Provenance
The artist; sold through Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, to the Art Institute Chicago, 2014.
Accession Number
218627
Medium
Pressed wool felt, steel, zinc-plated steel, copper-clad steel, lead, aluminum, and brass
Dimensions
Dimensions vary with installation; approximately 60 square meters (650 squared ft.)
Classification
installation
Credit Line
Through prior gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Hokin; Contemporary Art Discretionary Fund; purchased with funds provided by an anonymous donor and Janet and Craig Duchossois; N.W. Harris Purchase Prize, Wilson L. Mead Trust, and Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Logan funds; purchased with funds provided by Judith Neisser; Watson F. Blair Prize, Emilie L. Wild, William H. Bartles, and Laura Slobe Memorial Prize funds
Background & Context
Background Story
"Untitled (Scatter Piece)" is a 1968–69 installation by Robert Morris that represents the American Minimalist's engagement with process, material, and the viewer's bodily experience, the work consisting of pressed wool felt, steel, zinc-plated steel, copper-clad steel, lead, aluminum, and brass arranged in a scatter configuration that suggests both randomness and intention, chaos and control. The composition is variable with installation—approximately 60 square meters—the scale demanding that the viewer physically move through the work, the scattered materials creating a landscape of industrial substances that engages the senses of sight, touch, and even smell. The variety of materials creates a range of colors, textures, and temperatures that makes the installation feel like a geological survey or an archaeological site, the industrial substances transformed by the artist's arrangement into something that suggests both the origins of the earth and the waste of modern production. The 1968–69 date places this work in the period of Morris's Post-Minimalist exploration, when he was producing works that questioned the purity and simplicity of early Minimalism by introducing process, randomness, and industrial materials. Art historians have connected this installation to the broader tradition of the found object and the assemblage in modern art, from the junk sculptures of Schwitters to the accumulations of Arman, noting that Morris's treatment is more focused on the physical properties of the materials and the viewer's bodily engagement than the symbolic or the aesthetic qualities of these other traditions.
Cultural Impact
This 1968–69 installation made industrial material bodily experiential through 60-square-meter variable scatter and multi-metal temperature-texture range, using viewer physical movement to transform geological-survey randomness into Post-Minimalist process beyond Schwitters symbolic assemblage.
Why It Matters
It matters because Morris scattered metal and felt on the floor and made the room feel like it was both a mine and a memory—proving that even junk could be a landscape if the arrangement was generous enough.
