I-Box.
|
Title |
I-Box. |
|
Creator |
Morris, Robert (American sculptor and painter, born 1931) |
|
Date |
1962 |
|
Cultural Context |
American
North American |
|
Style/Period |
Modern (styles and periods)
Modernist |
|
Subject |
Puns (Visual works)
Sex
Genitals
Nudes
Voyeurism
Men
Artists
Sculptors
Posing
Boxes
Doors & doorways
Initials |
|
Description |
"Here Morris presented a small rectangular structure with a door shaped as a letter 'I'. When opened the door gave on to a photograph of the artist, his phallus rhyming with the "I" connotative both of the viewers looking (eye) and the artist's identity." (Caption, p.57); "If Target with Plaster Casts [Jasper Johns, 1955] does indeed transpose the dynamics of gendered looking from [Marcel Duchamp's] the Large Glass and Etant Donnés into homoerotic terms, a coda to this dialogue is provided by a slightly later work of art. The American sculptor Robert Morris's I-Box of 1962 was produced at a yet further stage in the iconographic unraveling of Duchamp. The latter's notes for his Large Glass were now available in English (the translation came out in 1960) whilst Johns's Target, an echo of a work as yet invisible to the art community, could be construed as virtually predicting the trajectory of Duchamp's activities. In his voyeuristic I-Box Morris surely had the boxes at the top of Johns's Target in mind, but their fragmented contents were seemingly reconstituted in the image of a self-confident and possibly heterosexual male. The latter point is made tentatively since much depends on the sexual orientations Morris imagined himself addressing. And, whilst I-Box appears to reverse the terms of Etant Donnés, to what extent may the latter, materializing slowly elsewhere, have responded to Morris or Johns? There is no clear historical resolution to any of this. What is clear, though, is the sheer elasticity of the gender metaphors Duchamp put into play. (Excerpt, pp. 55, 57) |
|
People Pictured |
Morris, Robert, 1931- |
|
Material |
Painted plywood cabinet covered with sculptmetal, containing photograph
Photographs
Plywood
Wood (plant material)
Paint
Mixed media |
|
Measurements |
48.3 x 32.4 x 3.5 cm |
|
Technique |
Sculpting
Photography
Photographic processes
Photographic techniques |
|
Work Type |
Sculpture |
|
Repository |
Leo Castelli Gallery (New York, New York) |
|
Source |
Hopkins, David. After Modern Art: 1945-2000. Oxford History of Art. Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2000. (p.57, fig.27) |
|
Rights |
Leo Castelli Collection. Photo Dorothy Zeidman. Reproduced in Hopkins courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York. © ARS, NY, and DACS, London, 2000. |
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Digital Publisher |
University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center |
|
Format |
image/jpeg |
|
Digital File Name |
VRC 827-37.jpg |
|
Rating |
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