Art: Maximizing the Minimal

Way back in 191 3, an unwary art critic covered himself with retrospective ignominy by mocking Dadaist Marcel Duchamp's cubistic Nude Descending a Staircase as looking more like "an explosion in a shingle factory." There is no such danger today awaiting critics of Minimal Sculptor Robert Morris —even though some of his work does indeed look like an explosion in some sort of factory—because Morris' untitled pieces are not intended to represent anything. "What you see is what there is," says Morris. Since 1962, Morris watchers have seen him exhibit an 8-ft.-square slab...

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