Revisiting “Anti Form”: On Rebecca
Hutchinson’s Organic Installations
By Pamela Karimi
Associate Professor of Art History, UMass Dartmouth
In 1968 Robert Morris wrote “Anti Form,” an essay addressing the concept of formlessness in
art. Earlier that year, Morris had delved into the theme of formlessness in his own Untitled
(Threadwaste), an amorphous sculpture with an uncertain composition made up of
unconventional materials such as asphalt, copper tubing, and lead.1 In both his writing and his
art-making, Morris “replaced the positivist conviction of formalist artists and critics with a messy
waste.”2 In a subsequent work, “Steam” (1971-74), Morris created a cloud of steam rising
unceasingly from a square-shaped platform of stones. Instead of focusing on formal
compositions, Morris’s works were informed by ecological structures—that is to say the
relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.3
Robert Morris, Untitled (Threadwaste), 1968.
Felt, asphalt, mirrors, wood, copper tubing, steel cable, and lead. 21.5 in × 21 ft 11 in × 16 ft 9 in; variable.
Collection Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Philip Johnson, 504.1984.
Digital image © The Museum of Modern Art, licensed by SCALA and Art Resource
New York. © Robert Morris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Often credited with the emergence of the post-minimalist sculpture, Morris’s “Anti Form” also
predicted a whole host of artistic practices with deep sensibilities toward ecology. Since the
1970s, many artists have attempted to incorporate aspects of ecology and its associated themes in
their works. In doing so, they have not always openly engaged with issues of earth care, toxic
waste management, resource depletion, and the like. In fact, following perhaps in the footsteps of
Morris, many artists only obliquely tackle environmental issues, by creating objects that simply
denote certain conditions of the ecological system. For example, through her exquisite vast
biomorphic structures Tara Donovan models design elements on naturally occurring patterns or
shapes suggestive of living organisms. Only occasionally are these generations of postminimalist ecological sculpture successful in creating art that is as intriguing in its form(lessness)
and amorphous composition as it is in its conceptual framework. The stunning ecological
artworks by Rebecca Hutchinson simulates the processes of organic materialization and
biological formation in nature. There is more than one reason to believe that her work fits in the
genealogy of eco-art. First and foremost, akin to ecologists and Earth scientists, Hutchinson
studies the relationship between organisms and their habitats. Creating a product of a higher
quality out of old, used, and unwanted jeans and tablecloths attests to Hutchinson’s upcycling
method. Mindful of ecosystems, she stresses organism over mechanism and highlight dynamic
processes of interaction among different elements or environments.4
***
During her routine gardening in her large backyard in Rochester, MA, and while travelling to the
deserts of Arizona, the swamps of Georgia, the Rocky Mountain Front in Utah or the high
plateau of Mount Helena in Montana, Rebecca Hutchinson closely studies the patterns of growth
in the natural formation of plants and flowers in diverse geographical environments. In her artmaking process, besides using fired and unfired porcelain clay, Hutchinson uses linen, cotton and
denim fabric used in second-hand clothes. Washed and dried, these materials are then pulped in a
Hollander beater and successively cut into forms that are reminiscent of petals, sepals, and
stamens. These fabricated florets are then dipped into clay or left untouched to reveal the fabric’s
original color. The floret ends are covered with adobe paper-clay mixed with adhesives, making
them proper for mounting. The hand-made flowers are then placed together atop wooden
armatures, protruding off of the frame to determinate growth. Once installed, the gallery floors,
walls, and open spaces are transformed into flat and hanging “gardens.”
Rebecca Hutchinson, Red, Patterns of Nature, 2015, porcelain paper clay, handmade paper, organic material, 10” x 3’ x 8’
Rebecca Hutchinson, Tranquil Bloom (with detail), Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2016
Hutchinson’s method of crowding the gallery floors with natural-looking forms harkens back to
“total environments” of the 1960s—recall for example, the messy piles of Robert Morris
(Threadwaste, 1968), the junkyards of Allan Kaprow (Yard, 1961), or the vast earth-filled
gallery floors of Walter De Maria (Pure Earth, Pure Dirt, Pure Land, 1968). There is more than
one way to link Hutchinson’s work to such an artistic lineage (see, for example, Density Series,
2014).
Rebecca Hutchinson, Density Series (with detail of Green Round), Canton Museum of Art, OH, 2014
For one, Hutchinson’s installations signify the circumstances where the artist employs a “total”
artistic synthesis, coalescing the art object, the gallery space, and the practice of viewing.
