DOMINICAN COLLEGE OF TARLAC

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Module in Arts and Creativity

Minimal Art
Grade 12: Contemporary Arts

Prepared by:
Paula Marie M. Aldana
BSED – English 2 A

Submitted to:
Dr. Dalisay V. Rigor
Instructor
Module Overview
Minimal Art is a school of abstract painting and sculpture where any kind of personal
expression is kept to a minimum, in order to give the work a completely literal
presence. The resulting work is characterized by extreme simplicity of form and a
deliberate lack of expressive content (source). The central principle is that not the
artist’s expression, but the medium and materials of the work are its reality (source).
In other words: a work of art should not refer to anything other than itself (source). As
minimalist painter Frank Stella once said: “What you see is what you see” (source).
Minimal Art emerged as a trend in the late 1950s and flourished particularly in the
1960s and 1970s (source). It is also referred to as ABC art, literal art (source), literalism
(source), reductivism, and rejective art (source).

I. Learning Tasks

Students will be able to:

1. Allow the viewer an immediate, purely visual response.

2. Experience all the more strongly the pure qualities of colour, form, space and
materials.
3. Sought to de-mystify art, to reveal its most fundamental character.

II. Linking Question

1. What is minimal art?
2. Why is minimalist art important?
3. What influenced minimalism?
4. What does minimalism mean in art?
5. What is the most important element found in minimal art?
 III. Skills Enhancer

I think writing is a way to explain, educate, inform, and entertain one’s natural, social
behavior, professional and personal point of view or philosophy or expertise to the specific
or broad audience by using words and appropriate vocabulary in a systematic method and
flow. And people called it writing skill. When you write, your brain uses every part of your
memory and cells. The past memories, knowledge, lessons, pains, incidents, success and
failures, the present situation and future possibilities, everything comes out in the writing.
It will increase knowledge, improve memory, make you sharp and increase your creativity
and imagination. And these are things that are helpful to be successful in career and
business.

IV. Lesson Topic

Title: Contemporary Arts: Minimal Art

Through much of the 1950s, the dominant art movement in the United States was
Abstract Expressionism. The expressionist artists’ seek to express their personal
emotions through their art. A highly popular branch of Abstract Expressionism was
called Action Painting. This was a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously
dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas (source).

In the early 1960’s, a new movement emerged; Minimal Art. The Minimalists felt that
Action Painting (and as such, Abstract Expressionism) was too personal, pretentious
and insubstantial. They rejected the idea that art should reflect the personal
expression of its creator (source). Instead, they adopted the point of view that a work
of art should not refer to anything other than itself (source). Their goal was to make
their works totally objective, unexpressive, and non-referential.

One of the first painters to be specifically linked with Minimalism was (the former
Abstract Expressionist) Frank Stella. Stella’s instantly acclaimed minimalist Black
Paintings (1958-1960), in which regular bands of black paint were separated by very
thin pinstripes of unpainted canvas (source), contrasted the emotional canvases of
Abstract Expressionism (source). The most prominent theorists were Donald Judd,
who wrote the manifesto-like essay “Specific Objects” in 1964 (download) and Robert
Morris, who wrote the three part essay “Notes on Sculpture 1-3” in 1966 (download).
A historic moment for the art movement was the group exhibit “Primary Structures”,
held in 1966 at the Jewish Museum in New York. Amongst others, it featured work of
Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, and Tony Smith
(source) and really put Minimal Art as a name on the map.

