107-503: Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures. Daniel Nicholas Flavin Jr . was born in Jamaica, New York , of Irish Catholic descent, and was sent to Catholic schools. He was named after his father, D. Nicholas Flavin. Dan Flavin studied for
214-501: A 1971 piece was fully realized in a site-specific installation that filled the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 's entire rotunda on the occasion of the museum's reopening. Flavin generally conceived his sculptures in editions of three or five, but would wait to create individual works until they had been sold to avoid unnecessary production and storage costs. Until the point of sale, his sculptures existed as drawings or exhibition copies. As
321-495: A dedication in parentheses to friends, artists, critics and others: the most famous of these include his Monuments to V. Tatlin , a homage to the Russian constructivist sculptor Vladimir Tatlin , a series of a total of fifty pyramidal wall pieces which he continued to work on between 1964 and 1990. Flavin realized his first full installation piece, greens crossing greens ( to Piet Mondrian who lacked green ), for an exhibition at
428-491: A distinctive style of photography, involving jagged angles and contrasts and abstract use of light, which paralleled the work of László Moholy-Nagy in Germany: The major practitioners of this included, along with Rodchenko, Boris Ignatovich and Max Penson , among others. Kulagina, collaborating with Klutiso, utilised the use of photomontage to create political and personal posters of representative subjects from women in
535-746: A drawing for an icon, not in the temporary exhibition, dedicated to his fraternal twin brother, David John. In the 2011 film Tower Heist , Flavin's estate sent an expert to oversee the construction of a Flavin light installation that was recreated on the set. In 2017, Gallerist Vito Schnabel announced a collaboration with Flavin's estate. Schnabel joined the artist's son, Stephen Flavin, to present Flavin's light sculptures alongside works by European ceramicists admired and collected by Flavin. In 2004, Ridinghouse and Thames & Hudson published It Is What It Is: Dan Flavin Since 1964 , which contains key essays on Flavin and reviews of his exhibitions. It contains
642-458: A fixation on jazz-age America which was characteristic of the philosophy, with its praise of slapstick-comedy actors like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton , as well as of Fordist mass production. Like the photomontages and designs of Constructivism, early Soviet cinema concentrated on creating an agitating effect by montage and 'making strange'. Although originated in Germany, photomontage
749-702: A guard at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Flavin started to make sketches for sculptures that incorporated electric lights. The first works to incorporate electric light were his "Icons" series: eight colored shallow, boxlike square constructions made from various materials such as wood, Formica, or Masonite. Constructed by the artist and his then-wife Sonja, the Icons had fluorescent tubes with incandescent and fluorescent bulbs attached to their sides, and sometimes beveled edges. One of these icons
856-459: A kind of Constructivist flapper dress before her early death in 1924, the plans for which were published in the journal LEF . In these works, Constructivists showed a willingness to involve themselves in fashion and the mass market, which they tried to balance with their Communist beliefs. The Soviet Constructivists organised themselves in the 1920s into the 'Left Front of the Arts', who produced
963-472: A major controversy in the Moscow group in 1920 when Gabo and Pevsner's Realistic Manifesto asserted a spiritual core for the movement. This was opposed to the utilitarian and adaptable version of Constructivism held by Tatlin and Rodchenko. Tatlin's work was immediately hailed by artists in Germany as a revolution in art: a 1920 photograph shows George Grosz and John Heartfield holding a placard saying 'Art
1070-498: A major reference: De Stijl expanded the ideas of expression by meticulously organizing basic elements such as lines and planes. With regard to home design, more attractive "minimalistic" designs are not truly minimalistic because they are larger, and use more expensive building materials and finishes. There are observers who describe the emergence of minimalism as a response to the brashness and chaos of urban life. In Japan, for example, minimalist architecture began to gain traction in
1177-422: A medium. A little later, The Nominal Three (to William of Ockham) (1963) consists of six vertical fluorescent tubes on a wall, one to the left, two in the center, three on the right, all emitting white light. He confined himself to a limited palette (red, blue, green, pink, yellow, ultraviolet, and four different whites) and form (straight two-, four-, six-, and eight-foot tubes, and, beginning in 1972, circles). In
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#17327880576671284-713: A more general sense, minimalism as a visual strategy can be found in the geometric abstractions of painters associated with the Bauhaus movement, in the works of Kazimir Malevich , Piet Mondrian and other artists associated with the De Stijl movement, the Russian Constructivist movement, and in the work of the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși . Minimalism as a formal strategy has been deployed in
1391-548: A more socially oriented group who wanted this art to be absorbed in industrial production. A split occurred in 1922 when Pevsner and Gabo emigrated. The movement then developed along socially utilitarian lines. The productivist majority gained the support of the Proletkult and the magazine LEF, and later became the dominant influence of the architectural group O.S.A. , directed by Alexander Vesnin and Moisei Ginzburg . A number of Constructivists would teach or lecture at
