Minimalism. Research.

In the early 1960’s when the Minimalist movement gained momentum as they felt that abstract expressionism was too personal, pretentious and insubstantial. They rejected the idea that art work should reflect the artists own, personal emotions and therefore the minimalists adopted the point of view that a work of art should not refer to anything but itself. Their goal was to create work that was totally objective, inexpressive and non-referential. During the rise of minimalism there was one painter specifically affiliated with the movement, former abstract expressionist Frank Stella. Stella acclaimed the minimalist persona instantly with his Black Paintings (1958-60) the paintings consisted of a regular canvas painted black with thin pin stripes of canvas left in between strokes, the paintings contrasted the emotional canvases of the abstract expressionists. There were also two prominent theorists, Donald Judd and Robert Morris, Judd wrote the minimalist manifesto-like essay “specific objects” in 1964.

The minimalists wanted to allow the viewer an instant, purely visual response and let them experience even more strongly the main characteristics and qualities of the art work which focused around colour, form, space and material. Minimalist artists sought out to deconstruct the foundations of other Western art movements to reveal the fundamental character: the medium and materials of the work were its reality rather than personal expression. The concepts portrayed were purely aesthetic and at the time, revolutionary. 

In order to achieve their ambition and fulfil the minimalist manifesto, they attempted to remove all suggestion of self-expression from the art work in which they did in many ways; composition, complexity of form, themes, social comment, elements of traditional works and any other form of self-expression by the artist.

              From then on, all choices stem from the intention of giving the work a literal presence:

·         Use of unitary, geometric forms, as these could be mistaken neither for representations of the external world nor for the narrative of a story.

·         Use of monochromatic palettes of the primary colours, as these are the most basic and thus neutral of colours. Colour was not used to express feeling or mood, but it simply to delineate space (source)

·         Use of plain, industrial, factory-made or store-bought, mass-produced materials, as these underscored the absence of the artist’s individual ‘mark’. These modern materials also defy the traditional artistic materials. Materials were left raw or unaltered and were not intended to symbolize anything else.