Art Isms:

Minimalism:

Minamalist Art Today

Minimalism in the Visual Arts

Reacting against the formal excesses of abstract expressionism, the practitioners of minimal art (also sometimes called ABC art) strove to focus attention on the object as an object, reducing its historical and expressive content to the bare minimum.

Like many major artistic shifts, Minimalism was conceived as a reaction to the movements that preceded it, mainly the visceral energy of Abstract Expressionism. Minimalism distills abstraction to its purest form: art about simple geometry, based primarily on the forms of the square and rectangle. Since it emerged in the 1960s, this approach has been employed by artists all around the world to a powerful effect -- often achieving the impact of a lush landscape, intimate portrait, or saturated color field by using only the elemental tools of point, line, and plane. The power of the "less is more" is a formidable aesthetic.

Many minimalist artists were sculptors concerned with reducing form to its utmost simplicity. They used flat surface colors, factory finishes, and industrial materials. The use of serial repetitions contributed to their goal. Artists such as Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, and Richard Serra were associated with the movement.The exhibition "Primary Structures," held in New York in 1966, spotlighted works of this school. Minimalism gave rise to process art, earthworks, performance art, and conceptual art.

Minimalism emerged in the 1960's Minimalism is a style of art in which objects are stripped down to their elemental, geometric form, and presented in an impersonal manner. It is an Abstract form of art which developed as a reaction against the subjective elements of Abstract Expressionism. Minimalist art frequently takes the form of installations or sculpture, for example with Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, and Sol LeWitt. However, there are also a number of minimalist painters, including Ellsworth Kelly, and Frank Stella.