Process Art: The Movement That Made the Act of Creation the Artwork Itself (1960s-1970s)

In 1968, the artist Robert Morris had an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum. Instead of displaying polished, finished sculptures, Morris filled the gallery with industrial materials: felt, thread waste, and lead. He had cut long strips of felt, hung them on nails, and let gravity determine their final shape. He had thrown molten lead into the corners of the room and let it cool where it landed. The works were not objects in the traditional sense. They were the residue of actions. Morris called the approach "anti-form," meaning that the work had no predetermined shape independent of its material properties and the forces acting on it. The exhibition was accompanied by an essay that defined what would come to be called Process Art: an art where the process of making, not the finished product, is the primary content of the work.

Process Art is an artistic movement that emerged in the United States and Europe in the mid-1960s, in which the act of creating the artwork, rather than the finished object, is the primary focus. Process artists used nontraditional materials like felt, latex, wax, lead, and fiberglass, and they employed processes like cutting, hanging, dropping, pouring, and splashing that left the final form partly determined by the physical properties of the materials and the forces acting on them. The movement grew out of Abstract Expressionism, particularly the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, and developed in opposition to Minimalism, which favored clean, geometric, industrially fabricated objects. Process Art emphasized indeterminacy, transience, and the visible evidence of the artist's actions.

This entry covers what Process Art is, how it emerged, which artists defined it, what materials and methods they used, and how the movement's principles continue to influence contemporary art.

What Is Process Art?

Process Art is based on a simple inversion of traditional art values. In conventional art, the finished object is the goal, and the process of making it is a means to that end. In Process Art, the process itself is the content. The gathering, sorting, cutting, hanging, dropping, or pouring of materials is not hidden but displayed. The viewer is meant to see how the work was made, to reconstruct the artist's actions from the evidence left in the material. As the Tate's definition notes, the emphasis is on "the results of particular materials of carrying out the process determined by the artist." Read the Tate's definition at Tate.

The materials used in Process Art were deliberately unconventional. Instead of bronze, marble, or oil paint, Process artists used felt, latex, wax, lead, fiberglass, rope, steam, fat, ice, and even organic materials like grass and sawdust. These materials were chosen because they respond visibly to physical forces. Felt drapes and folds. Latex sags and discolors. Lead splatters and hardens. Wax melts and pools. The materials are not stable. They change over time, and that change is part of the work. Process Art often involves perishable or transitory materials that decay, discolor, or degrade, making the works inherently temporary.

The Guggenheim Museum describes Process artists as "involved in issues attendant to the body, random occurrences, improvisation, and the liberating qualities of nontraditional materials such as wax, felt, and latex. Using these, they created eccentric forms in erratic or irregular arrangements produced by actions such as cutting, hanging, and dropping, or organic processes such as growth, condensation, freezing, or decomposition." Read more at Wikipedia.

Historical Context and Origins

Process Art has roots in several earlier developments. The most direct precedent is the drip painting technique of Jackson Pollock, which involved flinging paint onto a horizontal canvas, covering the entire surface and using the full force of his body to paint. In Pollock's work, the successive layers of dripped and poured paint can be identified, and the actions of the artist in making the work can be reconstructed. The later color field paintings of Morris Louis also clearly reveal his process of pouring paint onto the canvas, where the forms are the result of the interaction of the artist's action, the viscosity of the paint, and the absorbency of the canvas.

The movement also drew influence from Dadaism, which had challenged the concept of the finished art object through readymades and performance, and from performance art, which foregrounded the live action of the artist. The Dadaist emphasis on chance and the absurd, and the performance art emphasis on the body and the present moment, both fed into Process Art's rejection of the static, autonomous object.

Process Art developed in direct response to Minimalism, which had emerged in the early 1960s. Minimalist artists like Donald Judd produced clean, geometric objects fabricated from industrial materials like aluminum and plexiglass. The objects were smooth, regular, and impersonal, with no visible trace of the artist's hand. Process Art rejected this impersonality. Where Minimalism sought to eliminate the evidence of making, Process Art sought to foreground it. Where Minimalism produced stable, permanent objects, Process Art produced unstable, changing ones.

Key Artists and Works

Robert Morris (1931-2018)

Morris was the theorist of Process Art. His 1968 Guggenheim exhibition and the accompanying essay, "Anti-Form," defined the movement's principles. Morris's felt works from this period, such as Untitled (1968, various collections), consist of long strips of industrial felt that have been cut and hung on a nail or placed on the floor, allowed to take whatever configurations are dictated by the interaction of the felt's properties, the artist's action, and gravity. Each time the work is installed, it takes a different shape. The work is not a fixed object but a set of conditions that produce a different result each time. Morris referred to the approach as "anti-form," meaning there is no inherent relation to the physical object. His earlier work had been Minimalist, but his turn to process marked a fundamental shift in the understanding of what sculpture could be.

