I have always been fascinated by minimalist sculptures. Because, unlike a painting or photograph, a sculpture can be viewed from all angles. The way light, shadow, and perspective play with it can change the whole appearance and perception of it.
But what makes a minimalist sculpture aesthetic? Is it defined by rules? And how do artists manage to say so much with so little?
As usual, I do not want to focus only on the minimalist art movement, but on all those that have a minimalist aesthetic, that is, those that express as much as possible with as little as possible.
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A brief historical exploration
Sculptures played an important role in human life for thousands of years. In the beginning, they were mainly female figures and animal motifs, but over time they were used as representations and objects of worship for gods, people, and ideals of perfection.
However, this changed in the 20th century. It was a time of new ideas and styles, and Auguste Rodin was a key figure in this movement. His sculptures with their many broken surfaces ushered in a new era of sculpture. He broke away from the traditional ways of sculpting and explored new methods of representation.
Even artists like Pablo Picasso, who was not necessarily known for his sculptures, created hundreds of sculptures between 1909 and 1930 – and became a great inspiration for Futurists, Dadaists, and Constructivists with his abstract and reduced works.
Constantin Brâncuși strove for absolute simplicity in form. He is known above all for his ability to reduce the meaning of a work to its essence. He and his work was a great influence and inspiration for a lot of artists like Sérgio de Camargo, Hans Steinbrenner, Isamu Noguchi, and more.
©Lisson Gallery under Fair Use
© Ordovas, London under Fair Use
All these artists were experimenting with new ways to represent the world around them, and they began to simplify their work. This trend continued with artists like Hans Arp, Jacques Lipchitz, Piet Mondrian, and Wassily Kandinsky, who were interested in exploring the relationship between form and color.
In the 1950s, more and more artists started to experiment with minimalist and reduced forms. Artists like Donald Judd and Carl Andre wanted their art to look like everyday objects instead of traditional sculptures.
They used shapes and materials that would usually be found in factories. By putting their art on the floor instead of on a pedestal, they were trying to show that their art was different from other kinds of art. The meaning of their works comes from how the viewer interacts with them, not from the art itself. So the space where the art was located was also important.
The aesthetic of their minimalist sculptures reached its height in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1966, the Jewish Museum in New York City hosted an exhibition called “Primary Structures.” The exhibition was one of the first to really showcase the power and potential of minimalism in the art world.
The exhibition featured a number of young, up-and-coming artists. Their work was simple, often made of industrial materials, to create art that was both visually arresting and deeply conceptual. For many viewers, the exhibition was a revelation, and it helped to shape the way that we think about art today.
In the 1970s, there was a surge in public art that garnered national attention for minimalist sculptors like Isamu Noguchi. Government agencies at the state and local levels created public sculpture parks that were particularly supportive of minimalist sculpture.
Richard Serra for example wanted to continue developing the work of the “old fathers of minimalism” in his own way; his goal was to expand minimalism so that the preferred material could develop a new formal language. Many of his minimalist sculptures can still be seen today in public spaces.
But the movement emerged not only in America and Europe but also in Asia. In Japan and Korea, Mono-ha (literally meaning “School of Things”) emerged. Artists like Nobuo Sekine and Lee Ufan, explored the encounter between natural and industrial materials, arranging them in mostly unaltered, ephemeral states¹ and placed, as Melussa Chiu (director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden) so beautifully put it, “great emphasis on the authenticity of materials, a response to space, minimalist but not minimalist.“²
© Nobuo Sekine, Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo. Photo: Joshua White, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo under Fair Use
©INFGM under Fair Use
Final thoughts
What made minimalist sculptures so fascinating but also controversial at the time was that they required a new definition. They were to be defined not by what they were, but by what they were not. They were merely aesthetic objects, existing in a three-dimensional space.
Nowadays more and more artists, as well as designers, are merging definitions and rules to create works that are both functional and sculptural. Moving away from the time when artists were interested in presenting a pure “idea” without any expressive content. Today, it is important to aesthetically enhance the space with sculpture.
In a world where we are constantly bombarded with images and stimuli, it can be refreshing to view a piece of art that is minimal in both form and content. By stripping away the unnecessary, minimalist sculptures force us to focus on the essentials, leading to a more profound appreciation of the beauty of simplicity.
If you’re as fascinated by the topic as I am, feel free to check out all articles on Aesence with the tag -> sculpture. And if you like my column on minimalist art and design and haven’t signed up for my monthly newsletter yet, now is the perfect time to do. You’ll receive all editorials and inspiration straight to your inbox!
© Photo by Van Ham, used under Fair Use.
Further reading/sources
¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono-ha
² https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-minimalist-sculpture-good
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpture
About Exploring Aesthetics:
Sarah loves asking questions and exploring the things she engages with on a daily basis. Exploring aesthetics is her column which discusses art, design, and aesthetics to explore, inspire, and question the status quo.
