Serial art


Serial art is an art movement in which uniform elements or objects were assembled in accordance with strict modular principles. The composition of serial art is a systematic process.

Overview

An early example of serial art is Constantin Brâncuși's sculpture Endless Column.
One type of serial art is the production of multiple objects in sets or series, for example Josef Albers's well-known series of “square” paintings, where a single, repeating image creates a variation series. This technique later became associated with minimalism, the “multiple”, and “ABC art”. However, there is a different type, which may be regarded as more essentially “serial” because it is “characterized by the nonhierarchical juxtaposition of equivalent representations, which only yield their complete meaning on the basis of their mutual relationship”. This produces sequential structures defined similarly to those of a twelve-tone row, found for example in Max Bill's series, Fünfzehn Variationen über ein Thema, and in Richard Paul Lohse's 30 vertikale systematische Farbreihen in gelber Rautenform and Konkretion III.
Sol LeWitt wrote that "the serial artist does not attempt to produce a beautiful or mysterious object but functions merely as a clerk cataloguing the results of his premise."