Robert Morris’s Glass Labyrinth is the ultimate fusion of process, land, and minimalist art

Robert Morris’s (1931-2018) gargantuan translucent sculpture, the Glass Labyrinth, is a fabulous, polyamorous marriage between architecture, engineering, and art that has decorated the lawn of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for a decade. Since its creation in 2014, the Glass Labyrinth has been engaged with by approximately five million guests. 

Born in Kansas City in 1931, Robert Morris, throughout his 87-year life, engaged in many disciplines. Robert was an engineer, artist, sculptor, dancer, choreographer, set designer, art critic, art theorist, and essayist.

The 1960s and ’70s saw Morris’s most notable contributions to the art world. During this decade, Robert Morris redefined the art landscape through his work with the process art, land art—or Earthworks—and minimalist movements. Morris’s work, the Glass Labyrinth, located in the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, epitomizes his hallmark play with these three disciplines. 

Robert Morris’s Glass Labyrinth has been proudly lording over The Nelson-Atkins Museum’s 22-acre sculpture park for 10 years. Weighing in at over 400 tons, this glass, steel, bronze, and stone structure took 100+ individuals over one year to construct. Only a work of this magnitude designed by a kingpin of his time could create a construction that so comfortably shares space with the museum’s iconic, likewise behemoth, Shuttlecocks.  

Morris’s labyrinth required immense time, effort, and resources, but, at its core, the design is simple. The Glass Labyrinth’s minimalist composition focuses on how line, color, and texture interact in their purest, most basic forms.

The glass is not highly reflective, colored, or molded into unconventional shapes. The steel and bronze facets are not polished to a blinding brightness. The stone is not creatively hewn from a renowned cliff, quarry, or gorge. The 62-foot by 62-foot by 62-foot, seven-foot-tall walls of translucent glass sit cleanly atop a foundation of slate gray stone, held together by stoic steel and bronze fasteners. Each element, in its most elemental forms, comes together to create something of great visual and physical complexity. Every aspect is minimal in the extreme, but the final result is extremely beautiful. 

Unlike many pieces at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, you can touch the Glass Labyrinth: The labyrinth’s invitation for interaction is one of the most beautiful aspects of the piece. Walking along the clear walls allows the viewer to appreciate both the minimalist design and the process behind the work’s creation. With each bolt and hinge clearly visible, the structure’s construction can be seen and reflected upon by all who choose to look. The labyrinth’s emphasis on the process behind its creation is what soundly situates it as a hallmark work of process art. 

Further strengthening the Glass Labyrinth’s Process art categorization is the fact that the process of making the piece is perpetuated by the continual physical engagement with the work. To put it simply, Morris’s Glass Labyrinth operates like a piece of choreography: artistic, creative, and complex. Like a choreographed piece, Morris’s creation requires active movement for the process of its creation to be complete.

By allowing visitors to walk through the labyrinth, Morris creates an immersive experience that transforms the physical landscape. This transformation invites reflection on the relationship between the work, its location, and the viewer’s engagement with the (altered and unaltered) environment. The integration of natural elements and the highly interactive, spatial nature of the piece exemplify the core principles of Land art.

The Glass Labyrinth is simultaneously a piece of land, process, and minimalist art; It combines the site-specific, environmental engagement of land art, the emphasis on creation and structure inherent in process art, and the simplicity and geometric precision of minimalism. 

Diving deeper into the details of the structure, we see that while the Glass Labyrinth is maze-like, it is not a maze. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth’s purpose is not to confuse or trap the visitor. A labyrinth consists of a singular pathway that leads from its entrance to the structure’s heart and subsequently to the exit. While the Glass Labyrinth’s pathway winds and turns dramatically, it is clear (pun intended) in its direction from the entrance to the exit. You can get lost in a maze, but you cannot get truly lost in the Glass Labyrinth. 

While you cannot get lost in the Glass Labyrinth, that does not mean you cannot be perplexed by the experience of visually and/or physically interacting with it. From a distance, the structure simply looks like an empty (albeit gigantic) triangle. Closer inspection reveals that within this trinity of glass peaks lies a rectangular path that complexly folds, turns, and coils about itself: like a snake trapped in a glass case, the labyrinth’s singular path roils about itself as visitors pass through its turning, translucent form. 

In the words of Morris in his essay, “Continuous Project Altered Daily,” “[s]implicity of shape does not necessarily equate with simplicity of experience.“ This idea of simplicity versus complexity is central to the experience of the Glass Labyrinth, where its seemingly simple form belies the depth of interaction it offers. While the structure is simply shaped, interacting with it is an intricate and dynamic experience, challenging perception and inviting reflection on space, movement, and the relationship between viewer and environment.

Seconding Morris’s idea that a simple shape does not necessitate a simple experience is The Nelson-Atkins Museum’s description of the Glass Labyrinth as “deceptively simple.“ What may at first seem simple reveals itself to be an incredibly sophisticated interaction between art, the environment, and the heart. Similar to a Russian nesting doll, each component of the labyrinth, from its finished halls to its construction’s inception, unveils beautifully intricate and emotionally rich layers waiting to be discovered. 

On the emotionalist of the work, Steve Waterman, the museum’s director, shared that “[b]uilding [Morris’s] vision with the stonemasons, bronze fabricators, glass glaziers, and engineers of his own city creates an even deeper participatory element in a piece that already beckons it.“ Not only are the museum’s visitors participants in the labyrinth’s visual and physical power, but the piece as a whole participates in the cultivation of Kansas City’s artistic, cultural, and physical landscape. 

Further strengthening the participatory link between Morris, art, and Kansas City is the fact that Morris credited his childhood visits to The Nelson-Atkins Museum as formative in shaping his artistic vision. The Nelson-Atkins shaped his life as deeply as his sculpture now shapes the physical landscape of the museum.

Morris’s Glass Labyrinth is an artfully simple structure that delivers a richly layered, interactive experience. What appears to be a straightforward geometric design reveals itself as a labyrinth teeming with the joyful emotions of discovery, homecoming, and awe that reverberate throughout the brittle glass walls. Sitting at the intersection of process, land, and minimalist art epitomizes the power of the innovative artwork Morris was championing. 

Beyond all of this, the Glass Labyrinth is not only well-trodden, it is well-loved and well-known by those of Kansas City. It is a welcome home to an artist who changed the landscape (literally and figuratively) of how art was being thought of and made in the 1960s and 1970s. It was welded with care and whispers of the connection between art, landscape, artist and home, Kansas City, and creativity. As a symbol of both artistic innovation and personal significance, the ‘deceptively simple‘ Glass Labyrinth continues to stand as a dynamic, interactive installation that invites exploration and contemplation at The Nelson-Atkins Museum. 

Robert Morris’s Glass Labyrinth is on view in the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO. General admission.