1498-459: A pared-down prose narrative, is a contemporary example of minimalist playwrighting. In his novel The Easy Chain , Evan Dara includes a 60-page section written in the style of musical minimalism, in particular inspired by composer Steve Reich . Intending to represent the psychological state (agitation) of the novel's main character, the section's successive lines of text are built on repetitive and developing phrases. The term "minimal music"
1605-400: A particular genre of Japanese Minimalism, Sejimas delicate, intelligent designs may use white color, thin construction sections and transparent elements to create the phenomenal building type often associated with minimalism. Works include New Museum (2010) New York City, Small House (2000) Tokyo, House surrounded By Plum Trees (2003) Tokyo. In Vitra Conference Pavilion, Weil am Rhein, 1993,
1712-573: A permanent exhibition of his works, designed by the artist in a converted firehouse which had served as an African-American church from 1924 through the mid-’70s. Flavin worked closely with architect Richard Gluckman and Jim Schaeufele, Dia's director of operations, on the renovation and design. Here, Flavin's works are exhibited in "rooms without windows or bearing an indirect relationship to its outside surroundings". The permanent display consists of nine all-fluorescent pieces, six in color and three dedicated to Schaeufele in three shades of white, as well as
1819-691: A result, the artist left behind more than 1,000 unrealized sculptures when he died in 1996. From 1975, Flavin installed permanent works in Europe and the United States, including "Untitled. In memory of Urs Graf" at the Kunstmuseum Basel (conceived 1972, realized 1975); the Kröller-Müller Museum , Otterlo, Netherlands (1977); Hudson River Museum , Yonkers, New York (1979); United States Courthouse, Anchorage, Alaska (1979–89);
1926-566: A simple story with straightforward camera usage and minimal use of score. Paul Schrader named their kind of cinema: "transcendental cinema". In the present, a commitment to minimalist filmmaking can be seen in film movements such as Dogme 95 , mumblecore , and the Romanian New Wave . Abbas Kiarostami , Elia Suleiman , and Kelly Reichardt are also considered minimalist filmmakers. The Minimalists – Joshua Fields Millburn, Ryan Nicodemus, and Matt D'Avella – directed and produced
2033-464: A specific movement of artists that emerged in New York in the early 1960s in response to abstract expressionism . Examples of artists working in painting that are associated with Minimalism include Nassos Daphnis , Frank Stella , Kenneth Noland , Al Held , Ellsworth Kelly , Robert Ryman and others; those working in sculpture include Donald Judd , Dan Flavin , David Smith , Anthony Caro and more. Minimalism in painting can be characterized by
2140-614: A term in Gabo's Realistic Manifesto of 1920. Aleksei Gan used the word as the title of his book Constructivism , printed in 1922. Constructivism as theory and practice was derived largely from a series of debates at the Institute of Artistic Culture (INKhUK) in Moscow, from 1920 to 1922. After deposing its first chairman, Wassily Kandinsky , for his 'mysticism', The First Working Group of Constructivists (including Liubov Popova , Alexander Vesnin , Rodchenko , Varvara Stepanova , and
2247-477: Is Dead – Long Live Tatlin's Machine Art', while the designs for the tower were published in Bruno Taut 's magazine Frühlicht . The tower was never built, however, due to a lack of money following the revolution. Tatlin's tower started a period of exchange of ideas between Moscow and Berlin, something reinforced by El Lissitzky and Ilya Ehrenburg 's Soviet-German magazine Veshch-Gegenstand-Objet which spread
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#17327880576672354-716: Is also sometimes associated with the briefest of poetic genres, haiku , which originated in Japan, but has been domesticated in English literature by poets such as Nick Virgilio , Raymond Roseliep , and George Swede . The Irish writer Samuel Beckett is well known for his minimalist plays and prose, as is the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse . Dimitris Lyacos 's With the People from the Bridge , combining elliptical monologues with
2461-641: Is dedicated to a local gallerist and his wife. It is green and yellow; a gap (the width of a single "missing" fixture) reveals the cast glow of the color from beyond the divide. In subsequent barred corridors, Flavin would introduce regular spacing between the individual fixtures, thereby increasing the visibility of the light and allowing the colors to mix. By 1968, Flavin had developed his sculptures into room-size environments of light. That year, he outlined an entire gallery in ultraviolet light at Documenta 4 in Kassel , Germany. In 1992, Flavin's original conception for
2568-472: Is invisible and aids the search for the essence of those invisible qualities—such as natural light, sky, earth, and air. In addition, they "open a dialogue" with the surrounding environment to decide the most essential materials for the construction and create relationships between buildings and sites. In minimalist architecture, design elements strive to convey the message of simplicity. The basic geometric forms, elements without decoration, simple materials and
2675-448: Is irrelevant, and its status as a work of art remains even when unseen. The Donald Judd 's pieces (see the photo on the right), on the other hand, are just objects sitting in the desert sun waiting for a visitor to discover them and accept them as art. The term minimalism is also used to describe a trend in design and architecture , wherein the subject is reduced to its necessary elements. Minimalist architectural designers focus on
