Minimalism

Minimalism, also sometimes called ABC art, is an intellectual sort of art which seems to consist of very little, so that the viewer is forced to analyze the formal properties of what is actually there very carefully. The work is usually rigorously geometric and involves the repetition of identical objects.

The origins of Minimalism are in the geometric abstractions of pre-World War II painters in the Bauhaus, Russian Constructivists (such as Kazimir Malevich) and the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancuşi. It is often interpreted as a reaction against raw emotionalism of Abstract Expressionism and a bridge to Postmodern art practices.

Minimal artists typically made works in very simple geometric shapes based on the square and the rectangle. They also used flat surface colors, factory finishes, and industrial materials. The use of serial repetitions contributed to their goal. Minimal art was mostly three-dimensional but the painter Frank Stella was an important Minimalist. The other principal artists were Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, and Richard Serra. There are strong links between Minimal and Conceptual art. Aesthetically, Minimal art offers a highly purified form of beauty. It can also be seen as representing such qualities as truth (because it does not pretend to be anything other than what it is), order, simplicity, harmony.

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