The perceiving body

This book accompanies a new exhibition of the work of Robert Morris (1931-2018), a foundational figure in the history of Minimalism, Postminimalism, and Conceptual art. The exhibition focuses on the role of installation and the phenomenology of direct encounter in Morris’s work of the 1960s and 1970s, foregrounding the relation between the sculptural object and the beholder – the “perceiving body” – in the space of the room. This volume contains texts composed from three vantage points: art-historical essays by Jeffrey Weiss, Caroline A. Jones, and Courtney Fiske consider chief works and themes; personal accounts by dancer Simone Forti and curator and critic Bernard Ceysson reflect on the authors’ working relationships with Morris during his early period; and three essays by the artist himself – here translated into French for the first time – address certain fundamental preoccupations of sculpture after 1960: medium, form, space, and time.