Minimalism

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This article is about the concept in the arts. For other uses, see Minimalism (disambiguation).
Yves Klein, IKB 191, 1962,Monochrome painting. Klein was a pioneer in the development of Minimal art.

In the visual arts and music, minimalism is a style that uses pared-down design elements.
Minimalism in the arts began in postWorld War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s
and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism includeDonald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes
Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella.[1][2] It derives from the reductive aspects
of Modernism and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract expressionism and a bridge to Postminimal art
practices.
Minimalism in music features repetition and iteration such as those of the compositions of La Monte Young, Terry
Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams. Minimalist compositions are sometimes known as systems
music. The term "minimalist" often colloquially refers to anything that is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has also
been used to describe the plays andnovels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond
Carver, and the automobile designs of Colin Chapman. The word was first used in English in the early 20th century
to describe "a 1913 composition by the Russian painter Kasimir Malevich of a black square on a white ground".[3]
Contents
[hide]

1 Minimal art, minimalism in visual art

2 Minimalist design

3 Minimalist architecture and space

o

3.1 Concepts and design elements

3.2 Influences from Japanese tradition

3.3 Minimalist architects and their works

4 Literary minimalism

5 Minimal music

6 See also

7 Footnotes

8 References

9 External links

Minimal art, minimalism in visual art[edit]

Main article: Minimalism (visual arts)
Kazimir Malevich, Black Square, 1915, 79.5 x 79.5 cm, oil on canvas,Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Minimalism in visual art, generally referred to as "minimal art", "literalist art"[4] and "ABC Art"[5]emerged in New York in
the early 1960s as new and older artists moved toward geometric abstraction; exploring via painting in the cases
of Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland, Al Held,Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Ryman and others; and sculpture in the works of
various artists includingDavid Smith, Anthony Caro, Tony Smith, Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald

Judd and others. Judd's sculpture was showcased in 1964 at the Green Gallery in Manhattan as were Flavin's first
fluorescent light works, while other leading Manhattan galleries like the Leo Castelli Gallery and the Pace
Gallery also began to showcase artists focused on geometric abstraction. In addition there were two seminal and
influential museum exhibitions: Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculpture' shown from April 27 June 12, 1966 at the Jewish Museum inNew York, organized by the museum's Curator of Painting and Sculpture,
Kynaston McShine[6][7]and Systemic Painting, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum curated by Lawrence
Allowayalso in 1966 that showcased Geometric abstraction in the American art world via Shaped canvas,Color
Field, and Hard-edge painting.[8][9] In the wake of those exhibitions and a few others the art movement called minimal
art emerged.
In a more broad and general sense, one finds European roots of minimalism in the geometric abstractions of
painters associated with theBauhaus, in the works of Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian and other artists associated
with the De Stijl movement, and the Russian Constructivist movement, and in the work of the Romanian
sculptor Constantin Brncui.[10][11]
Barnett Newman, Voice of Fire, 1967, National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa

Tony Smith, Free Ride, 1962, 6'8 x 6'8 x 6'8

In France between 1947 and 1948,[12] Yves Klein conceived hisMonotone Symphony (1949, formally The MonotoneSilence Symphony) that consisted of a single 20-minute sustained chord followed by a 20-minute silence [13][14] a
precedent to both La Monte Young's drone music and John Cage's 433. Although Klein had
painted monochromes as early as 1949, and held the first private exhibition of this work in 1950, his first public
showing was the publication of the Artist's book Yves: Peintures in November 1954.[15][16]
Minimal art is also inspired in part by the paintings of Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Josef Albers, and the works of
artists as diverse as Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio Morandi, and others. Minimalism was also a reaction
against the painterly subjectivity of Abstract Expressionism that had been dominant in the New York School during
the 1940s and 1950s.[17]
Artist and critic Thomas Lawson noted in his 1981 Artforum essay Last Exit: Painting, minimalism did not
reject Clement Greenberg's claims about modernist painting's[18] reduction to surface and materials so much as take
his claims literally. According to Lawson minimalism was the result, even though the term "minimalism" was not
generally embraced by the artists associated with it, and many practitioners of art designated minimalist by critics
did not identify it as a movement as such. Also taking exception to this claim was Clement Greenberg himself; in his
1978 postscript to his essay Modernist Painting he disavowed this incorrect interpretation of what he said;
Greenberg wrote:
There have been some further constructions of what I wrote that go over into preposterousness: That I regard
flatness and the inclosing of flatness not just as the limiting conditions of pictorial art, but as criteria of aesthetic
quality in pictorial art; that the further a work advances the self-definition of an art, the better that work is bound to
be. The philosopher or art historian who can envision meor anyone at allarriving at aesthetic judgments in this
way reads shockingly more into himself or herself than into my article. [18]
In contrast to the previous decade's more subjective Abstract Expressionists, with the exceptions of Barnett
Newman and Ad Reinhardt; minimalists were also influenced by composers John Cage and LaMonte Young,
poet William Carlos Williams, and the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. They very explicitly stated that
their art was not about self-expression, unlike the previous decade's more subjective philosophy about art making
theirs was 'objective'. In general, Minimalism's features included geometric, often cubicforms purged of
much metaphor, equality of parts, repetition, neutral surfaces, and industrial materials.
Robert Morris, a theorist and artist, wrote a three part essay, "Notes on Sculpture 1-3", originally published across
three issues ofArtforum in 1966. In these essays, Morris attempted to define a conceptual framework and formal
elements for himself and one that would embrace the practices of his contemporaries. These essays paid great

