Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors was an exhibition presented by the Jewish Museum in New York City from April 27 to June 12, 1966. The show was a survey of recent work in sculpture by artists from the Northeast United States, California and Great Britain that shared general characteristics of scale, simplified geometry and smooth, often colorful, industrial surfaces. Its legacy, which focuses on a subset of the artists in the show, is as the exhibition that introduced Minimal Art to the broad public, both through the exhibition itself and the wide attention it received in national media. Primary Structures was organized by Kynaston McShine, the Jewish Museum's Curator of Painting and Sculpture.

Response This exhibit was a critical and media success as reported in TimeTime magazine, June 3, 1676, "Engineer's Esthetic", pg. 64 and Newsweek,Newsweek magazine, May 16, 1966, "The New Druids", pg. 104 presenting the public with a show dedicated to a "New Art". Critical labels for the art included "ABC art," "reductive art" and "Minimalism,"See Battcock's, Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology though these labels were all roundly rejected by the artists themselves, notably Donald Judd.

The Primary Structures art featured stripped-down forms and materials with smooth, shiny surfaces. One of the most unusual new ideas to come from the exhibit was the concept of an artist as a "designer", not necessarily as a "maker". During a forum conducted at the museum on the "New Sculpture", in which McShine, Judd, Barbara Rose, Robert Morris, and Mark di Suvero participated, di Suvero famously remarked, "...my friend Donald Judd cannot qualify as an artist because he doesn't do the work", to which Judd replied, "...The point is not whether one makes the work or not... I don't see... why one technique is any more essentially art than another..."See Meyer's Minimalism for a partial transcript of this discussion. This show ushered in a radical new way of presenting ideas and space that did not rely on the artist's hand, but rather on the final result.

McShine, in an effort to broaden appeal and show a wide variety of artists working in this form, included a West Coast contingent and most of the British artists from the "New Generation" show at the Whitechapel Art Gallery from 1965. It appeared that Primary Structures was to be formulated around Anthony Caro's former St. Martin's students, and the American group led by a relatively established Tony Smith.

1993 renovation In 1989, a major expansion and renovation project was undertaken at the museum. Upon completion in June 1993, the layout of the Primary Structures show was done away with, and only a few installation shots of the show remain to record the original exhibit and the old galleries.

Listing

Sculpture Court/Entry

David Annesley, Swing Low, 1964 Anthony Caro, Titan, 1964 Tony Smith, Free Ride, 1962

Lobby

Judy Cohen Gerowitz (Judy Chicago), Rainbow Picket, 1966 Robert Smithson, Cryosphere, 1966

Gallery 1

Dan Flavin, corner monument 4 for those who have been killed in ambush (for Jewish Museum) (for *P.K. who reminded me about death), 1964 Peter Forakis, JFK, 1963 Ellsworth Kelly, Blue Disc, 1963 Forrest Myers, Zygarat & W. & W.W.W., 1965 Salvatore Romano, Zeno II, 1965 William Tucker, Meru I, 1964 William Tucker, Meru II, 1964 William Tucker, Meru III, 1964–65 David von Schlegell, Wave, 1964

Underpass

Gerald Laing, Indenty, 1966 Gerald Laing, Trace, 1965 Tina Matkovic (Spiro), Projection, 1965

Gallery 2

Carl Andre, Lever, 1966 Lyman Kipp, Andy's Cart Blanche Tim Scott, Peach Wheels, 1962 Richard Van Buren, Free Epton, 1966 Isaac Witkin, Nagas, 1964

Gallery 3

Tony DeLap, Ka, 1965 Tom Doyle, Over Owl's Creek, 1966

Gallery 4

Richard Artschwager, Table with Pink Tablecloth, 1964 Richard Artschwager, Rocker, 1965–75 Michael Bolus, No. 7, 1965 Paul Frazier, Pink Split, 1965 Douglas Huebler, Bradford 2-66, 1966 John McCracken, Northumberland, 1965 Peter Phillips, Tricurvular, 1964–65 Anne Truitt, Sea Garden, 1964

Gallery 5

Ronald Bladen, Three Elements, 1965 Robert Grosvenor, Transoxiana, 1965 Donald Judd, Untitled, floor 1966 Donald Judd, Untitled, wall 1966 Robert Morris, Untitled (L Beams),Exhibit catalog lists Morris' Floor Piece as the expected work 1966–67

Gallery 8

Larry Bell, Untitled(peach) Larry Bell, Untitled(pink) Larry Bell, Untitled(gold) Walter de Maria, Cage,Exhibit images have also illustrated Cage in Gallery 5 1961–65 Sol LeWitt, Untitled, 1966

Gallery 10

Daniel Gorski, Fourth Down David Gray, LA/2, 1965 David Hall, Izzard, 1966 Phillip King, Through, 1966 John McCracken, Manchu, 1965 Peter Pinchbeck, Space Jump Michael Todd, Viet, 1966 Michael Todd, Ball Joint,Although listed in the catalog, inclusion of this piece has not been confirmed. 1966 Derrick Woodham, Siviley, 1965

Notes

References Altshuler, Bruce, The Avant-Garde in Exhibition: New Art in the 20th century (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994). Battcock, Gregory ed., Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology (E.P Dutton & Co, Inc., 1968). . Goldstein, Ann, A Minimalist Future? Art as Object 1958-1968 (MIT Press, 2004). Juliff, Toby, 'A New Generation of British Art: A Problem of Provincialism' in Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art: vol 18, n.1 (Power Institute, Sydney, 2018) ({https://doi.org/10.1080/14434318.2018.1481335}) McShine, Kynaston, Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors (Jewish Museum: New York, 1966) Meyer, James, Minimalism: Art and Polemics of the Sixties (Yale University Press, 2000). Meyer, James ed., Minimalism (Phaidon Press Limited, 2000).