MINIMALIST ART
1950 - 1976
If you think of history as constant movement between action and reaction, Minimalism is the perfect response to an era of excess. By the 1970s Abstract Expressionism had become an academic game of “Can you top this?” Paint was lathered onto canvases in thick clumps and drips. Discarded items were being welded together to create artistic statements. All of this was taking place against a backdrop of cool modernity exemplified by the Bauhaus-inspired international style of architecture. Sleek glass and steel buildings and unadorned furniture seemed to define modern living.
Enter the response to Abstract Expressionism: Minimalism. Out went the dramatic and over-wrought. In came the cool, sleek works of Frank Stella, Carl Andre, Ellsworth Kelly, Dan Flavin, and Sol LeWitt. In many ways their work owed much to the work of Constructivists before them. Minimalists often used industrial materials and liked to create orderly geometric patterns without the optical illusions that became the defining characteristic of Op Art, a movement that sprang up shortly after the Minimalists.
In his book The Painted Word, Tom Wolfe described the fixation Minimalists had for the thickness of the paint they applied on canvas, looking for ways to eliminate “brushstrokes, most of the paint and the last viruses of drawing and complicated designs.”
However, Minimalism was far more than a movement to eliminate. It was a search for the beauty of simplicity in an increasingly complex world. Ellsworth Kelly, the Minimalist with the most staying power, wanted viewers to have an instinctive response to the colors, size and placement of forms in his work. He wanted to make the maximum emotional impact with minimum design.
When you stripped away narrative, brushstrokes, uneven surfaces, and complex patterns, all that was left was “interest.” Minimalists sought to make art that was interesting because of its elegantly simple appearance. It was a movement very much in line - emotionally and stylistically - with the modern world it reflected.
