Serial art

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Serial art. A term that from the 1960s, especially in the USA, has been applied to two types of avant-garde art (although the two types may overlap and have in common the fact that they are usually produced by mathematically-minded artists). First, it has been used to describe a kind of Minimal art in which simple, uniform, interchangeable elements (often commercially available objects such as bricks) are assembled in a regular, easily apprehended arrangement. Carl Andre is a noted exponent of this kind of work. Secondly, more broadly, the term has been applied to works of art that are conceived in series or as part of a larger group; often the individual work is regarded as incomplete in itself, needing to be seen within the context of the whole. ‘Whether an artist produces the same work in an edition or in different materials [ Tony Smith, for example], or a continuous image over a long period of time [ Paul Feeley], or where the overall structure takes precedence over each individual work, the thrust of serial art is the same: away from the uniquely conceived work of art—the “original”, the “masterpiece” … The works in a series interact and reinforce each other, so that the whole is greater than any part and is the sum of the parts’ ( Eugene C. Goossen in Britannica Encyclopedia of American Art, 1973). The term was popularized by two exhibitions in the USA: ‘Art in Series’ at Finch College Museum (1967) and ‘Serial Imagery’ at Pasadena Art Museum (1968).

Serial art. A term that from the 1960s, especially in the USA, has been applied to two types of avant-garde art (although the two types may overlap and have in common the fact that they are usually produced by mathematically minded artists). First, it has been used to describe a kind of Minimal art in which simple, uniform, interchangeable elements (often commercially available objects such as bricks) are assembled in a regular, easily apprehended arrangement. Carl Andre is a noted exponent of this kind of work. Secondly, more broadly, the term has been applied to works of art that are conceived in series or as part of a larger group; often the individual work is regarded as incomplete in itself, needing to be seen within the context of the whole.

Serial art A term that from the 1960s, especially in the USA, has been applied to two types of avant-garde art (although the two types may overlap and have in common the fact that they are usually produced by mathematically minded artists). First, it has been used to describe a kind of Minimal art in which simple, uniform, interchangeable elements (often commercially available objects such as bricks) are assembled in a regular, easily apprehended arrangement. Carl Andre is a noted exponent of this kind of work. Secondly, more broadly, the term has been applied to works of art that are conceived in series or as part of a larger group; often the individual work is regarded as incomplete in itself, needing to be seen within the context of the whole.