Hutchinson writes: “space provides…its own set of presentiments … [My] installations
intermingle with all the dynamics of the space.”5 In his now classic book, The Ecological
Approach to Visual Perception, cognitive psychologist James J. Gibson writes about how we see
the environment around us—its surface, its layout, and its colors and textures.6 The common
assumption is that vision only depends on the eye which is connected to the brain. Gibson,
however, suggests that natural vision depends not only on our eyes, but also on our heads
supported by our bodies and held by the ground. When viewing Hutchinson’s work, one is
encouraged to walk up and to move around it to see it from all angles, and to go from one vista to
the other. It is precisely this dynamic and visceral mode of visual exploration, as described by
Gibson, which allows us to appreciate Hutchinson’s work in its entirety. To be sure, in her “total
environments” Hutchinson lays perfectly bare Gibson’s claim that “the observer and his
environment are complementary.”7
Gesamtkunstwerk or the “total work of art” is not an autonomous art form but one shaped by
larger social and environmental issues.8 While subduing such broad connotations, Hutchinson’s
aspiration to merge art and life is first and foremost evident through the aforementioned
processes of transforming unwanted products, or upcycling.
Rebecca Hutchinson, Pearlman Museum Installation (with detail), Carlton, Minnesota, 2015
Her research on the layered world of the representation of floral patterns conveys yet another
social dimension. To be sure, Hutchinson’s explorations into the vegetal world are not limited to
her studies of the actual plant forms. Hutchinson is equally energized by the ways in which
numerous artists from the East and the West have historically showcased patterns of floral
growth in their respective works. Hutchinson is particularly fascinated by how artists from the
Ottoman Empire portrayed vegetal forms in both decorative and fine arts.9 Hutchinson’s prints,
which come to animate the walls of the gallery surrounding her floor pieces, are indeed the
outcome of her visual explorations into the archives of these historic art forms, from the MET in
New York to the David Collection in Copenhagen (see Hutchinson’s mono-prints). For over a
thousand years in the Islamic world, plant motifs in the form of leaves, vines, and flowers were
the main, if not the only, protagonists of the arts. The arid lands of the Middle East inevitably
made the plant kingdom desirable. However, it was primarily due to religious reasons—the
forbidding of mimicking living creatures and humans—that vegetal forms received copious of
attention from Muslim artists. Over the centuries, artists, artisans and craftsmen from the Islamic
world perfected the abstraction and schematization of plant forms in a variety of media—ranging
from ceramic ware, carpets and textiles to miniature illustrations. It is these elegant, stylized
vegetal forms that have captured the imagination of Hutchinson. Indeed, she constantly pushes
the boundaries, exploring different possibilities for crafting natural forms, and creating novel
floral patterns.
Rebecca Hutchinson, selections from the Print Series, mono-print on handmade paper, 2013
Despite her affinity to the eco- and environmental-art of the 1960s, Hutchinson emblematizes a
radical evolution in this aesthetic trajectory. Indeed, she designates a significant shift from the
1960s “eco-art” and “total environments,” as she moves into the innovative territories of creative
reuse, and novel ways of understanding the workings of biological and ecological systems.
Hutchinson helps us think about the relationship between ecological systems and our bodies. She
stirs the connection between art and spatial structures, and in so doing, she reveals how
(eco)system-based art can change our perception of time and space. Above all, Hutchinson
gently reminds us of the elegance and vulnerability of our natural environments.
Notes
1
Robert Morris, “Anti-Form,” in Continuous Projects Altered Daily: The Writings of Robert
Morris (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1993), 41.
2
Caroline A Jones, “Form and Formless,” in A Companion to Contemporary Art since 1945,
edited by Amelia Jones (Malden, MA.: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2006), 138.
3
See further, James Nesbit, Ecologies, Environments, and Energy Systems in Art of the 1960s
and the 1970s (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014), 137-147.
4
The word ecology was coined by the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel, by combining the Greek
roots “oikos,” meaning household, and “logos,”which translates as knowledge. Cited in Nesbit,
op. cit., 5.
5
Rebecca Hutchinson, “Growth and Space” Ceramics Monthly, January 2013, 49.
6
James J Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (New York: Psychology Press,
Taylor & Francis Group, 1986).
7
Ibid., 15.
8
See further, Juliet Koss, Modernism after Wagner (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press,
2010).
9
Personal interview with Rebecca Hutchinson, June 12, 2014.