2782-556: Is one of many examples of photomontage that utilises photo collage to create a multi-layer composition. This brought forth the Constuctor's artistic vision and technique of utilising 2D space with limited technology. However Constructivist montages would be less 'destructive' than those of Dadaism. Perhaps the most famous of these montages was Rodchenko's illustrations of the Mayakovsky poem About This . LEF also helped popularise
2889-428: Is shaped by the minimal geometric forms to avoid decoration that is not essential. Literary minimalism is characterized by an economy with words and a focus on surface description. Minimalist writers eschew adverbs and prefer allowing context to dictate meaning. Readers are expected to take an active role in creating the story, to "choose sides" based on oblique hints and innuendo, rather than react to directions from
2996-636: The Bauhaus schools in Germany, and some of the VKhUTEMAS teaching methods were adopted and developed there. Gabo established a version of Constructivism in England during the 1930s and 1940s that was adopted by architects, designers and artists after World War I (see Victor Pasmore ), and John McHale . Joaquín Torres García and Manuel Rendón were instrumental in spreading Constructivism throughout Europe and Latin America. Constructivism had an effect on
3103-532: The Bolsheviks and the Russian avant-garde . Constructivist architecture and art had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th century, influencing major trends such as the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements. Its influence was widespread, with major effects upon architecture, sculpture , graphic design , industrial design , theatre, film, dance, fashion and, to some extent, music. Constructivism
3210-563: The Dia Art Foundation ( Dan Flavin. 1933-96 ). In 2006, Dia Art Foundation , along with the National Gallery of Art , organised a comprehensive exhibition named Dan Flavin: A Retrospective. It brought together more than 50 of Flavin's artworks. In the late 1970s, he began a partnership with the Dia Art Foundation that resulted in the making of several permanent site-specific installations and led most recently to
3317-743: The Grand Central Station in New York (1976), Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (1996), and the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas (2000). His large-scale work in colored fluorescent light for six buildings at the Chinati Foundation was initiated in the early 1980s, although the final plans were not completed until 1996. His last artwork was a site-specific work at Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa , Milan. The 1930s church
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3424-612: The Green Gallery in 1964. Two years later, his first European show opened at Rudolf Zwirner 's gallery in Cologne , Germany. Favin's first major museum exhibition was held in 1967 at the Museum Of Contemporary Art, Chicago , where Jan van der Marck served as director. The first major retrospective of Flavin's work was organized by Brydon Smith at the National Gallery of Canada , Ottawa in 1969. In 1973,
3531-847: The Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts and studied art under Albert Urban. He later studied art history for a short time at the New School for Social Research , then moved on to Columbia University , where he studied painting and drawing. From 1959, Flavin was briefly employed as a mail room clerk at the Guggenheim Museum and later as guard and elevator operator at the Museum of Modern Art , where he met Sol LeWitt , Lucy Lippard , and Robert Ryman . In 1961, he married his first wife Sonja Severdija, an art history student at New York University and assistant office manager at
3638-583: The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. However, the roots of minimal music are older. In France, Yves Klein allegedly conceived his Monotone Symphony (formally The Monotone-Silence Symphony ) between 1947 or 1949 (but premiered only in 1960), a work that consisted of a single 20-minute sustained chord followed by a 20-minute silence. In film, minimalism usually is associated with filmmakers such as Robert Bresson , Chantal Akerman , Carl Theodor Dreyer , and Yasujirō Ozu . Their films typically tell
3745-513: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art , Los Angeles. This exhibition was the first comprehensive retrospective devoted to his minimalist work. The exhibition included nearly 45 light works, including his "icons" series. The MCA's presentation included the re-creation of the alternating pink and "gold" room from the original MCA exhibition in 1967, Flavin's first solo museum exhibition. In 1964, Flavin received an award from
3852-406: The National Gallery of Canada , Ottawa; Fariha Friedrich, a Dia Art Foundation trustee; and Michael Venezia, an artist. Flavin's first works were drawings and paintings that reflected the influence of Abstract Expressionism . In 1959, he began to make assemblages and mixed media collages that included found objects from the streets, especially crushed cans. In the summer of 1961, while working as
3959-720: The New York School during the 1940s and 1950s. Dissatisfied with the intuitive and spontaneous qualities of Action Painting , and Abstract Expressionism more broadly, Minimalism as an art movement asserted that a work of art should not refer to anything other than itself and should omit any extra-visual association. Donald Judd's work was showcased in 1964 at Green Gallery in Manhattan, as were Flavin's first fluorescent light works, while other leading Manhattan galleries like Leo Castelli Gallery and Pace Gallery also began to showcase artists focused on minimalist ideas. In
