Less is More - The Concepts Behind Minimal Artīy the end of the 1950s and the early 1960s, a group of artists previously linked to Abstract Expressionism shifted their creative course toward geometric abstraction, in particular, creatives like Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Color Field painters like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, as well as Hard-edge master Ad Reinhardt. As a result, Minimalism and its objects blurred the line between two and three dimensions, painting and sculpture. Their geometric abstraction did not describe anything, neither the external world nor the narrative of a story the neutral monochromatic palette of primary colors was only there to delineate space, rather than express a feeling the raw, mass-produced traditional materials did not symbolize or represent anything else but their own selves. As such, a Minimalist artwork did not refer to anything other than itself, which is exactly what these artists wanted to portray in the first place. The minimalist artists employed prefabricated industrial materials, as well as extremely simple, often repeated geometric forms and pure qualities of color, form and space in order to allow the viewer an immediate, visual response. Just like Action Painting relied on gesture to convey a feeling, Minimalist art used the medium and material of its works to highlight the simplicity through sleek, geometric works that offered a radically different, literal and objective aesthetic appeal. Courtesy Matthew Marks Galleryīreaking away from the excessively expressive Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism art stripped its artworks of any form of meaningful, symbolic, emotional and personal content and began exploring the essence and substance of things. But what exactly did it mean and take to create Minimalist art and why were so many of those working in architecture and design so fascinated by its philosophy and aesthetics? Furthermore, when Abstract Expressionists like Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Robert Morris, inspired by the works of Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși, the Dutch De Stijl group, the Russian Constructivists and the German Bauhaus, intentionally abandoned the principles of the beloved and dominant American movement, it was clear that the new and exciting era in the arts was about to take over. Not only can its roots be traced back to Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades, its ideology can also be found in the revolutionary 1913 black square on a white ground by Kasimir Malevich, which turned our perception on painting upside down. A turning point in the history of Modernism, Minimal art introduced a new way of producing, looking at and experiencing artworks in the manner of a proper avant-garde. It lasted only a decade during the 1960s, but Minimalism still stands as one of the most significant and influential movements of the 20th century.
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