Modern and contemporary
Minimalism and Conceptual art
c. 1960–1975
Art reduced to simple forms and industrial materials, and then to the idea itself.
Overview
Minimalist artists in 1960s New York stripped away imagery, illusion and personal touch. They used industrial materials such as steel, plywood, bricks and fluorescent tubes, often fabricated by others and arranged in simple repeated units, so that attention falls on the object, the space around it and the viewer’s own movement.
Conceptual artists went a step further and argued that the idea behind a work matters more than the finished object. A piece might take the form of written instructions, a photograph, a map or a set of definitions. Sol LeWitt summed up the position when he wrote that the idea becomes a machine that makes the art.
What defines it
- Simple geometric forms repeated in series
- Industrial materials and factory fabrication
- The concept or instruction treated as the artwork
Works to know
- the nominal three (to William of Ockham)
- One and Three Chairs
- Equivalent VIII
- Untitled (Stack)