For the past few weeks I’ve been making a cube, inspired by Sol LeWitt it is an open frame and in it’s simplest form it is minimalist in appearance.
Whilst my method of making a cube was not as simple as one could make it, the process I took was arduous by design. There are faster ways to achieve this task, but this was intended to be a task in the Herculean sense, if that’s not overstating the activity too much (which I suspect it is). When given the opportunity I favoured manual tools over production tools (other than an electric drill which I allowed myself).
The black bullet points signify my progress: –
The 1m cubed frame
•First order wood, and cut approx. in order to make it manageable. Cut (using a chop saw) against grain to avoid breakout.
•Measure and trim with mitre saw, lightly sand off the saw burr from the edge.
•Shave pairs of timbers to exactly 1m long using a mitre planer.
•Mark up the face edges with the lap cuts, and mortise holes. Identify joints with unique identifiers.
•Cut lap joints with tenon saw, chisel off waste, shave with accuracy using the other half of the pair.
•Repeat creating the four joints for the base. Layout and check the dimension’s accuracy – 1m2.
•Drill out centre of mortise joint with 16mm blade drill bit.
•Saw out corners of the mortise with hand keyhole saw.
•Identify suitable piece of timber for the verticals.
•Saw tenon cuts and chisel off waste, shave with accuracy checking against matching mortise.
•Repeat making the four vertical pieces.
•Select four matching lengths of timber for the top of the cube.
•Measure and trim with mitre saw, lightly sand off the burr on the back sawn edge.
•Shave the pairs to exactly 1m long with mitre planer.
•Lay out and mark up lap cuts, and mortise holes, identifying joints with unique identifiers remembering that the mortises go on the lower part of the lap joints this time.
•Cut lap joints with tenon saw, chisel off waste, shave with accuracy using the other paired half.
•Repeat creating the four joints for the top.
•Drill out centre of mortise joint with 16mm blade drill bit.
•Saw out corners of the mortise with hand keyhole saw.
•Assemble the base and vertical pieces, measure and markup second tenon at the top end of the verticals.
•Saw tenon cuts and chisel off waste, shave with accuracy checking against matching mortise.
•Repeat completing the four vertical pieces.
•Assemble the cube, measure and check using ones fingers to detect slight inaccuracies at timber interfaces.
◦In a location with sufficiently wide door ways, assemble the joints using wood glue, pins and clamps. Pin joints to secure them.
◦Wood filler can be used where necessary to smooth the surfaces and blemishes.
◦Primer the timber, undercoat then top coat the frame.
◦Cube frame complete.
Why the cube? You may well ask…
There are many examples of the cube being used in art (as above), from Alberto Giacometti’s Le Cube (1934) which strictly speaking is a polyhedron, to Anthony Gormley’s Murmur (2014) so what’s the appeal?
The Russian constructivist sculptor, Naum Gabo was at the forefront of presenting cubes as art, his work Two Cubes (1930) investigates both the internal space and the external space of the shape.
Daniel Herwitz (1996) says of Gabo that his work is inspired by Descartes (the philosophiser who coined the concept ‘I think therefore I am’) whereby the shapes are depicted so that the viewer can fully appreciate it, understanding its make-up completely just through seeing the sculpture; he hides nothing. Krauss said of Gabo that his “cube makes visually available its mode of construction from simple lines in the manner of [a] geometric proof” thus referring to the shapes: 8 vertices, 6 faces and its 12 edges.
In 1969 the artist Jacques Schnier claimed that the representation of the cube in art had been exhausted, initially the shape had been picked up by artists during the movement from figurative to geometric abstraction, yet the minimalists picked up the cube and ran with it into the 1970’s. Sol LeWitt deconstructed the shape, making it with the fewest lines as possible; looking for the very premise of the shape. Robert Morris constructed mirrored cubes in 1965 and Donald Judd’s Untitled (1972) was a box of polished copper, Tony Smith’s Die (1962) was a 6 foot cube of rusty steel, whilst Richard Serra made the One Ton Prop (House of Cards) in 1969, which was a cube of 4 faces made of lead that were precariously lent together.
The intention of the minimalists was to create art that existed to present only itself and not something other. Traditionally paintings and sculptures existed to represent something other i.e. a landscape, a beautiful woman or a brave warrior. The minimalists made art that represented nothing but itself. Well, nothing other than everything else associated with the form, from the spiritualism of Malevich’s Black Square (c. 1915) to the Muslim icon of the Hajj.
In Rosalind Kraus’ essay LeWitt in Progress (1978) she highlights Kuspit’s analysis which details how LeWitt’s incomplete cubes are completed by the viewer, Kraus uses Kant’s terminology to describe how the observer combines the incomplete ‘phenomenal’ cube with their ‘idea’ of the cube, this creates a tension or an aporia. This same sensation is described by Beilder in his paper, The Postmodern Sublime (1995) which links Tony Smith’s cubes with Kant’s sublime, as a simultaneous repulsion and attraction, or the comprehension of a “multiplicity in a unity”. Kant used these terms to describe the sublime in his Critique of Judgement (1790). Kant argued that the sublime cannot be presented in art which only deals with the representation of something phenomenal, but Beilder uses Lyotard’s essay The Inhuman and Michael Fried’s concepts to demonstrate that the sublime can be witnessed in art which uses the mind to create an eternal oscillation, endlessly receding and approaching the beholder’s ability to appreciate the object.
In my creation of the cube I intend to piggyback this sensation (in those who’ve witnessed these works) and then apply my presentment of the concept ‘combining unity and multi-potentiality’, i.e. a grain of wheat (a single grain which can have many different futures) or better still a shit load of them. I plan to take a ton of seeds and present them in different ways.
Here are a few trial ideas: –