attention to the idea of the gestalt - "parts... bound together in such a way that they create a maximum resistance to
perceptual separation." Morris later described an art represented by a "marked lateral spread and no regularized
units or symmetrical intervals..." in "Notes on Sculpture 4: Beyond Objects", originally published in Artforum, 1969,
continuing to say that "indeterminacy of arrangement of parts is a literal aspect of the physical existence of the
thing." The general shift in theory of which this essay is an expression suggests the transitions into what would later
be referred to as postminimalism.
One of the first artists specifically associated with minimalism was the painter, Frank Stella, four of whose early
"black paintings" were included in the 1959 show, 16 Americans, organized by Dorothy Miller at the Museum of
Modern Art in New York. The width of the stripes in Frank Stellas's black paintings were often determined by the
dimensions of the lumber used for stretchers, visible as the depth of the painting when viewed from the side, used to
construct the supportive chassis upon which the canvas was stretched. The decisions about structures on the front
surface of the canvas were therefore not entirely subjective, but pre-conditioned by a "given" feature of the physical
construction of the support. In the show catalog, Carl Andre noted, "Art excludes the unnecessary. Frank Stella has
found it necessary to paint stripes. There is nothing else in his painting." These reductive works were in sharp
contrast to the energy-filled and apparently highly subjective and emotionally charged paintings of Willem de
Kooning or Franz Kline and, in terms of precedent among the previous generation of abstract expressionists, leaned
more toward the less gestural, often somber, color field paintings of Barnett Newman andMark Rothko. Although
Stella received immediate attention from the MoMA show, artists including Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis, Robert
Motherwell and Robert Ryman had also begun to explore stripes, monochromatic and Hard-edge formats from the
late 50s through the 1960s.[19]
Because of a tendency in minimal art to exclude the pictorial, illusionistic and fictive in favor of the literal, there was
a movement away from painterly and toward sculptural concerns. Donald Judd had started as a painter, and ended
as a creator of objects. His seminal essay, "Specific Objects" (published in Arts Yearbook 8, 1965), was a
touchstone of theory for the formation of minimalist aesthetics. In this essay, Judd found a starting point for a new
territory for American art, and a simultaneous rejection of residual inherited European artistic values. He pointed to
evidence of this development in the works of an array of artists active in New York at the time, includingJasper
Johns, Dan Flavin and Lee Bontecou. Of "preliminary" importance for Judd was the work of George Earl Ortman,
[20]
who had concretized and distilled painting's forms into blunt, tough, philosophically charged geometries. These
Specific Objects inhabited a space not then comfortably classifiable as either painting or sculpture. That the
categorical identity of such objects was itself in question, and that they avoided easy association with well-worn and
over-familiar conventions, was a part of their value for Judd.
This movement was heavily criticised by modernist formalist art critics and historians. Some critics thought minimal
art represented a misunderstanding of the modern dialectic of painting and sculpture as defined by critic Clement
Greenberg, arguably the dominant American critic of painting in the period leading up to the 1960s. The most
notable critique of minimalism was produced by Michael Fried, a formalist critic, who objected to the work on the
basis of its "theatricality". In Art and Objecthood (published in Artforum in June 1967) he declared that the minimal
work of art, particularly minimal sculpture, was based on an engagement with the physicality of the spectator. He
argued that work like Robert Morris's transformed the act of viewing into a type of spectacle, in which the artifice of
the act observationand the viewer's participation in the work were unveiled. Fried saw this displacement of the
viewer's experience from an aesthetic engagement within, to an event outside of the artwork as a failure of minimal
art. Fried's essay was immediately challenged bypostminimalist and earth artist Robert Smithson in a letter to the
editor in the October issue of Artforum. Smithson stated the following: "What Fried fears most is
the consciousness of what he is doing--namely being himself theatrical."
In addition to the already mentioned Robert Morris, Frank Stella, Carl Andre, Robert Ryman and Donald Judd other
minimal artists include: Robert Mangold, Larry Bell, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Charles Hinman, Ronald Bladen, Paul
Mogensen, Ronald Davis, David Novros, Brice Marden, Blinky Palermo, Agnes Martin, Jo Baer, John
McCracken, Ad Reinhardt, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra, Tony Smith, Marian Karel, Patricia Johanson, and Anne
Truitt.
Ad Reinhardt, actually an artist of the Abstract Expressionist generation, but one whose reductive nearly all-black
paintings seemed to anticipate minimalism, had this to say about the value of a reductive approach to art:
The more stuff in it, the busier the work of art, the worse it is. More is less. Less is more. The eye is a menace to
clear sight. The laying bare of oneself is obscene. Art begins with the getting rid of nature. [21]
Reinhardt's remark directly addresses and contradicts Hans Hofmann's regard for nature as the source of his own
abstract expressionist paintings. In a famous exchange between Hofmann and Jackson Pollock as told by Lee
Krasner in an interview with Dorothy Strickler[22](1964-11-02) for the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art.
[23]
In Krasner's words:

