Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 4: Digital Era (1960s)

1966

Primary Structures Exhibition at The Jewish Museum Helps Introduce Minimalism

Exhibition · North America

The cover of the catalogue for Primary Structures, Kynaston McShine’s 1966 exhibition at The Jewish Museum, New York.
The cover of the catalogue for Primary Structures, Kynaston McShine’s 1966 exhibition at The Jewish Museum, New York. Cover of Primary Structures, exh. cat., The Jewish Museum, New York, 1966 (design by Elaine Lustig Cohen). Photograph by Wikimedia Commons user Pmoore66, CC BY-SA 3.0.

The exhibition was the first in the United States to showcase the emerging Minimalism movement, presenting simplified geometric sculptures made with colorful, industrial materials. It was curated by Kynaston McShine who would go on to curate Information at MoMA in 1970.

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.

Sources

People

Kynaston McShine

Movements

minimalism

Filed under

Ideas
geometry, minimalism, sculpture
People
Kynaston McShine
Exhibitions
Information, Primary Structures
Organisations
MoMA, The Jewish Museum
Places
New York, United States

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