minimal art

American  

Or Minimal Art

noun

1. a chiefly American style in painting and sculpture that developed in the 1960s largely in reaction against abstract expressionism, shunning illusion, decorativeness, and emotional subjectivity in favor of impersonality, simplification of form, and the use of often massive, industrially produced materials for sculpture, and extended its influence to architecture, design, dance, theater, and music.

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minimal art British  

noun

1. abstract painting or sculpture in which expressiveness and illusion are minimized by the use of simple geometric shapes, flat colour, and arrangements of ordinary objects

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Other Word Forms

• minimal artist noun

Etymology

Origin of minimal art

First recorded in 1965

Example Sentences

The ’70s and ’80s New York art world: The art world, when we arrived in the late ’70s, was very much about conceptual art, minimal art.

From Los Angeles Times • May 24, 2023

“They were remarkable for being so rich, luscious and sumptuous — everything you should not have been doing at a time when conceptual art and minimal art were in vogue,” Mr. Stevens said.

From New York Times • Dec. 23, 2022

“Winged Victory” contains a hot-blue mini version of the Louvre’s Hellenistic masterpiece and a hot-pink tripwire that echoes the minimal art of Fred Sandback.

From New York Times • Jun. 8, 2017

Of the 79 lots on offer, more than half came from the highly credible but hitherto uncommercial collection of Gerhard and Anna Lenz, who have concentrated on a branch of apocalyptically minimal art called “Zero”.

From Economist • Feb. 17, 2010

Today he is billed as one of the most significant "new" sculptors, a vigorous exponent of cool geometry known variously as "primary structures" or "minimal art."

From Time Magazine Archive