When I brought Hofmann up to meet Pollock and see his work which was before we moved here, Hofmanns
reaction wasone of the questions he asked Jackson was, "Do you work from nature?" There were no still lifes
around or models around and Jacksons answer was, "I am nature." And Hofmanns reply was, "Ah, but if you work
by heart, you will repeat yourself." To which Jackson did not reply at all. The meeting between Pollock and Hofmann
took place in 1942.[23]

Minimalist design[edit]

The reconstruction of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's German Pavilion inBarcelona

The term minimalism is also used to describe a trend in design and architecture, wherein the subject is reduced to
its necessary elements. Minimalistic design has been highly influenced byJapanese traditional design and
architecture. The works of De Stijl artists are a major reference: De Stijl expanded the ideas of expression by
meticulously organizing basic elements such as lines and planes.
Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe adopted the motto "Less is more" to describe his aesthetic tactic of arranging
the necessary components of a building to create an impression of extreme simplicityhe enlisted every element
and detail to serve multiple visual and functional purposes; for example, designing a floor to also serve as the
radiator, or a massive fireplace to also house the bathroom. Designer Buckminster Fuller adopted the engineer's
goal of "Doing more with less", but his concerns were oriented toward technology and engineering rather than
aesthetics. A similar sentiment was conveyed by industrial designer Dieter Rams' motto, "Less but better", adapted
from Mies.
Luis Barragn is another exemplary modern minimalist designer. Minimalist architectural designers focus on the
connection between two perfect planes, elegant lighting, and the void spaces left by the removal of threedimensional shapes in an architectural design. More attractive minimalistic home designs are not truly minimalistic
because these use more expensive building materials and finishes, and are larger.
Contemporary minimalist architects include Kazuyo Sejima, John Pawson, Eduardo Souto de Moura, lvaro Siza
Vieira, Tadao Ando,Alberto Campo Baeza, Yoshio Taniguchi, Peter Zumthor, Hugh Newell Jacobsen, Vincent Van
Duysen, Claudio Silvestrin, Michael Gabellini, and Richard Gluckman.[24]

Minimalist architecture and space[edit]

Minimalist architecture became popular in the late 1980s in London and New York, [25] where architects and fashion
designers worked together in the boutiques to achieve simplicity, using white elements, cold lighting, large space
with minimum objects and furniture. Minimalist architecture simplifies living space to reveal the essential quality of
buildings and conveys simplicity in attitudes toward life. It is highly inspired from the Japanese traditional design and
the concept of Zen philosophy.[citation needed]

