Minimalism’s factory-fabricated work broke the older canon that art must be handmade

Evidence

Judd’s “Specific Objects” essentially accused di Suvero of being an Abstract Expressionist–wannabe hack, using “beams as if they are brush strokes, imitating movement as [Franz] Kline did.” Excluded from Primary Structures, di Suvero was nonetheless invited to a symposium at the Jewish Museum, presumably to strike back. He did, explaining that his “friend Don Judd can’t qualify as an artist because he doesn’t do the work … A man has to make a thing in order to be an artist.” — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1023

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s shelf thesis that avant-garde movements cohere around cliques and manifestos, not quality—the Judd/di Suvero spat is a turf dispute fought through aesthetic doctrine.