Overview

Minimalism is an aesthetic movement that seeks to expose the essence of a subject by eliminating all non-essential forms, features, or concepts. Emerging in New York in the 1960s as a reaction against the emotional excess of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalist art is cool, detached, and literal. It is often summarized by Frank Stella’s famous quote: “What you see is what you see.”

Core Idea

The core idea of Minimalism is objectivity. Art should not refer to anything else (no landscapes, no emotions, no stories). It should just be. A cube is just a cube. By removing metaphor and illusion, Minimalist artists wanted the viewer to experience the physical presence of the object, its material, and its relationship to the space around it.

Formal Definition

Minimalism is characterized by:

  • Geometric forms: Squares, cubes, rectangles.
  • Repetition: Serial arrangements (e.g., a row of identical bricks).
  • Industrial materials: Steel, aluminum, plexiglass, fluorescent lights (avoiding the “artist’s touch” of brushstrokes).
  • Literalness: No illusion of depth or representation.

Intuition

Imagine a painting that is just a flat, black square. It doesn’t look like a window into another world. It doesn’t tell a sad story. It forces you to look at the blackness, the texture of the paint, the edge of the canvas, and the wall it hangs on. It strips away the “noise” of traditional art to focus on the pure sensation of perception.

Examples

  • Donald Judd’s “Stacks”: Vertical rows of identical metal boxes attached to the wall. They are not sculptures on a pedestal; they are specific objects in real space.
  • Dan Flavin’s Light Sculptures: Arrangements of commercially available fluorescent light tubes. The “art” is the light itself and how it transforms the room.
  • Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII: A rectangular arrangement of 120 firebricks on the floor. It challenged the idea that art must be complex or crafted.
  • Minimalist Music: Composers like Philip Glass or Steve Reich using repetitive structures and gradual changes (loops) rather than dramatic melody.

Common Misconceptions

  • It’s “simple” to make: While it looks simple, Minimalist art often requires precise industrial fabrication. The “simplicity” is a hard-won conceptual rigor, not laziness.
  • It’s empty: Critics call it boring; proponents argue it is “full” of perceptual experience. By removing the distraction of a story, you become hyper-aware of your own existence in the room.
  • Conceptual Art: Often overlaps with Minimalism, but Conceptual art prioritizes the idea over the object, whereas Minimalism prioritizes the object itself.
  • Bauhaus: An earlier modernist movement that championed “form follows function” and geometric simplicity, influencing Minimalism.
  • Post-Minimalism: Artists who adopted Minimalist forms but reintroduced eccentric materials, bodily references, or process (e.g., Eva Hesse).

Applications

  • Architecture: Minimalist architecture (e.g., John Pawson) emphasizes open space, light, and a lack of ornamentation.
  • Design: The “Apple aesthetic” (clean lines, white space) is a direct descendant of Minimalist principles.
  • Lifestyle: “Minimalism” as a lifestyle choice (owning fewer things) is a loose cultural application of the aesthetic principle of “less is more.”

Criticism / Limitations

  • Theatricality: Critic Michael Fried famously attacked Minimalism for being “theatrical”—requiring an audience to complete the work (the experience in the room) rather than being self-contained like a modernist painting.
  • Corporate Art: Because of its clean, non-offensive nature, Minimalist art was easily co-opted as decoration for corporate lobbies, losing its radical edge.

Further Reading

  • Batchelor, David. Minimalism. 1997.
  • Fried, Michael. “Art and Objecthood.” 1967. (The most famous critique of Minimalism).
  • Meyer, James. Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties. 2001.