Idea: Minimalism

I have always loved and tried producing photographs with minimal qualities. Negative space has always been fun to work with as well as limited palettes. Lately, my work is becoming even more minimal and I’m trying to figure out the right amount to include in an image. Too much and there’s unimportant information getting in the way, and too little means the message doesn’t get across. I’m looking for the perfect balance.

Key Quotes

“The organization of the pictorial elements is a challenge. Trying to fill the space without actually filling it. I like to orchestrate the angles and visual elements so that the viewer's eye moves continuously through the work.”

Artist Josh Keyes

http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=385&Itemid=92

“Minimal art is not a negation of past art, or a nihilistic gesture. Indeed, it must be understood that by not doing something one can instead make a fully affirmative gesture, that the minimal artist is engaged in an appraisal of the past and present, and that he frequently finds present aesthetic and sociological behavior both hypocritical and empty.”

Gregory Battcock

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lhMS8Ii73ZkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR14&dq=minimalist+art&ots=NcjivOu-FL&sig=sjQnb5Ihd5W0FFZx83ZMzIE2ecI#v=onepage&q=minimalist%20art&f=false

“The death of minimalism is announced periodically, which may be the surest testimonial to its staying power. The term itself, now common currency, appeared in the mid-sixties but was largely unheard outside of art and avant-garde music circles until the eighties, and no one seems certain how to define it even now.”

Edward Strickland

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=I0F13e62idIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA56&dq=minimalist+art&ots=FHTSeHi8nn&sig=7bTNcVOwBCnf8Fdce8WiDI50Zxo#v=onepage&q=minimalist%20art&f=false

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Meyer, James. “Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties.”  Yale University Press.

2001. Google Scholar. Web. 13 Sept. 2010.  <http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=x3EYlwvRzvwC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&dq=minimalist+art&ots=ofdh8CtWna&sig=LQ1d5Wf5NPGUhtrQ_SINVoLknvg#v=onepage&q=minimalist%20art&f=false>

This article provides a nice overview of minimalism. Meyer says that, “Minimalism is best understood not as a coherent movement but as a practical field.” Minimalism describes various forms of art and design, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features.  It is associated with the late 1960s and early 1970s.  It resisted interpretation and was so bare that many people thought it needed more content and complexity.  Some didn’t even consider it art.

Sol Lewitt states, “Recently there has been much written about minimal art, but I have not discovered anyone who admits to doing this kind of thing. There are other art forms around called primary structures, reductive, rejective, cool, and mini-art. No artist I know will own up to any of these either. Therefore I conclude that it is part of a secret language that art critics use when communicating with each other through the medium of art magazines.”

Mondrian.Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red, 1937-42, oil on canvas, 72.5 x 69 cm

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Name ist Hase- ich weiss von nichts (Rabbit is my Name, and I know about Nothing), 1927, Silver print,  8.4 x 6.6 inches

http://www.artnet.com/artwork/424884626/140972/mein-name-ist-hase--ich-weiss-von-nichts-rabbit-is-my-name-and-i-know-about-nothing.html

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy - The Olly and Dolly Sisters, 1925

http://iamallface.tumblr.com/post/61216327/laszlo-moholy-nagy-the-olly-and-dolly-sisters

Mino Argentino. Oil, Acrylic and Gesso, Grids, Pencil Lines 50" x 50"

http://www.askart.com/askart/artist.aspx?artist=11085918