Concepts and design elements[edit]

The concept of minimalist architecture is to strip everything down to its essential quality and achieve simplicity.
[26]
The idea is not completely without ornamentation,[27] but that all parts, details and joinery are considered as
reduced to a stage where no one can remove anything further to improve the design. [28]
The considerations for essences are light, form, detail of material, space, place and human condition. [29] Minimalist
architects not only consider the physical qualities of the building. Moreover, they look deeply into the spiritual
dimension and the invisible, by listening to the figure and paying attention to the details, people, space, nature and
materials.[30] Which reveals the abstract quality of something that is invisible and search for the essence from those
invisible qualities. Such as natural light, sky, earth and air. In addition, they open up dialogue with the surrounding

environment to decide the most essential materials for the construction and create relationships between buildings
and sites.[27]
In minimalist architecture, design elements convey the message of simplicity. The basic geometric forms, elements
without decoration, simple materials and the repetitions of structures represent a sense of order and essential
quality.[31] The movement of natural light in buildings reveals simple and clean spaces.[29] In late 19th century as the
arts and crafts movement began to be popular in Britain, people valued the attitude of truth to materials, with
respect to the profound and innate characteristics of materials.[32] Minimalist architects humbly 'listen to figure,'
seeking essence and simplicity by rediscovering the valuable qualities in simple and common materials. [30]

Influences from Japanese tradition[edit]

See also: Japanese architecture
The idea of simplicity appears in many cultures, especially the Japanese traditional culture of Zen Philosophy.
Japanese manipulate the Zen culture into aesthetic and design elements for their buildings. [33] This idea of
architecture has influenced Western Society, especially in America since the mid 18th century.[34] Moreover, it
inspired the minimalist architecture in the 19th century.[28]
Zen concepts of simplicity transmit the ideas of freedom and essence of living. [28] Simplicity is not only aesthetic
value, it has a moral perception that looks into the nature of truth and reveals the inner qualities of materials and
objects for the essence.[35] For example, thesand garden in Ryoanji temple demonstrates the concepts of simplicity
and the essentiality from the considered setting of a few stones and a huge empty space. [36]
The Japanese aesthetic principle of Ma refers to empty or open space. That removes all the unnecessary internal
walls and opens up the space between interior and the exterior. Frank Lloyd Wright was influenced by the design
element of Japanese sliding door that allows to bring the exterior to the interior.[37] The emptiness of spatial
arrangement is another idea that reduces everything down to the most essential quality.[38]
The Japanese aesthetic of Wabi-sabi values the quality of simple and plain objects.[39] It appreciates the absence of
unnecessary features to view life in quietness and reveals the most innate character of materials. [40] For example, the
Japanese flora art, also known as Ikebana has the meaning of let flower express itself. People cut off the branches,
leaves and blossoms from the plants and only retain the essential part from the plant. This conveys the idea of
essential quality and innate character in nature.[41]
MA is manifest in Japanese living architecture, garden design and flower arrangement (Ikebana). However, far from
being just a spatial concept, MA is ever-present in all aspects of Japanese daily life, as it applies to time as well as
to daily tasks.[42]

Minimalist architects and their works[edit]

The Japanese minimalist architect, Tadao Ando conveys the Japanese traditional spirit and his own perception of
nature in his works. His design concepts are materials, pure geometry and nature. He normally uses concrete or
natural wood and basic structural form to achieve austerity and rays of light in space. He also sets up dialogue
between the site and nature to create relationship and order with the buildings. [43] Andos works and the translation of
Japanese aesthetic principles are highly influential on Japanese architecture. [44]
Another Japanese minimalist architect, Kazuyo Sejima, works on her own and in conjunction with Ryue Nishizawa,
as SAANA, producing iconic Japanese Minimalist buildings. Credited with creating and influencing a particular genre
of Japanese Minimalism,[45] Sejimas delicate, intelligent designs may use white color, thin construction sections and
transparent elements to create the phenomenal building type often associated with minimalism. Works include New
Museum(2010) New York City, Small House (2000) Tokyo, House surrounded By Plum Trees(2003)Tokyo.
In Vitra Conference Pavilion, Weil am Rhein, 1993, the concepts are to bring together the relationships between
building, human movement, site and nature. Which as one main point of minimalism ideology that establish dialogue
between the building and site. The building uses the simple forms of circle and rectangle to contrast the filled and
void space of the interior and nature. In the foyer, there is a large landscape window that looks out to the exterior.
This achieves the simple and silence of architecture and enhances the light, wind, time and nature in space. [46]
John Pawson is a British minimalist architect; his design concepts are soul, light and order. He believes that though
reduced clutter and simplification of the interior to a point that gets beyond the idea of essential quality, there is a
sense of clarity and richness of simplicity instead of emptiness. The materials in his design reveal the perception
toward space, surface and volume. Moreover, he likes to use natural materials because of their aliveness, sense of
depth and quality of individual. He is also attracted by the important influences from Japanese Zen Philosophy.[47]
Calvin Klein Madison Avenue, New York, 199596, is a boutique that conveys Calvin Kleins ideas of fashion. John
Pawsons interior design concepts for this project are to create simple, peaceful and orderly spatial arrangements.

