MINIMALISM

Minimalism is an extreme form of abstract art developed in the USA

in the 1960s and typified by artworks composed of simple geometric
shapes based on the square and the rectangle

What is Minimalism and minimalist art?

The Minimalism art movement is one of the most influential of the 1960s,
emerging in New York City among a number of young artists who were
moving away from Abstract Expressionism and favoured a sleek, geometric
aesthetic instead, which would manifest itself in minimalist art. Earlier
European abstract movements greatly influenced American minimalist art
creators. In that period, works by the Dutch De Stijl artists, Russian
Constructivists, and members of the German Bauhaus were being shown in
New York. Each of these groups had pioneered radical abstraction, and
inspired artists like Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Robert Morris to explore
new directions in their art.

These artists wanted to create art that referred only to itself, allowing the
viewer an immediate, purely visual response. The personal, gestural elements
were stripped away with the aim to reveal the objective, visual elements of
art.
Key dates: 1960s and 1970s
Key regions: United States
Key words: abstract sculpture and painting, geometric shapes, light installations, New York,
West Coast
Key artists: Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, Sol Lewitt, Frank Stella, Agnes Martin,
Robert Morris, Mary Corse, John McCracken, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin.
Minimalism art arrives on the scene
Several artists published articles during that period, which helped to shape
and define the minimalist art movement. Donald Judd’s 1965 article ‘Specific
Objects’ attempted to establish the aesthetics of Minimalism. Judd rejected
traditional distinctions between art forms in order to embrace works that were
not so easily labelled as painting or sculpture. Robert Morris’s ‘Notes on
Sculptures’ from 1966 called for the use of simple forms that the viewer
could grasp intuitively and argued that the interpretation of the artworks
depended on the context and conditions in which it was shown. In 1967, Sol
LeWitt published ‘Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,’ which elevated the
importance of the idea and the process of the conception and realisation of
the works of minimalist art over the aesthetic features.

One of the main events that established Minimalism art was the 1966
‘Primary Structures’ exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York. It was
the first American museum to present this style of art, and the exhibition
received great critical acclaim for introducing a new visual lexicon to the
Western art canon. The show included works by Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt,
Robert Morris, Carl Andre and Donald Judd, who presented geometric and
formally reductive artworks.

Frank Stella, title not known, 1967.

Photo courtesy of Tate Modern

Minimalist sculpture
Sculpture was an extremely important part of Minimalism and Minimalism
art. Artists were interested in creating three-dimensional geometric forms in
space using industrial materials such as fibreglass, plywood, plastic, sheet
metal and aluminium. Sculptures were placed on the floor as opposed to on a
pedestal, and visitors were invited to examine the relationship between
different parts of the artwork within a repetition of geometric bodies. Artists
like Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Carl
Andre, Anthony Caro and Tony Smith experimented with the relationship
between physicality and space through their grid-based, sculptural
compositions. Sculptures that embodied this new Minimalism at the ‘Primary
Structures’ exhibition in 1966 include Carl Andre’s Lever (1966), which
consisted of 137 bricks laid in a line along the floor, and Sol
LeWitt’s Untitled (1966), an open white cube divided into many interior
cubes.

Sol LeWitt, Two Open Modular

Cubes/Half-Off, 1972. Photo courtesy of Tate Modern

Minimalist painting
In painting, artists like Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes
Martin and Robert Ryman created entirely self-referential canvases with
‘hard edges,’ abrupt transitions between areas of solid colours, repetitive
patterns and geometric forms. The result was a flat, two-dimensional space
that directly affected viewers, who got to experience art stripped down to its
basic physical appearance and fundamental character. This is evident in
Frank Stella’s paintings, for example in The Marriage of Reason and Squalor
II (1959) or title not known (1967). Both paintings contain either a single
vertical or horizontal unpainted line at the centre of the canvas, offset against
the other white and black lines that divide the canvas into perfectly equal
sections. With this highly regulated pattern, Stella attempted to force
illusionistic space out of the painting.

Minimalist light installations

An important aspect of the Minimalism art tendency was the preoccupation
with light installations. Artists started using fluorescent light tubes to sculpt
space into colour zones. The focus of the work was on the light itself, not on
the forms of the light tubes. In New York, Dan Flavin worked predominantly
with fluorescent light installations – first, he made ‘icons’ by combining
electric lights with plain square-fronted constructions, and later, he started
working with fluorescent tubes of any commercially available colour.
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, minimalist art was developing at a rapid pace
in the 1960s and 1970s in the form of the Light and Space Movement.

Dan Flavin, Untitled (To Jan and Ron Greenberg),

1972-73. Photo: David Heald, courtesy of Guggenheim

The artists in the movement were concerned with the way the use of light and
geometric shapes could affect the surrounding environment and the
perception of the viewer. Artists associated with this branch of Minimalism
are Mary Corse, John McCracken, Larry Bell and Robert Irwin. Learn about
the rediscovery of Mary Corse’s light art, after a long career of working
under the radar and in the shadow of her male contemporaries here in
Artland’s Lost (and Found) Series.

Minimalism FAQ
What is Minimalism art?

Created in the United States in the 1960’s, Minimalism art is an extreme type of abstract art that
usually is depicted through simplistic shapes and hard edges, all while exposing the essence of
the forms and materials used. The movement challenged preconceived notions of what art is and
could be. The Minimalism art movement debunked the myth that it was only to be enjoyed by
elite classes.

Who are iconic artists of the Minimalism art movement?

The most iconic minimalist artists are Donald Judd, Larry Bell, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella,
Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin and Agnes Martin.

When did the minimalism art movement begin?

The Minimalism art movement began in the late 1950’s and truly thrived in the 1960’s – 1970’s
and was conceived in the United States.