4066-771: The Saint Louis Art Museum presented concurrent exhibitions of his works on paper and fluorescent sculptures. Among Flavin's many significant one-person exhibitions in Europe were shows at the Kunstmuseum Basel and Kunsthalle Basel (1975), the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden (1989), and the Städel , Frankfurt (1993). His first solo exhibition in Latin America was held at Fundación Proa , Buenos Aires, in 1998, organized with
4173-714: The Stenberg brothers . Later the definition would be extended to designs for two-dimensional works such as books or posters, with montage and factography becoming important concepts. As much as involving itself in designs for industry, the Constructivists worked on public festivals and street designs for the post-October revolution Bolshevik government. Perhaps the most famous of these was in Vitebsk , where Malevich's UNOVIS Group painted propaganda plaques and buildings (the best known being El Lissitzky 's poster Beat
4280-615: The Van Abbemuseum , Eindhoven, Netherlands, in 1966. In 1968 the Heiner Friedrich Gallery in Munich exhibited the light installation "Two primary series and one secondary", presented in three exhibition rooms, which Flavin developed especially for the gallery. The collector Karl Ströher purchased the installation in the same year. Peter Iden , founding director of the Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt acquired
4387-575: The deconstruction literary approach). It was developed by architects Zaha Hadid , Rem Koolhaas and others during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Zaha Hadid by her sketches and drawings of abstract triangles and rectangles evokes the aesthetic of constructivism. Though similar formally, the socialist political connotations of Russian constructivism are deemphasized by Hadid's deconstructivism. Rem Koolhaas' projects revive another aspect of constructivism. The scaffold and crane -like structures represented by many constructivist architects are used for
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4494-886: The metafiction trend of the 1960s and early 1970s ( John Barth , Robert Coover , and William H. Gass ). These writers were also sparse with prose and kept a psychological distance from their subject matter. Minimalist writers, or those who are identified with minimalism during certain periods of their writing careers, include the following: Raymond Carver , Ann Beattie , Bret Easton Ellis , Charles Bukowski , K. J. Stevens , Amy Hempel , Bobbie Ann Mason , Tobias Wolff , Grace Paley , Sandra Cisneros , Mary Robison , Frederick Barthelme , Richard Ford , Patrick Holland , Cormac McCarthy , David Leavitt and Alicia Erian . American poets such as William Carlos Williams , early Ezra Pound , Robert Creeley , Robert Grenier , and Aram Saroyan are sometimes identified with their minimalist style. The term "minimalism"
4601-462: The 1980s when its cities experienced rapid expansion and booming population. The design was considered an antidote to the "overpowering presence of traffic, advertising, jumbled building scales, and imposing roadways." The chaotic environment was not only driven by urbanization, industrialization, and technology but also the Japanese experience of constantly having to demolish structures on account of
4708-695: The Japanese traditional spirit and his own perception of nature in his works. His design concepts are materials, pure geometry and nature. He normally uses concrete or natural wood and basic structural form to achieve austerity and rays of light in space. He also sets up dialogue between the site and nature to create relationship and order with the buildings. Ando's works and the translation of Japanese aesthetic principles are highly influential on Japanese architecture. Another Japanese minimalist architect, Kazuyo Sejima , works on her own and in conjunction with Ryue Nishizawa , as SANAA , producing iconic Japanese Minimalist buildings. Credited with creating and influencing
4815-585: The Museum of Modern Art. The couple had one son, Stephen Flavin. The first marriage ended in divorce by 1979. Flavin's twin brother, David, died in 1962. Flavin married his second wife, the artist Tracy Harris , in a ceremony at the Guggenheim Museum , in 1992. Flavin died in Riverhead, New York , of complications from diabetes . A memorial for him was held at Dia Art Foundation on January 23, 1997. Speakers included Brydon Smith, curator of 20th-century art at
4922-625: The Russian Constructivists: the INKhUK debates of 1920–22 had culminated in the theory of Productivism propounded by Osip Brik and others, which demanded direct participation in industry and the end of easel painting. Tatlin was one of the first to attempt to transfer his talents to industrial production, with his designs for an economical stove, for workers' overalls and for furniture. The Utopian element in Constructivism
5029-745: The Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany (1989); the lobby of the MetroTech Center (with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill ), Brooklyn, New York (1992); seven lampposts outside the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich (1994); Hypovereinsbank , Munich (1995); Institut Arbeit und Technik/Wissenschaftspark, Gelsenkirchen, Germany (1996); and the Union Bank of Switzerland, Bern (1996). Additional sites for Flavin's architectural "interventions" were
5136-801: The Stenberg brothers. These ideas would influence German directors like Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator , as well as the early Soviet cinema. The key work of Constructivism was Vladimir Tatlin's proposal for the Monument to the Third International (Tatlin's Tower) (1919–20) which combined a machine aesthetic with dynamic components celebrating technology such as searchlights and projection screens. Gabo publicly criticised Tatlin's design saying, "Either create functional houses and bridges or create pure art, not both." This had already caused
