Robert Morris created the minimalist sculpture “Untitled (L-Beams).”
Created in 1965, the work consists of three identical L-shaped beams. Their matching dimensions are crucial: placed in different orientations, the beams appear to have different shapes and proportions even though they are the same form. The sculpture therefore turns the viewer’s changing viewpoint into part of the subject.
Morris was one of the major figures of 1960s Minimalism and an important theorist of the movement. His early sculptures used simple geometric forms and industrial-looking materials to explore how bodies encounter objects in real space. “Untitled (L-Beams)” does not present an image or narrative; instead, it makes viewers notice scale, balance, orientation, and movement.
The work is also known as “Untitled (3 Ls)” and is associated with the Whitney Museum of American Art. It is easy to confuse it with other artists’ L-shaped or modular sculptures, but the three identical L-beams and their perceptual puzzle are distinctive features of Morris’s work.