Origins and History

Minimalism derives from the minimal geometric forms of the Suprematist painter Kasimir
Malevich (1878-1935), exemplified in works like Black Circle (1913, State Russian
Museum, St Petersburg), and the "ready-mades" of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). Later
pioneers included the Bauhaus/ Black Mountain College teacher Josef Albers (1888-1976),
noted for his Homage to the Square series, and Ad Reinhardt (1913-67) who finally
gravitated to all-black paintings in the late 1950s. As it was, the emergence of Minimalism
was as much a reaction against the emotionalism of Abstract Expressionism as a
culmination of a particular aesthetic. One of the first abstract painters to be specifically
linked with Minimalism was the Abstract Expressionist Frank Stella (b.1936), whose black
"pin-stripe" paintings made a huge impact at the 1959 art show ("16 Americans") staged
by Dorothy Miller at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Stella's minimalist works
(hard-edge painting) - following in the footsteps of earlier works by Kenneth
Noland, Robert Motherwell, Ralph Humphrey, and Robert Ryman - were in sharp contrast
to the emotional, energy-filled paintings by Abstract Expressionists Willem de Kooning
(1904-97) or Franz Kline (1910-62). Another influence on the development of minimalist
painting was Ed Ruscha (b.1937). (See also: Post-Painterly Abstraction.)

Late 20th Century Types of Minimal Art

Just when you thought it was safe, along comes two more buzzwords to do with
Minimalism. Are they important? Are they worth studying? You decide. Frankly, I'm all
done with minimal art. It all sounds rather interesting but in the flesh it can be a major
disappointment. (Mind you, so can Picasso!)
 Neo-Minimalism

Neo-minimalism is a rather vaguely defined art

style/movement of the late 20th, early 21st centuries,
in painting, sculpture, architecture, design, and
music. It is sometimes referred to as "neo-geo", "Neo-
Conceptualism", "Neo-Futurism", "New
Abstraction", "Poptometry", "Post-Abstractionism",
"Simulationism", and "Smart Art". Contemporary
artists who are supposedly associated with the term, include David Burdeny, Catharine
Burgess, Marjan Eggermont, Paul Kuhn, Eve Leader, Tanya Rusnak, Laurel Smith,
Christopher Willard, and Time Zuck.

Post-minimalism

Post-Minimalism describes attempts to go beyond the

idiom of minimalism,in architecture or the visual arts. In
simple terms, 1960s minimalism is a rather intellectual
style of art characterized by extreme simplicity of form
and a deliberate lack of expressive content. Minimalist
artists were only interested in presenting a pure "idea". In
Post-Minimalism (1971 onwards), the focus shifts from
the purity of the idea, to how it is conveyed.

Post-minimalism is associated with the following contemporary artists: Tom Friedman,

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Eva Hesse, Matthew Kandegas, Anish Kapoor, Wolfgang Laib,
Joseph Nechvatal, Damian Ortega, Martin Puryear, Charles Ray, Joel Shapiro, Keith
Sonnier, Cecil Touchon, Richard Tuttle, Richard Wentworth, Rachel Whiteread and
Hannah Wilke, among others.
 V. Follow-up Activity

Let’s Draw!

Materials needed:

1. Pencil

2. Paper

3. Ruler

The students will have to express their selves through drawing. Minimalism
should be shown in it.

The students will be given time to think and create their own artwork. Their
works will be graded according to the following criteria:

Assessment Rubric

Student Name: Class Period:

Activity: Date Completed:

Circle the number

in pencil that best
shows how well Needs Rate
Excellen Goo Averag Teacher’
you feel that you Improveme Yoursel
t d e s Rating
completed that nt f
criterion for the
activity.

Criteria 1 –
10 9–8 7 6 or less
Originality

Criteria 2 –
Minimalism was
10 9–8 7 6 or less
shown in the
artwork
Criteria 3 – Effort:
took time to
develop idea &
complete project? 10 9–8 7 6 or less
(Didn’t rush.)
Good use of class
time?

Criteria 4 –
Craftsmanship –
Neat, clean &
10 9–8 7 6 or less
complete? Skillful
use of the art tools
& media?

Total: Your Teacher

40 Total Total
x 2 = 80 Grade
(possibl :
e
points)
 VII. References

http://understandingminimalism.com/introduction-to-minimal-art/

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/minimalism.htm

https://www.decoist.com/2014-06-12/minimalist-art-ideas/

https://www.incredibleart.org/files/Rubric.htm