Bill +

["Clive Murray-White" <clivemw@zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz>]

Dear Bill,

 Minimalism  very  Bad.  Say you too?

The German items didn't have me booking a plane ticket and rushing off to
see them. I don't think I just singled out minimalism, one critic here calls
me "a bit of a minimalist" a tag that I don't mind at all, I would even say
that re-asking the kinds of questions that the original minimalists posed is
quite central to what I do.

I'm attracted to high minded art on either side of the coin, in fact I have
a huge respect for the idealistic arguments that see mankind's highest
faculty as the ability to create order from chaos and often wish it was my
lot to see things that way too but alas I'm one of those poor buggers that
has been tied to the mast as the pathetic little sailing boat is tossed by
the raging sea.

I've just noticed that Don has joined in, which prompts me to respond also,
my view here is that since we all know that anything can be art that my
ponderings on the subject tend to be infinitely more focused not on what art
is or what it can be but what I can include in it (again).

Back to minimalism (Judd et al) etc..................the best way that I can
think about it is that it is one of the many fine examples of artists,
architects and movements portraying the notion of ideal order in their times
ranging from the Parthenon and Poussin to the present, I have no gripe with
the idea, or even the calm clean products that it invariably produces. I
think the point is that it can't look just like Minimalism, Mondrian or
Malevich anymore. Someone has to find a beautifully pedigreed 2005 visual
metaphor that can deal with the complex questions. My guess is that someone
will stumble over an obvious way of doing it in the not too distant future.

Best Wishes Clive
Sculptor Clive Murray-White
Web: www.cowwarr.com