Eva Hesse (1936-1970)

Hesse used latex, fiberglass, and cheesecloth to create works that were soft, translucent, and unstable. Her Repetition Nineteen III (1968, Collection of the Estate of Eva Hesse) consists of 19 bucket-like forms made of fiberglass and polyester resin, arranged on the floor. The forms are similar but not identical, each one bearing the marks of its making. Hesse's Accession II (1968, Detroit Institute of Arts) is a steel cube with thousands of plastic tubes threaded through its interior, creating a work that is simultaneously geometric and organic, Minimalist and Process-based. Hesse was aware that her materials would degrade over time. Latex discolors and becomes brittle. Fiberglass yellows. She accepted this impermanence as part of the work's meaning, once saying: "Life doesn't last, art doesn't last, it doesn't matter."

Richard Serra (1938-2024)

Serra's early Process works involved throwing molten lead into the corners and baseboards of rooms. The Splash pieces (1968-1970) were created by hurling molten lead against a wall and letting it cool and harden where it landed. The resulting lead castings, peeled off the wall, record the specific geometry of the corner and the force of the throw. Serra also made works by pouring lead, such as Casting (1969, MoMA), which consists of lead plates produced by pouring molten lead onto the floor and letting it solidify. These works are literally the residue of a process. Serra later moved on to large-scale steel sculpture, but his early Process works were foundational for the movement.

Bruce Nauman (b. 1941)

Nauman's video works from the late 1960s extend Process Art into time-based media. His Art Make-Up (1967-1968, MoMA) shows the artist slowly covering his face and torso with differently colored makeup until he evokes the appearance of a negative image. The video documents a process of transformation, and the process is the work. Nauman's films and videos from this period, including Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square (1967-1968), apply the principles of Process Art to the artist's own body and movements.

Bernard Cohen (1933-2018)

Cohen, a British painter, made paintings by establishing a set process for the work and then carrying it through until the canvas was full. The process, once set in motion, determined the final appearance of the painting, removing the artist's compositional decisions from the later stages of the work. This approach parallels the systematic processes of Morris and Serra, but in the medium of painting rather than sculpture.

Process Art and Related Movements

Process Art shares fundamental features with several other movements. It is directly related to environmental art, as process artists engage the primacy of organic systems and use perishable, transitory materials. The use of natural forces like gravity, time, weather, and temperature links Process Art to Land Art, which emerged in the same period and shared Process Art's interest in materials and processes outside the studio. The movement's emphasis on the body and performance connects it to performance art and body art.

A 2026 article from the International Forum on Artistic Research examined Process Art as a methodological framework for contemporary practice-based research. The article argued that Process Art's pedagogical foundations and core principles, including foregrounding labor, valuing process over product, non-skilled execution, and treating the body as both subject and object, position it as a rigorous, autonomous arts-based research methodology. The article analyzed works by Morris, Hesse, Serra, and contemporary practitioner Elizabeth Price, establishing Process Art's capacity to address questions of artistic labor, embodied knowledge, and the visibility of making processes, with particular relevance for understanding digital sculpture. Read the article at SAR 2026.

Legacy and Continuing Influence

Process Art's influence on contemporary art is pervasive. The movement's core principle, that the process of making is itself the artwork, has been absorbed into mainstream art practice. Contemporary artists who work with installation, performance, and time-based media routinely foreground the processes of their work. The movement's use of unconventional materials has opened the range of materials available to artists, from organic matter to industrial waste to digital data. The movement's acceptance of impermanence and change has challenged the museum's traditional role as a preserver of stable objects, forcing institutions to develop new strategies for conserving works that are designed to decay.

The movement's relevance to digital art is an emerging area of research. As the SAR 2026 article noted, Process Art's emphasis on the visible traces of making has particular potential for understanding digital sculpture, where computational smoothness threatens to efface the indexical traces of the artist's hand. The principles of Process Art, developed in the 1960s with felt and lead, may offer a framework for understanding how artists can make the processes of digital creation visible.

Related Terms

Process Art developed in opposition to Minimalism, which it rejected for its impersonal, geometric objects. It grew out of Abstract Expressionism, particularly the action painting of Jackson Pollock. It is related to performance art and body art, which share its emphasis on the live action of the artist. It connects to Land Art and environmental art, which share its use of natural processes and perishable materials. The movement also relates to Arte Povera, the Italian movement that similarly used unconventional materials and foregrounded process. For more on post-1960 art, read our post on the complete guide to art movements.

See Process Art in Person

Works by Process Art artists are held in major museums worldwide, though the perishable nature of many pieces means that some survive only in documentation. The Museum of Modern Art in New York holds Serra's Casting and Nauman's Art Make-Up videos. The Guggenheim Museum holds works by Morris. The Tate Modern in London holds works by Hesse and Serra. The Detroit Institute of Arts holds Hesse's Accession II. The Menil Collection in Houston holds significant works by Hesse. Because many Process Art works cannot be permanently displayed due to material degradation, exhibitions of the movement are often drawn from archives and reconstructions.

If you want to understand Process Art, start at MoMA for Serra's early lead works and Nauman's videos, then look for Hesse's latex and fiberglass pieces at the Tate or the Menil Collection, and seek out Morris's felt works wherever they are on display. You will see art that refuses to sit still, art that shows you how it was made and asks you to watch it change. For more on the movements that surrounded Process Art, read our entries on Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism, or explore our post on the complete guide to art movements.