Mind Over Matter: 6 Conceptual Artists at the Whitney Museum

1991 / 58 min. / color
Directed by Michael Blackwood

Ashley Bickerton, Ronald Jones, Nayland Blake, Liz Larner, Tishan Hsu, Annette Lemieux. Exhibition curator Richard Armstrong and critic Bruce Ferguson.

These young artists use objects and materials to create idea-oriented painting and sculpture. Representatives of a third generation of conceptual painters and sculptors, they have turned from the self-conscious absorption of formalist art, addressing instead social as well as aesthetic issues. In their hands, the traditional matter of sculpture – material and space – is subordinated to the demands of the mind. The six artists return to the Whitney, on a day when the museum is closed, to look at and discuss the exhibition with curator Richard Armstrong and critic Bruce Ferguson. They are questioned about their work on display and they offer insights about their approach and direction. Over lunch, artists, curator, and critic talk about the aims of the exhibition, and in what ways their art shares common ground. This articulate generation, conversant with art historical precedents, explores larger fields of knowledge, in a conscious rejection of Modernism and post-Modernism.