minimalismSteven

Daubenmeyer and Meg Ellis

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."

- Donald Judd

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.

important artists

• Donald Judd

• Dan Flavin

• Frank Stella

• Sol LeWitt

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"After all, the work isn't the point; the piece is."

Donald JuddJune 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.

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.

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

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpM3LRPgnVA

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"It is what it is and it ain't nothing else."

Dan FlavinApril 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.

“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 around them.

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“What you see is what you see.”

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 work

early work

• immediate recognition for The Black Paintings

• wanted to emphasize flatness of canvas

work slowly moved from painting to sculpturepainting painting with relief painting with deeper relief

sculpture

Maxon’s Island 1995

Example of transition piece--painting with a lot of examples of relief

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

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The system is the work of art; the visual work of art is proof of the system."

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

• Taught at NY schools

work

• regarded as a founder of Minimalism• Best known for his Wall Drawings

o draws out instructionso draftsmen execute the final product

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

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."

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

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”

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.” 

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.