Lead and aluminium on board
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/robert-morris-1669" aria-label="More by Robert Morris" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Robert Morris</a>
Location Piece
Purchased 1974
abstraction
arrow
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
inscriptions
monochromatic
non-representational
space
symbols and personifications
text
word
<p><span>Location </span>draws attention to the relationship between a work and its immediate surroundings. Four small arrows point towards the floor, the ceiling, and the walls on either side of the work. When it is positioned in the gallery, the meters next to each arrow are adjusted to register the distance in feet to the edge of the room. As well as precisely recording the location of the work, these measurements make viewers aware of their own relation to the space.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2016</em></p>
relief lead aluminium board
22 November 2001 – 23 March 2003
2003-03-23
22 November 2001 – 23 March 2003
2003-03-23
2001-11-22
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2001-11-22
The Perceiving Body
Collection based display
1 May 2009 – 31 May 2010
2010-05-31
1 May 2009 – 31 May 2010
2010-05-31
2009-05-01
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2009-05-01
Performing Sculpture
Collection based display
10 June 2016 – 6 January 2019
2019-01-06
10 June 2016 – 6 January 2019
2019-01-06
2016-06-10
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2016-06-10
Between Object and Architecture - East
Collection based display
Location Piece
object: 537 × 537 × 38 mm
Purchased 1974
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Location Piece</i> is a square grey relief sculpture shown mounted on the wall at eye level. A dull lead sheet covers a base made of composite board, and metallic elements are fixed to the surface. Small meters with adjustable numeric values have been attached near all four edges. The numbers on the meters correspond to the distance in feet from the work to the nearest walls, ceiling and floor, as described by the aluminium text and arrows that accompany them. The prominent inscription in the centre of the panel, reading ‘LOCATION’, is also made of aluminium relief in a generic, capitalised serif font.</p>
<p>Made in 1973, <i>Location Piece</i> has its origins in a 1963 work by Morris entitled <i>Location </i>(Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/morris-location-t13351" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T13351</span></a>). Although the composition of the two works is virtually identical, the earlier <i>Location</i> was executed in grey oil paint on canvas and the meters provide the only relief element. Morris had abandoned painting in the late 1950s, and made his first sculptures after moving to New York City in 1961. <i>Location</i> was among a substantial group of small, monochrome works made between 1961 and 1965 that reflected a strong interest in the art of Marcel Duchamp. Morris favoured industrial materials such as lead or wood, and often incorporated banal, functional objects (like the meters) that he found in hardware stores on nearby Canal Street. In the early 1970s Morris started to remake some of his earlier sculptures as multiples. Tate’s version of <i>Location Piece</i> is the third in an edition of seventeen fabricated by Morris’s assistant George Finsrud in 1973.</p>
<p>The painted prototype for <i>Location Piece</i> is among a series of works made in 1963 that register Morris’s fascination with numerical measurement. Perhaps inspired by Duchamp’s <i>Three Standard Stoppages</i> 1913–4 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-3-stoppages-etalon-3-standard-stoppages-t07507" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T07507</span></a>), works such as <i>Swift Night Ruler </i>1963 (Anne and Wolfgang Titze Collection) include handmade rulers that flout expectations of accuracy. By contrast, <i>Location</i> and <i>Location Piece</i> offer correct measurements, with the numbers displayed by the meters altered each time they are reinstalled. With its colourless, anonymous style and deadpan self-referentiality, <i>Location</i> <i>Piece</i> challenges expectations of art as a form of expression. By drawing attention to the physical context of its display and the viewing position of the spectator, it invites consideration of art’s spatial and institutional contingency. As Morris commented in 1986 of his early sculptures: ‘I was bored with the deaf and dumb objects of high modernism, objects which, more or less, have refused to accept their transitive and conditional status’. (Quoted in Maurice Berger, <i>Labyrinths: Robert Morris, Minimalism, and the 1960s</i>, New York 1989, p.22.)</p>
<p>Such issues continued to inform Morris’s practice throughout the 1960s and 1970s as it shifted towards the monumental minimalist and postminimalist sculpture for which he became internationally recognised. In 1971 Tate held a retrospective of the artist’s work which featured a site-specific, participatory installation that became notorious for attracting dangerously exuberant public responses; following a number of injuries, the museum closed this section of the exhibition to visitors. Tate acquired <i>Location Piece </i>in 1974 following its exhibition at New York’s Sonnabend Gallery.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>
<i>Robert Morris: The Mind/Body Problem</i>, exhibition catalogue, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1994, reproduced p.132 (as <i>Location </i>1963).<br/>Christophe Chernix,<i> Robert Morris: Estampes et Multiples 1952–1998</i>,<i> </i>Geneva 1999, p.119.<br/>Jeffrey Weiss with Clare Davies, <i>Robert Morris: Object Sculpture 1960–1965</i>, New Haven and London 2013, p.118.</p>
<p>Hilary Floe<br/>May 2016</p>
<p>
<i>Supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.</i>
</p>
</div>

Summary
2016-06-23T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Location </i>draws attention to the relationship between a work and its immediate surroundings. Four small arrows point towards the floor, the ceiling, and the walls on either side of the work. When it is positioned in the gallery, the meters next to each arrow are adjusted to register the distance in feet to the edge of the room. As well as precisely recording the location of the work, these measurements make viewers aware of their own relation to the space.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2016-10-12T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<strong>Robert Morris</strong> born 1931
<p>
<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/morris-location-piece-p07235" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P07235</span></a> <strong>Location Piece</strong> 1973
</p><p>
Not inscribed<br/>
Lead over composite board, with aluminium letters and arrows, and metallic meters, 21 1/8 x 21 1/8 x 1 (53.5 x 53.5 x 2.7)<br/>
Purchased from the artist through the Sonnabend Gallery (Grant-in Aid) 1974<br/>
<em>Exh:</em> <em>Robert Morris</em>, Sonnabend Gallery, New York, March-April 1974 (no catalogue)
</p><p>
This is a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/multiple" title="Glossary definition for 'Multiple'"><span>multiple</span></a>, number 3 out of an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/edition" title="Glossary definition for 'Edition'"><span>edition</span></a> of 17, which was published by Robert Morris and fabricated in his New York studio. In the last years Morris has begun to remake a few of his earlier pieces in editions of from 3 to 17.
</p><p>
The first version of this piece, now in the Mr and Mrs Robert C. Scull collection, New York, was made in 1963 and measures 24 x 24in (61 x 61cm). It is in oil paint on a wood <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/panel" title="Glossary definition for 'Panel'"><span>panel</span></a>, with metallic meters. The letters and arrows are painted, whereas in the multiple they are in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/metal" title="Glossary definition for 'Metal'"><span>aluminium</span></a>, in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/relief" title="Glossary definition for 'Relief'"><span>relief</span></a>.
</p><p>
The four arrows point upwards to the ceiling, down to the floor and sideways towards the two adjacent walls. The meters alongside them are meant to be adjusted to show the distance in feet in these four main directions and thereby tabulate the location of this work on the wall surface. When first shown at the Sonnabend Gallery in 1974, three of these pieces were hung in one of the gallery spaces, each noting different measurements.
</p><p>
<strong>Published in:</strong><br/>
Ronald Alley, <em>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</em>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.545, reproduced p.545


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Catalogue entry
2004-09-14T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstraction arrow emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities inscriptions monochromatic non-representational space symbols and personifications text word