Shane Aslan Selzer

From Outside to Inside: Where is My Object Now?

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The following essay uses the British psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott’s “Summary of the Qualities of the Relationship Between an Infant and a Transitional Object” as a lens for viewing the relationship between specific artists and the sculptural objects they produce. In the larger thesis, which is situated by the historical lineage of Minimalism in the United States, Arte Povera in Italy, and the Neoconcretes in Brazil, these artists are Urs Fischer, based in Berlin and Los Angeles; Mark Manders, based in Amsterdam; and Jewyo Rhii, based in Korea. The essay presented here concentrates on Urs Fischer (Zurich born), placed in the arc of Minimalism from 1960s America. The numbered list points of the essay form the skeleton for an argument that uses psychoanalytical theory to understand contemporary art practices, putting them in a trajectory of artists working with the problem of subject and object relations. A discussion, also stemming from Winnicott’s list, reflects on the relevance of these theories in relation to a sculptural game, an action played to test the limits of the theory itself.