Marissa Johnson
Reece Budinich
Riley Itano Vanderburg

Video Response

I wanted to make a visual and audible experience created solely from the sculpture itself. I recorded video and audio at the site when the steam was rising, capturing the interactive aspect of the piece. I then worked with the audio of the steam, amplifying, looping and cutting it into a new, rhythmic piece. I did the same with the video. I had the vision of this video from the first time I saw the sculpture; something about the meditative aspect of the steam and rock made me want to mold and cut it like Robert Morris worked with the land and steam already existing at the site of the sculpture.

– Riley Itano Vanderburg

Audio files being chopped up

The edited film

About The Artist

After reading up about Robert Morris, it is clear the intentions of his piece were to involve the audience into the artwork. He strongly believes in change; he introduced his writing by explaining how change is a prominent purpose of his art. Morris values action, moving, fluctuation and warping of logic. He thinks instability is much more important than comfort and associates his artwork with curiosity. The insecurities of everyday life are the only things that cause other things, situations, and circumstances to move and that I connected with beauty in the struggle.

When the artworks he creates are interactive and large, and require people to act upon the pieces, he believes this to be the primary factor. The interpreter becomes the art. Just as he described in his writings in “Continuous Product Altered Daily”, he conquers the marketing ideology that the artist is separate from the piece they make. Instead, the artist, the human beings who created the art, has become the art themselves, and this expressionism helps us recognize and appreciate his intent.

Morris explained that the hunger for understanding and knowledge is something constantly apt to change; one will never know the answer to an art piece because there is no definition. He describes his own self as “skeptical and speculative” because he wants to learn and explore more than proving any type of assurance or dominance over his own works. This reflects the idea that once a viewer sees and experiences the piece, it becomes theirs. He respects the ideas of the people because everything is situational; when one creates a piece it will have a different meaning and register differently than months after its establishment. One idea does not mean the same or resonate in the same way as it did in its original situation as time goes by, which is why Morris emphasized the conceptual depth of his pieces much more than the aesthetics and superficial observations that any and every individual could make.

Morris established most of his art in the 1960s. This was around the time in which Pollock and other artists were involved in the Abstract Expressionism era, where the materials and tools involved were no longer the priority. His own untitled piece from 1967 provided a similar flavor by using abstraction that did not follow the regular norms of logic and reality. This sense of misunderstanding was prominent through many of his pieces. Very common to Morris, “an art of location” or designated art, was conceptual rather than tangible. I found it quite interesting that though the thoughts seemed abstract, at the same time the pieces were extraordinarily physical and in your face. Confrontational. To me that screamed irony because his statement pieces were more than obvious yet at the same time completely subjective. A giant triangle called Corner Piece from 1964 elicits this example: apparent yet not so apparent. Another style around this period was earth art, a definite category for the steam work. As opposed to an indoor piece where the background is hardly relevant, outdoor pieces involve the background that brings the artwork to life.

“Simplicity of shape does not necessarily equate with simplicity of experience.”

– Robert Morris

Regarding the “Steam Work” I saw, I tried my best to appreciate it without the steam but I couldn’t fully understand it until I took into account the mindset of Morris as he built his creations. The locations and outside atmosphere of the pieces are as significant as the sculptures themselves because without them there is little depth in the story. Looking at Bellingham, the air, the weather, and the energy the campus provides all directly influence the steam work because it takes place all together. The change of weather and the change of steam all contribute to a continuous movement that represents instability, discomfort, transformation, and eventually motivation.

The beauty, I think, of Morris’ work, is that he truly felt a connection with his own pieces. To him it was about pureness, and the interaction one would have with the items that may thrive on the idea of simplicity. The void of obvious expression allows people to find their own peace in the most natural, genuine way possible.
As a college campus, I feel that our community shares the same values of education and bringing change to the world. To be involved with the world is to experience it as much as possible. Becoming involved with the sculptures gives a stronger, deeper involvement that cannot be experienced with other types of pieces. Morris and the other artists represent these values and because our school shares them I feel the campus is only complete with these beautiful man-made pieces.

The Sculpture at Western

Link to the Website : https://wp.wwu.edu/mamarissa/