Hans Breder, a German-born artist whose interest in straddling the boundaries between disciplines led him to create the Intermedia Program, the first of its kind, at the University of Iowa in 1968, died on June 18 in Iowa City. He was 81.

His wife, Barbara Welch Breder, said that the cause was complications of ischemic colitis.

Mr. Breder’s minimalist sculptures were starting to attract attention in New York when his friend Ulfert Wilke, the director of the University of Iowa Museum of Art, recommended him for a faculty position at the university. Mr. Breder accepted, and began teaching an experimental drawing course in 1966.

Friends threw up their hands, warning him that he was leaving the center of the artistic universe for a cultural desert. He blithely replied, “I will bring New York to Iowa.”