5243-516: The US. The Constructivists' main early political patron was Leon Trotsky , and it began to be regarded with suspicion after the expulsion of Trotsky and the Left Opposition in 1927–28. The Communist Party would gradually favour realist art during the course of the 1920s (as early as 1918 Pravda had complained that government funds were being used to buy works by untried artists). However it
5350-699: The Whites with the Red Wedge (1919)). Inspired by Vladimir Mayakovsky 's declaration 'the streets our brushes, the squares our palettes', artists and designers participated in public life during the Civil War. A striking instance was the proposed festival for the Comintern congress in 1921 by Alexander Vesnin and Liubov Popova, which resembled the constructions of the OBMOKhU exhibition as well as their work for
5457-795: The William and Norma Copley Foundation, Chicago, with a recommendation from Marcel Duchamp . In 1973, he was named Albert Dorne Visiting Professor at the University of Bridgeport , Connecticut, and in 1976, he was given the Skowhegan Medal of Sculpture from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture , Maine. In 1983, the Dia Center for the Arts opened the Dan Flavin Art Institute in Bridgehampton, New York ,
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#17327880576675564-487: The absence of unnecessary features, treasures a life in quietness and aims to reveal the innate character of materials. For example, the Japanese floral art of ikebana has the central principle of letting the flower express itself. People cut off the branches, leaves and blossoms from the plants and only retain the essential part of the plant. This conveys the idea of essential quality and innate character in nature. The Japanese minimalist architect Tadao Ando conveys
5671-490: The buyer received a certificate containing a diagram of the work, its title and the artist's signature and stamp. If someone showed up with a certificate and a damaged fixture, Flavin would replace it. The highest price by one of his artworks in the art market was reached when Alternate Diagonals of March 2, 1964 (to Don Judd) (1964) was sold at Sotheby's New York , on 14 May 2014, by $ 3.770.000. Minimalism In visual arts , music and other media, minimalism in
5778-426: The concepts are to bring together the relationships between building, human movement, site and nature . Which as one main point of minimalism ideology that establish dialogue between the building and site. The building uses the simple forms of circle and rectangle to contrast the filled and void space of the interior and nature. In the foyer, there is a large landscape window that looks out to the exterior. This achieves
5885-580: The connection between two perfect planes, elegant lighting, and the void spaces left by the removal of three-dimensional shapes in an architectural design. Minimalist architecture became popular in the late 1980s in London and New York, whereby architects and fashion designers worked together in the boutiques to achieve simplicity, using white elements, cold lighting, and large spaces with minimal furniture and few decorative elements. Minimalistic design has been highly influenced by Japanese traditional design and architecture . The works of De Stijl artists are
5992-497: The decades that followed, he continued to use fluorescent structures to explore color, light and sculptural space, in works that filled gallery interiors. He started to reject studio production in favor of site-specific "situations" or "proposals" (as the artist preferred to classify his work). These structures cast both light and an eerily colored shade, while taking a variety of forms, including "corner pieces", "barriers," and "corridors". Most of Flavin's works were untitled, followed by
6099-548: The design for the space. The artist's studio completed the work. Dia Bridgehampton , a museum in Bridgehampton , New York opened in 1983 as the Dan Flavin Art Institute. It is run by the Dia Art Foundation and houses nine fluorescent light works by Flavin on permanent display in a gallery designed for them. in 1975 Dia installed Untitled (In memory of Urs Graf) at Kunstmuseum Basel as its first permanent installation. Living in Wainscott and Garrison , Flavin often drew
6206-419: The design. The considerations for 'essences' are light, form, detail of material, space, place, and human condition. Minimalist architects not only consider the physical qualities of the building. They consider the spiritual dimension and the invisible, by listening to the figure and paying attention to details, people, space, nature, and materials, believing this reveals the abstract quality of something that
6313-487: The destruction wrought by World War II and the earthquakes, including the calamities it entails such as fire. The minimalist design philosophy did not arrive in Japan by way of another country, as it was already part of the Japanese culture rooted on the Zen philosophy. There are those who specifically attribute the design movement to Japan's spirituality and view of nature. Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) adopted
6420-707: The early twenties. Through their collaboration with Otto Neurath and the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum such artists as Gerd Arntz , Augustin Tschinkel and Peter Alma affected the development of the Vienna Method . This link was most clearly shown in A bis Z , a journal published by Franz Seiwert , the principal theorist of the group. They were active in Russia working with IZOSTAT and Tschinkel worked with Ladislav Sutnar before he emigrated to
