Barbara Rose

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Barbara Rose (born 1938) is an American art historian and critic. She was educated at at Smith College, Barnard College and Columbia University. She was married to artist Frank Stella between 1961 and 1969.

In 1965 she published ABC Art in which she described the characteristics of minimal art. In the essay she considers the diverse roots of minimalism in the work of Malevich and Duchamp as well as the choreography of Merce Cunningham, the art criticism of Greenberg, the philosophy of Wittgenstein and the novels of Robbe-Grillet. Her conclusion is that minimal art is both transcendental and negative:

"The art I have been talking about is obviously a negative art of denial and renunciation. Such protracted asceticism is normally the activity of contemplatives or mystics...Like the mystic, in their work these artists deny the ego and the individual personality, seeking to evoke, it would seem, the semihypnotic state of blank unconsciousness."

She also contrasts minimal art with Pop Art:

"...if Pop Art is the reflection of our environment, perhaps the art I have been describing is its antidote, even if it is a hard one to swallow."

[edit] ABC Art

In examining the historical roots of minimal art in 1960s America, Rose draws a distinction between Kasimir Malevich's "search for the transcendental, universal, absolute" and Marcel Duchamp's "blanket denial of the existence of absolute values." She groups some 1960's artists as closer to Malevich, some as closer to Duchamp, and some as between the two.

Closer to Malevich