2. what is minimalism?
• simplistic design
• focus away from artist
• degree of anonymity
• geometric forms
• industrial materials among others
"A shape, a volume, a color, a surface is something itself. It
shouldn't be concealed as part of a fairly different whole."
3. The goal of minimalist artist isn't to be
flashy or over expressive. Minimalism is
meant to be looked at for simply what it
is, not what the artist could have been
thinking when they made it. It’s meant to
push was art can be defined as.
6. Donald Judd
June 3, 1928-February
12, 1994
Judd helped found the
minimalist movement. Primarily
used box shaped structures
thought his career. He felt art
went beyond the artist feelings.
He began his career in the early 60’s
and later went on to criticism art of the
time and he went on to create art the
he felt was disconnected the artist
personal views and the art should be
just appreciated for what it is.
7. In his later years leading up to his death he created many
pieces that were large structures made of copper and brass
with smooth features.
Judd helped revolutionize modern sculpting by bring in
basic shapes, space and simple colors into focus.
8. Criticism
Minimalism isn't very well received by many people.
It is sometimes labeled as lazy, lifeless or just plain
dull.
“Donald Judd's work is a blight on the landscape.
They ought to take that crap to a recycling firm and
get it ground up and used for something good”
--Some Guy on the Internet
11. Dan Flavin
April 1, 1933 - November
29, 1996
At the start of his career he showed
early interest in fluorescent lights and
other light fixtures
First major piece was icon V (Coran's
Broadway Flesh), 1962. A brown box
with lights along the sides.
12. “The radiant tube and the shadow cast by its supporting pan seemed ironic
enough to hold alone. There was literally no need to compose this system
definitively; it seemed to sustain itself directly, dynamically, dramatically in my
workroom wall—a buoyant and insistent gaseous image which, through
brilliance, somewhat betrayed its physical presence into approximate
invisibility.”
To Flavin the object and light created form the tubes were able
to stand alone as art and proceeded to make more work
involving tubes and how the light effects the empty space
14. Frank Stella
• b. May 12, 1936
• Majored in history at Princeton University
• “A sculpture is just a painting cut out and
stood up somewhere.”
• Listed by Art News as one of 10 most
expensive living artists
• Emphasized "picture-as-object" rather than
picture as representation of an object
• Believed that artists should not repeat their
15. early work
• immediate recognition for The Black
Paintings
• wanted to emphasize flatness of canvas
16. work slowly moved from painting to sculpture
painting painting with relief painting with deeper relief
sculpture
Maxon’s Island 1995
Example of transition piece--painting with a lot of examples of relief
17. famous quotes
"Making art is complicated
because the categories
are always changing. You
just have to make your
own art, and whatever
categories it falls into will
come later."
"Painting is a flat surface
with paint on it."
Chodorow II
19. Sol LeWitt
• b. September 9, 1928
• d. April 8, 2007
• Served in Korean War
• Worked at Seventeen magazine
• Later worked at MoMA as night receptionist
& clerk
20. work
• regarded as a founder of Minimalism
• Best known for his Wall Drawings
o draws out instructions
o draftsmen execute the final product
21. philosophy
• everything is temporary
• "ephemeral quality" is not something to
ignore
• the process is what is important, not the end
result
• the artist is the generator of ideas
22. quotes "When an artist uses
a conceptual form of
art it means that all
of the planning and
decisions are made
beforehand and the
execution is a
perfunctory affair.
The idea becomes a
machine that makes
the art."
"Conceptual artists are
mystics rather than
rationalists. They leap to
conclusions that logic
cannot reach."
23. criticism & commentary
"[The Wall Drawings] turn space into a walk-in
cat's cradle." --NY Times
"He understood, as every teacher does, that
doing preset tasks could stimulate creativity."
--NY Times
"These things have a legitimate place in a
collection representing modern drawings.
This should not confuse anyone into
imagining they have aesthetic merit." --an art
critic on Straight LInes in Four Directions
Superimposed
24. Minimalism and other art
forms
Minimalism can be seen in other art forms. Most in literature and
music.
Writers like Hemingway who were around long before the
minimalist art movement in the 1960s-70s. He used as little
writing as possible in order to convey his stories’ meanings.
“For Sale, Baby
Shoes, Never Worn”
25. Artist like Philip Glass, Steve Reich, John Cage experiment with
minimalism in music as a way similar to minimalist literature and visual
art. With this they wanted to break down what was traditionally accepted
as music to create a wider view of what music was.
“There is no such thing as an
empty space or an empty time.
There is always something to
see, something to hear. In
fact, try as we may to make a
silence, we cannot.”
26. Aftermath
For some minimalism has gone and passed. Like the dada
movement it had gotten across the message so people
started to not see any purpose in the movement anymore but
Minimalism still has left it’s mark in the art would. Most within
the field in architecture and furnisher.
