Analysis Of Die By Tony Smith

Tony Smith’s artwork, in which he titled “Die”, displayed outside of the Orange County Museum of Art is a reproducible large cube made of corten steel that has shown rusting through its orange tint and obvious oxidation. The piece is unusually large and also elevated so that a person of average height cannot see the top face of the cube; it has six faces that all look different due to the different effects of weathering since it stands outside of the museum. It was created in 1967 which was during the period of minimalistic and conceptual art work. “Die” by Tony Smith tries to enhance the viewer’s experience of the piece through its connections to minimalism, its emphasized physical appearance, and subjective representation.

During the period

of minimalism, most of the “simpler” sculptures were not made by the artist’s own hand. The artist did not need to be there during the creation to create the artwork either because of the new ideas of deskilling and the new relationship between an artist’s labor and his or her work of art. The hues of this piece was not even painted by the artist. Similar to other art pieces during the minimalistic era, this piece seems to be very reproducible since the maquette at OCMA is a duplicated version of an original. Since industrialism started become more prevalent while minimalism was common, pieces were easier to reproduce. This reproducibility also adds to conceptualism of the piece and how the process by which this artwork was created is the art itself.
“Die” is an art piece that is in a way both a painting and a sculpture.

It is a sculpture since it a three dimensional form of art made out of steel and it is a painting because it is made out of steel. The piece is painted by nature without the artist having to be there himself, similar to the idea in minimalism that the work does not have to be done by the artist’s hand. However, the artist did have a say in the color that the piece would become since he purposely chose the steel material. This leads back to the purpose of conceptualism that states that the planning that is involved in creating an artwork is what makes it art. There is also a contrast between how perfect the sculpture is and how imperfect the “painting” is. The cube itself is perfectly cut which hard, straight edges while the tone of each fragment of the work has different amounts of

depth.
The viewer’s experience is the most important aspect of this art piece.

You need to walk around the cube to really experience it. As written in “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” by Sol Lewitt, “color, surface, texture, and shape only emphasize the physical aspects of the artwork”. The cube has six faces in which none of them are the same regarding shading and color. To see and examine the differences in the coloration and details, the viewer needs to be in front of the piece in the flesh. The environment surrounding the artwork is part of the experience because it could change how you see the color of the cube. On a sunnier day, the piece could give off warmer tones or on a gloomier day, the piece could give off cooler

tones.
As Duchamp explained through his artwork “Fountain”, although the physical appearance is emphasized, you do not really have to see it. You just have to think it, but the characteristics of the piece do make it worth looking at which is what makes the work so subjective.
The title of the art piece “Die” refers to the singular version of dice. A die is also a geometric object with six congruent faces like Tony Smith’s piece. If a die were to be scaled to the size of this artwork, the viewer would have to walk around it to see the different numbers on each side just as “Die” is asking the viewer to walk around it and see the differences with each side. The piece was made so unusually large because if it were to be small like dice, we would be able to treat it as if it were an everyday item that we can just grab in our hands. This would give the viewer less of an experience. However, since it is so large it again emphasizes the uniqueness of the work and the necessity to walk around it.