6527-408: The easel painting and traditional narratives that elements of the Communist Party were trying to revive then. Important Constructivists were very involved with cinema, with Mayakovsky acting in the film The Young Lady and the Hooligan (1919), Rodchenko's designs for the intertitles and animated sequences of Dziga Vertov 's Kino Eye (1924), and Aleksandra Ekster designs for the sets and costumes of
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#17327880576676634-436: The engineer's goal of "Doing more with less", but his concerns were oriented toward technology and engineering rather than aesthetics. The concept of minimalist architecture is to strip everything down to its essential quality and achieve simplicity. The idea is not completely without ornamentation, but that all parts, details, and joinery are considered as reduced to a stage where no one can remove anything further to improve
6741-436: The essentiality from the considered setting of a few stones and a huge empty space. The Japanese aesthetic principle of Ma refers to empty or open space. It removes all the unnecessary internal walls and opens up the space. The emptiness of spatial arrangement reduces everything down to the most essential quality. The Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi values the quality of simple and plain objects. It appreciates
6848-404: The film Minimalism: A Documentary , which showcased the idea of minimal living in the modern world. Breaking from the complex, hearty dishes established as orthodox haute cuisine , nouvelle cuisine was a culinary movement that consciously drew from minimalism and conceptualism . It emphasized more basic flavors, careful presentation , and a less involved preparation process. The movement
6955-413: The former represented best by the brightly coloured, geometric posters of the Stenberg brothers (Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg), and the latter by the agitational photomontage work of Gustav Klutsis and Valentina Kulagina . In Cologne in the late 1920s Figurative Constructivism emerged from the Cologne Progressives , a group which had links with Russian Constructivists, particularly Lissitzky, since
7062-549: The graphics are "fit for the Museum of Modern Art or the Getty ." Constructivism (art) Constructivism is an early twentieth-century art movement founded in 1915 by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko . Abstract and austere, constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space. The movement rejected decorative stylization in favour of the industrial assemblage of materials. Constructivists were in favour of art for propaganda and social purposes, and were associated with Soviet socialism ,
7169-407: The idea of 'Construction art', as did the Constructivist exhibits at the 1922 Russische Ausstellung in Berlin, organised by Lissitzky. A Constructivist International was formed, which met with Dadaists and De Stijl artists in Germany in 1922. Participants in this short-lived international included Lissitzky, Hans Richter , and László Moholy-Nagy . However the idea of 'art' was becoming anathema to
7276-445: The influence of constructivism. In the 1980s graphic designer Neville Brody used styles based on Constructivist posters that initiated a revival of popular interest. Also during the 1980s designer Ian Anderson founded The Designers Republic , a successful and influential design company which used constructivist principles. So-called Deconstructivist architecture shares elements of approach with Constructivism (its name refers more to
7383-421: The influential journal LEF , (which had two series, from 1923 to 1925 and from 1927 to 1929 as New LEF ). LEF was dedicated to maintaining the avant-garde against the critiques of the incipient Socialist Realism , and the possibility of a capitalist restoration, with the journal being particularly scathing about the 'NEPmen', the capitalists of the period. For LEF the new medium of cinema was more important than
7490-402: The installation together with 86 other works from the former Ströher Collection for the Frankfurt Museum. After a first presentation in 1989, it was shown in various exhibitions at the museum between 1999 and 2002. Flavin himself examined the installation in Frankfurt in February 1993 and then adapted his installation concept for the museum. Flavin's "corridors", for example, control and impede
7597-453: The interpretation of the stripes without us even thinking about it". Warming stripe graphics resemble color field paintings in stripping out all distractions, such as actual data, and using only color to convey meaning. Color field pioneer artist Barnett Newman said he was "creating images whose reality is self-evident", an ethos that Hawkins is said to have applied to the problem of climate change and leading one commentator to remark that
7704-453: The minimalist architecture in the 19th century. Zen concepts of simplicity transmit the ideas of freedom and essence of living. Simplicity is not only aesthetic value, it has a moral perception that looks into the nature of truth and reveals the inner qualities and essence of materials and objects. For example, the sand garden in Ryōan-ji temple demonstrates the concepts of simplicity and
7811-429: The minimalist artists literalists , and used literalism as a pejorative due to his position that the art should deliver transcendental experience with metaphors , symbolism , and stylization . Per Fried's (controversial) view, the literalist art needs a spectator to validate it as art: an "object in a situation" only becomes art in the eyes of an observer. For example, for a regular sculpture its physical location
7918-491: The modern masters of Latin America such as: Carlos Mérida , Enrique Tábara , Aníbal Villacís , Édgar Negret , Theo Constanté , Oswaldo Viteri , Estuardo Maldonado , Luis Molinari , Carlos Catasse , João Batista Vilanova Artigas and Oscar Niemeyer , to name just a few. There have also been disciples in Australia, the painter George Johnson being the best known. In New Zealand, the sculptures of Peter Nicholls show