He used stone floors and white walls to achieve simplicity and harmony for space. He also emphasises reduction
and eliminates the visual distortions, such as the air conditioning and lamps to achieve a sense of purity for interior.
[48]

Alberto Campo Baeza is a Spanish architect and describes his work as essential architecture. He values the
concepts of light, idea and space. Light is essential and achieves the relationship between inhabitants and the
building. Ideas are to meet the function and context of space, forms and construction. Space is shaped by the
minimal geometric forms to avoid decoration that is not essential. [49]
Gasper House, Zahora, 1992 is a residence that client requested to be independent. High walls create the enclosed
space and the stone floors used in house and courtyard show the continuality of interior and exterior. The white
colour of the walls reveals the simplicity and unity of the building. The feature of the structure make lines to form the
continuously horizontal house, therefore natural light projects horizontally through the building. [50]

Literary minimalism[edit]
Literary minimalism is characterized by an economy with words and a focus on surface description. Minimalist
writers eschew adverbs and prefer allowing context to dictate meaning. Readers are expected to take an active role
in the creation of a story, to "choose sides" based on oblique hints and innuendo, rather than reacting to directions
from the writer.
Some 1940s-era crime fiction of writers such as James M. Cain and Jim Thompson adopted a stripped-down,
matter-of-fact prose style to considerable effect; some classify this prose style as minimalism. [weasel words]
Another strand of literary minimalism arose in response to the metafiction trend of the 1960s and early 1970s (John
Barth, Robert Coover, and William H. Gass). These writers were also spare with prose and kept a psychological
distance from their subject matter.[citation needed]
Minimalist writers, or those who are identified with minimalism during certain periods of their writing careers, include
the following:Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie, Bret Easton Ellis, Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway, K. J.
Stevens, Amy Hempel, Bobbie Ann Mason,Tobias Wolff, Grace Paley, Sandra Cisneros, Mary Robison, Frederick
Barthelme, Richard Ford, Patrick Holland, Cormac McCarthy, andAlicia Erian.[citation needed]
American poets such as Stephen Crane, William Carlos Williams, early Ezra Pound, Robert Creeley, Robert
Grenier, and Aram Saroyanare sometimes identified with their minimalist style. The term "minimalism" is also
sometimes associated with the briefest of poetic genres,haiku, which originated in Japan, but has been
domesticated in English literature by poets such as Nick Virgilio, Raymond Roseliep, andGeorge Swede.[citation needed]
The Irish writer Samuel Beckett is well known for his minimalist plays and prose, as is the Norwegian writer Jon
Fosse.[citation needed]
In his novel The Easy Chain, Evan Dara includes a 60-page section written in the style of musical minimalism, in
particular inspired by composer Steve Reich. Intending to represent the psychological state (agitation) of the novel's
main character, the section's successive lines of text are built on repetitive and developing phrases. [citation needed]

Minimal music[edit]
Main article: Minimal music
The term "minimal music" was derived around 1970 by Michael Nyman from the concept of minimalism, which was
earlier applied to thevisual arts.[51][52] More precisely, it was in a 1968 review in The Spectator that Nyman first used
the term, to describe a ten-minute piano composition by the Danish composer Hennig Christiansen, along with
several other unnamed pieces played by Charlotte Moorman andNam June Paik at the Institute of Contemporary
Arts in London.[53]