyer, Teresa Margolles, Sarah Morris, Santiago Sierra or Jonas Weichsel. The most recent new acquisition to be included in the show is “20 Pieces of Road Measuring 100 x 100 cm Pulled up from the Ground” (1992), a key work by Santiago Sierra. The squares are laid out in the exhibition space in grid form. Santiago Sierra conceives of the human being and the body as worker and workforce operating in social space. He demonstrates a fact-bound mode of thought that – entirely in keeping with minimalist concepts – stresses the industrial production of his installations. At the same time, however, he charges his works with sociopolitical meaning. Drawings on paper have always been the foundation of the original artistic process. They often served the minimalists as the point of departure of their new strategies, which they articulated in concepts, diagrams, sketches or accompanying preliminary drawings. With only few exceptions, the drawings on display bear a direct relation to sculptural or space-specific works in the MMK collection. Michael Beutler’s work “Outdoor-yellow 13” (2004) concludes the exhibition. There visitors encounter huge, bright yellow sculptures made of “Pecafil”, a material typically used in the building industry. Beutler releases it from its serviceability as a building material, however, assigning it a sculptural value of its own instead. Artists featured in the exhibition: Carl Andre, Richard Artschwager, Jo Baer, Bernd und Hilla Becher, Michael Beutler,  Benedikte Bjerre, Alighiero Boetti, Bill Bollinger, George Brecht, Marcel Broodthaers,  Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, Ceal Floyer, William Forsythe, Günther Förg, Isa Genzken,  Hermann Goepfert, Bethan Huws, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Ellsworth Kelly, Joseph Kosuth,  Gary Kuehn, Barry La Va, Robert Mangold, Teresa Margolles, Sarah Morris, Bruce Nauman,  Kenneth C. Noland, Blinky Palermo, Steven Parrino, Angelika Platen, Charlotte Posenenske,  Timm Rautert, Peter Roehr, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Ulrich Rückriem, Robert Ryman, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra, Paul Sharits, Santiago Sierra, Andreas Slominski, Lewis Stein, Heide Stolz,  Franz Erhard Walther, Jonas Weichsel and Lawrence Weiner.

Info: MMK 2, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, TaunusTurm, Taunustor , Frankfurt, Duration: 22/2-13/8/17, Days & Hours: Tue & Thu-Sun 11:00-18:00, Wed 11:00-20:00, http://mmk-frankfurt.de