Donald Judd’s Arithmetics and Sol LeWitt’s Combinatorics. On the Relationship Between Visual and Mathematical in New York Art Around 1960

Michael Rottmann
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Michael Rottmann: Karl-Franzens-Universität

A chapter in Imagine Math 3, 2015, pp 85-98 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The comparison of how Sol LeWitt and Donald Judd refer to mathematics and use the ‘mathematical’ reveals not only a historical development of New York art, but also shows varied intentions and thus the individuality of artistic positions of so-called Minimalists. The ‘mathematical’ in the form of a combinatorial rule, is an essential component used by LeWitt to analyse how art is seen and perceived; with reference to Judd’s work, the concept of production could interpreted as a phraseology of arithmetic for reckoning with Europe. Similar to Michael Baxandall’s concept of the ‘period eye’, knowledge of the visual culture of mathematics enabled the observer to recognize the mathematical in the works. This process was supported by the concept of ‘structure-seeing’ within the theory of perception, characterized by mathematics and structuralism. To Judd, problems of formality and aesthetics of effects such as wholeness were important in his recourse to numeric ‘schemes’; LeWitt, however, puts the formal aspects of a work of art, the formalism into question.

Keywords: Number Line; Combinatorial Rule; Fibonacci Sequence; Visual Culture; Visual Thinking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-319-01231-5_8

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-01231-5_8

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