Minimalism
A
trend in painting and sculpture that developed
primarily in the United States during the 1960s and
1970s. As the name implies, Minimalist art is pared
down to its essentials; it is purely abstract,
objective and anonymous, free of surface decoration
or expressive gesture. Minimalist painting and
drawing is monochromatic and is often based on
mathematically derived grids and linear matrices; yet
it can still evoke a sensation of the sublime.
Sculptors used industrial processes and materials,
such as steel, perspex, even fluorescent tubes, to
produce geometric forms, often made in series. This
sculpture has no illusionistic properties, relying
instead on a bodily experience of the work by the
spectator. Minimalism can be seen as a reaction
against the emotionalism of Abstract
Expressionism, which
had dominated modern art through the 1950s.
Representative
artists:
Andre, Flavin, Judd, LeWitt, Mangold,
Martin,
Morris, Ryman, Serra, F. Stella