8025-700: The modern sense was an art movement that began in the post-war era in Western art, and it is most strongly associated with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Donald Judd , Agnes Martin , Dan Flavin , Carl Andre , Robert Morris , Anne Truitt and Frank Stella . The movement is often interpreted as a reaction against abstract expressionism and modernism ; it anticipated contemporary post-minimal art practices, which extend or reflect on minimalism's original objectives. Minimalism in music often features repetition and gradual variation, such as
8132-419: The motto "Less is more" to describe his aesthetic. His tactic was one of arranging the necessary components of a building to create an impression of extreme simplicity—he enlisted every element and detail to serve multiple visual and functional purposes; for example, designing a floor to also serve as the radiator, or a massive fireplace to also house the bathroom. Designer Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) adopted
8239-457: The movement of the viewer through gallery space. They take various forms: some are bisected by two back-to-back rows of abutted fixtures, a divider that may be approached from either side but not penetrated (the color of the lamps differs from one side to the other). The first such corridor, untitled (to Jan and Ron Greenberg) , was constructed for a 1973 solo exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum , and
8346-627: The new social demands and industrial tasks required of the new regime. Two distinct threads emerged, the first was encapsulated in Antoine Pevsner's and Naum Gabo's Realist manifesto which was concerned with space and rhythm, the second represented a struggle within the Commissariat for Enlightenment between those who argued for pure art and the Productivists such as Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova and Vladimir Tatlin,
8453-425: The organization of the traveling exhibition, Dan Flavin: A Retrospective (2004–2007). Flavin's retrospective exhibition traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago ; the National Gallery of Art , Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Modern Art, Fort Worth, Texas; Hayward Gallery , London; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris , Paris; Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen , Pinakothek der Moderne , Munich; and
8560-530: The paintings of Barnett Newman , Ad Reinhardt , Josef Albers , and the works of artists as diverse as Pablo Picasso , Yayoi Kusama , Giorgio Morandi , and others. Yves Klein had painted monochromes as early as 1949, and held the first private exhibition of this work in 1950—but his first public showing was the publication of the Artist's book Yves: Peintures in November 1954. Michael Fried called
8667-729: The perception toward space, surface, and volume. Moreover, he likes to use natural materials because of their aliveness, sense of depth and quality of an individual. He is also attracted by the important influences from Japanese Zen Philosophy. Calvin Klein Madison Avenue, New York , 1995–96, is a boutique that conveys Calvin Klein's ideas of fashion. John Pawson's interior design concepts for this project are to create simple, peaceful and orderly spatial arrangements. He used stone floors and white walls to achieve simplicity and harmony for space. He also emphasises reduction and eliminates
8774-743: The priesthood at the Immaculate Conception Preparatory Seminary in Brooklyn between 1947 and 1952 before leaving to join his twin brother, David John Flavin, and enlist in the United States Air Force . During military service in 1954–55, Flavin was trained as an air weather meteorological technician and studied art through the adult extension program of the University of Maryland in Korea. Upon his return to New York in 1956, Flavin briefly attended
8881-515: The repetitions of structures represent a sense of order and essential quality. The movement of natural light in buildings reveals simple and clean spaces. In the late 19th century as the arts and crafts movement became popular in Britain, people valued the attitude of 'truth to materials' with respect to the profound and innate characteristics of materials. Minimalist architects humbly 'listen to figure,' seeking essence and simplicity by rediscovering
8988-596: The science fiction film Aelita (1924). The Productivist theorists Osip Brik and Sergei Tretyakov also wrote screenplays and intertitles, for films such as Vsevolod Pudovkin 's Storm over Asia (1928) or Victor Turin's Turksib (1929). The filmmakers and LEF contributors Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein as well as the documentarist Esfir Shub also regarded their fast-cut, montage style of filmmaking as Constructivist. The early Eccentrist movies of Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg ( The New Babylon , Alone ) had similarly avant-garde intentions, as well as
9095-440: The simple and silence of architecture and enhances the light, wind, time and nature in space. John Pawson is a British minimalist architect; his design concepts are soul, light, and order. He believes that though reduced clutter and simplification of the interior to a point that gets beyond the idea of essential quality, there is a sense of clarity and richness of simplicity instead of emptiness. The materials in his design reveal
9202-615: The situation calls for them. The modern idea of a capsule wardrobe dates back to the 1970s, and is credited to London boutique owner Susie Faux. The concept was further popularized in the next decade by American fashion designer Donna Karan , who designed a seminal collection of capsule workwear pieces in 1985. To portray global warming to non-scientists, in 2018 British climate scientist Ed Hawkins developed warming stripes graphics that are deliberately devoid of scientific or technical indicia, for ease of understanding by non-scientists. Hawkins explained that "our visual system will do
