LARRY BELL, CHRYSSA, WILL INSLEY, ROBERT IRWIN, ROBERT SMITHSON, ROBERT WHITMAN | 6 Artists, 6 Exhibitions, Walker Art Center, 1968

Exhibition publication organised by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1968, in cooperation with the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo. Eight loose, double-sided sheets in a printed card portfolio, approximately 29 cm high.

The format is inseparable from the premise. 6 Artists, 6 Exhibitions presented Larry Bell, Chryssa, Will Insley, Robert Irwin, Robert Smithson and Robert Whitman not as participants in a group show but as six individual exhibitions sharing an institution and a season. Each artist is represented by a single removable double-sided sheet: one side carrying name, image and design; the reverse a checklist, biography and selected exhibition history. The publication can be taken apart on a table and handed around the room. MoMA's 1969 Spaces catalogue would later list Bell's participation here among his one-person exhibitions.

The grey card portfolio carries six names in yellow and white, stacked in a rough column, no two quite the same size. Larry Bell's sheet shows his name in yellow over two grey lines meeting at a point; the reverse lists four Untitled works from 1967–68, coated glass and rhodium-plated brass cubes ranging from twelve to twenty inches, courtesy of a private New York collection, followed by biography and solo and group exhibition history. Everything needed to locate one artist's position, on a sheet that does not depend on the sheet beside it.

Robert Smithson was in the middle of developing the Nonsites in 1968, bringing geological material from specific landscapes into the gallery as a kind of material map. Only months after the Walker exhibition closed, he appeared in Dwan Gallery's Earthworks. Spiral Jetty was still two years away. Larry Bell and Robert Irwin brought a different problem: light, reflection, perception and the instability of an object depending on where the viewer stands — two years later Bell, Irwin and Doug Wheeler would be brought together at Tate within the emerging history of Light and Space. Chryssa was using neon, typography and commercial signage as sculptural material. Will Insley was developing imaginary architecture on a scale that often exceeded the possibility of conventional construction. Robert Whitman pulled the exhibition toward performance, projection and duration.

The categories through which these artists are now separated had not yet fully settled. Glass, neon, speculative architecture, perception, geology, performance and projected image: one folder, six exhibitions, no shared style required. The names for what they were doing were still being negotiated. The folder never asks for one.

Condition: Fair overall. Original printed card portfolio heavily rubbed and worn, with surface abrasion, scuffing, edge and corner wear and handling creases throughout. The eight loose internal sheets are notably cleaner and well preserved, with text and printing remaining strong throughout.