Robert Morris (artist)

Robert Morris (artist), born in 1931, American sculptor, whose work is regarded as minimalist for its simplification of shape and surface. He is considered a leader of the movement known as conceptual art, which focuses on the process of creating art rather than on artworks themselves.

Morris was born in Kansas City, Missouri. After studying engineering, he attended the Kansas City Art Institute (1948-1950). He continued his education at the California School of Fine Arts (1951) in San Francisco and Reed College in Portland, Oregon (1953-1955), and he began his artistic career as a painter. In 1960 Morris moved to New York City, where he switched his artistic focus to sculpture and began participating in a variety of avant-garde activities, including improvisational theater and experimental dance (see Performance Art). In 1966 he earned a degree in art history from City University of New York's Hunter College.

As a member of the minimal art movement, Morris rejects art based on technical virtuosity or self-expression, emphasizing instead the art object itself. His works are meant to be perceived as whole structures, or, in Morris's words, unitary objects, rather than as assemblages of parts, simple, three-dimensional shapes, usually painted gray and often made of industrial materials such as plywood or steel. His Untitled (1965), for example, is a large open circle of gray fiberglass composed of two semicircle sections of equal size. The work is illuminated from within the two gaps where the pieces almost meet. Other works by Morris use mirrors and labyrinths to make viewers aware of their own perceptions of space in relation to the sculptures. In 1964 Morris began to have his designs executed by craftspeople in keeping with his minimalist belief in de-emphasizing the role of the artist in the work itself.

Morris's art also shows the influence of other 20th-century artists and theorists, including American musician John Cage and French artist Marcel Duchamp. Morris has written a number of articles explaining his theories on minimal art.