Less is More
-Mies Van Der Rohe, 1886
Before you begin reading the blog, do search for Minimalism on YouTube. Without realising, you will feel relaxed. Thank me later. Happy reading!
Okay, confusing title enough. One must wonder why Minimalism will be discussed under the ambit of the Modern Age since the movement started in New York during the 1950s and later flourished during the 60s and the 70s. There is a significant importance to which this should be discussed because Modernism heralded Minimalism in many ways.
The history of Minimalism in art movement can be traced back to Frank Stella, who describes his serialised paintings Black Paintings exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1959 as “What you see is what you see.” Stella painted this famous artwork without devising a plan for what to draw and how to. He had just moved into his new apartment in New York. He worked as a painter to meet both ends. Gradually, he started painting on massive canvases by drawing neat concentric lines. The whole painting was painted in black enamel house paint with a basic brush. Unlike his predecessors, the picture was devoid of splashes of colours and crammed-up images.
Now, why is Minimalism being discussed here, which historically falls under Postmodernism? The Minimalist movement lies on the hinges of Modernism and Postmodernism, since it is challenging to categorise literary events into water-tight compartments. It directly responds to Abstract Expressionist, Surrealist, and Cubist paintings, which aimed at painting human experiences. It focused mainly on the author’s subjectivity, and the canvas looked crowded and deeply in need of decluttering. That is when Stella comes into the picture with his neat, sharp-edged, equally spaced geometric paintings with minimal colour, which received a lot of critical disapproval from the artists of his age due to its radical shift from maximum to minimum. They subverted the conventional idea that art should necessarily be meaning giver, instead meaning associating, and that simplicity can be the criteria for art and not necessarily be gaudy.
The Minimalist movement drew inspiration from painters of the Modern Age like Marcel Duchamp’s [Champ(ion) of Conceptual Art] Readymades, which redefined what art meant to him. He separated traditional norms surrounding art, thereby releasing it from the desires of the meaning assigned by the artist and also making art universal. Also, from Kazimir Malevich, a Russian Avant-garde painter, whose painting Black Square completed in 1915 traces its roots back to Minimalist paintings.
Paraphrasing Stella again to demarcate the difference, what one sees in any form of art, here, the painting, is what it is. The meaning-making and meaning interpretations are left to the text’s readers. It is even possible to not have or attach any meaning at all. After all, the author and the artwork are distinctly set apart from influencing each other.
Minimalism in the Modern Age was seen not only in paintings but also in the works of authors and poets. The major Minimalists of the Modern Age were Stephen Crane (A Man Said to the Universe) and William Carlos Williams (Red Wheelbarrow). It cannot be said that they were exclusively literary minimalists. They were the early harbingers of the movement. Minimalist works focus on creating reality rather than on the concept of external objective reality. There is no objective Truth and a stable referent; instead, the pieces were self-referential and not personal. It is as if Stella manifested the Minimalist features present in the nascent embryonic stage in their writings. Hence, Minimalism gave visual appeal and decluttered Abstract Expressionist paintings. The psychology behind the colour palette and geometrical shapes was visual decluttering instead of overcrowding and suffocation, which was present in abstract expressionism. They cluttered the oeuvre of Modern paintings, objects, writings, architecture, and interiors which previously valued aesthetics before it got fully manifested in Post Modern Age.
Minimalism then pervaded all other areas, from visual art and music to later on becoming a lifestyle. With Consumerism, there was a dire need to stop the people of The United States of America from getting mad over epitomizing the ‘American dream.’ Minimalism was followed by Postminimalism, Process Art, Land Art, Maximalism, and so on; gradually, it was forgotten by the Post Modernists. Fast forward to the contemporary age with the publication of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo; the term got its hype back, and everyone started following it. There is even a series streaming on Netflix titled Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.
Today Minimalism has acquired a different meaning. It is the conscious cutting down of material possessions focusing on the most important things one needs in their life. The current motto, “Absence is enough,” which favors spaciousness and good mental peace. It aimed at a cost-effective, space-effective, and visually pleasing lifestyle. But in the recent years, a shift in the disposition towards approaching Minimalism emerged. Minimalism is becoming the status quo of contemporary society. Due to the decline in Consumerism, forced Minimalism is put on a higher pedestal. It pushed people into intentional Minimalism.
The theory of Minimalism has been made flexible by making product designs minimal and “cute,” hence tricking the consumers into buying things. The irony in today’s Minimalism is that it has become a part of our lives and, in a way, makes us feel better and drives us to buy more stuff. It has shifted from mindful Minimalism to mindless Minimalism. Japanese Minimalist companies like Fujifilm and the Chinese company, Miniso, (which follow Japanese Minimalism) speak for their selling strategy, which is producing Minimalist goods and not the products. Therefore, it tempts people into buying even more unnecessary things just by its aesthetic appeal. The product of such companies are humans, and the idea they sell is the theory of proto-Minimalism. It is being commoditized, and minimal things are becoming even more expensive!
Can’t minimalism be just minimizing the quantity of everything rather than setting another plethora of standards to be minimalistic and minimal? With that question open to discussion, I would like to give a contemporary instance of a mindless Minimalist.
And that is Ramani from the Malayalam movie CID Moosa, paranoid as to what all material possessions she should take while they are evacuating during an earthquake, while her son is seen forgotten by the mother, unattended in the background!
So How did you perceive Minimalism before and after reading this write-up? Did it alter your perspectives? Is Minimalism an aesthetic style to you or a technique? Let us have a conversation in the comments section.
Thanks for staying till the end.
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