Brian Sholis, Artforum.com, September/October 2004

SWISS INSTITUTE
495 Broadway, 3rd floor, 212 925-2035 x17
September 14–October 23

This first-rate collection of paintings from the mid-'60s, an expanded version of a show seen earlier this year in Dijon, is by a group of artists later (and better) known for Conceptual works in a variety of media. Dated 1962 to 1967, the works back up Lucy Lippard's chronology of the art object's dematerialization; indeed the canvas, when used at all, is treated more as a thing than a surface. Jan Dibbets stacks eight of them, in a gentle gradation of painted color, on the floor; Michael Asher wraps his around a stretcher that extends from the wall at a 45-degree angle; Robert Barry mounts his diminutive work at the exact mid-point of the back wall. In 1963, Douglas Huebler, like Donald Judd, was painting wooden wall reliefs; the example included here furthers our knowledge (already enhanced by this summer's Minimalism survey at MoCA in Los Angeles) of his early development. By 1965, Art & Language was using the latter to generate the former; Painting-Sculpture plays on the open-ended nature of the moment. Most, if not all, of the included artists turned away from painting during the ensuing years, whereas Olivier Mosset, the curator, stuck to his brush—a fact that may account for this subdued, elegantly installed show's slightly nostalgic air.