9309-731: The surrounding landscape, whether it was the Hudson Valley or the waters off Long Island. He also created small portraits and kept about 20 volumes of journals. Flavin collected drawings too, including works by Hudson River School artists like John Frederick Kensett , Jasper Francis Cropsey , and Sanford Robinson Gifford , along with examples of works on paper by early-19th-century Japanese artists like Hokusai and 20th-century European masters like Piet Mondrian and George Grosz . Flavin also exchanged works with Minimalist colleagues like Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt . Flavin's first one-person exhibition using only fluorescent light opened at
9416-417: The theatre'. Meyerhold developed a 'biomechanical' acting style, which was influenced both by the circus and by the 'scientific management' theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor . Meanwhile, the stage sets by the likes of Vesnin, Popova and Stepanova tested Constructivist spatial ideas in a public form. A more populist version of this was developed by Alexander Tairov , with stage sets by Aleksandra Ekster and
9523-517: The theatre. There was a great deal of overlap during this period between Constructivism and Proletkult , the ideas of which concerning the need to create an entirely new culture struck a chord with the Constructivists. In addition some Constructivists were heavily involved in the 'ROSTA Windows', a Bolshevik public information campaign of around 1920. Some of the most famous of these were by the poet-painter Vladimir Mayakovsky and Vladimir Lebedev . The constructivists tried to create works that would make
9630-482: The theorists Aleksei Gan , Boris Arvatov and Osip Brik ) would develop a definition of Constructivism as the combination of faktura : the particular material properties of an object, and tektonika , its spatial presence. Initially the Constructivists worked on three-dimensional constructions as a means of participating in industry: the OBMOKhU (Society of Young Artists) exhibition showed these three dimensional compositions, by Rodchenko, Stepanova, Karl Ioganson and
9737-450: The use of the hard edge , linear lines, simple forms, and an emphasis on two dimensions. Minimalism in sculpture can be characterized by very simple geometric shapes often made of industrial materials like plastic, metal, aluminum, concrete, and fiberglass; these materials are usually left raw or painted a solid colour. Minimalism was in part a reaction against the painterly subjectivity of Abstract Expressionism that had been dominant in
9844-404: The valuable qualities in simple and common materials. The idea of simplicity appears in many cultures, especially the Japanese traditional culture of Zen Buddhist philosophy. Japanese manipulate the Zen culture into aesthetic and design elements for their buildings. This idea of architecture has influenced Western society, especially in America since the mid 18th century. Moreover, it inspired
9951-538: The viewer an active viewer of the artwork. In this it had similarities with the Russian Formalists ' theory of 'making strange', and accordingly their main theorist Viktor Shklovsky worked closely with the Constructivists, as did other formalists like the Arch Bishop. These theories were tested in theatre, particularly with the work of Vsevolod Meyerhold , who had established what he called 'October in
10058-429: The visual distortions, such as the air conditioning and lamps, to achieve a sense of purity for the interior. Alberto Campo Baeza is a Spanish architect and describes his work as essential architecture. He values the concepts of light, idea and space. Light is essential and achieves the relationship between inhabitants and the building. Ideas are to meet the function and context of space, forms, and construction. Space
10165-502: The workforce to satirise the humour of the local government. This also shared many characteristics with the early documentary movement. The book designs of Rodchenko, El Lissitzky and others such as Solomon Telingater and Anton Lavinsky were a major inspiration for the work of radical designers in the West, particularly Jan Tschichold . Many Constructivists worked on the design of posters for everything from cinema to political propaganda:
10272-588: The works of La Monte Young , Terry Riley , Steve Reich , Philip Glass , Julius Eastman and John Adams . The term has also been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett , the films of Robert Bresson , the stories of Raymond Carver , and the automobile designs of Colin Chapman . In recent years, Minimalism has come to refer to anything or anyone that is spare or stripped to its essentials. Minimalism in visual art, sometimes called "minimal art", "literalist art" and "ABC Art", refers to
10379-556: The writer. Austrian architect and theorist Adolf Loos published early writings about minimalism in Ornament and Crime . The precursors to literary minimalism are famous novelists Stephen Crane and Ernest Hemingway . Some 1940s-era crime fiction of writers such as James M. Cain and Jim Thompson adopted a stripped-down, matter-of-fact prose style to considerable effect; some classify this prose style as minimalism. Another strand of literary minimalism arose in response to
10486-461: The writing of critics and historians such as Donald Judd , Dore Ashton, Rosalind Krauss , Lawrence Alloway, Germano Celant, Holland Cotter. In 2010, artists Cindy Hinant and Nicolas Guagnini created the book FLAV , with primary archival texts and correspondence by and about Dan Flavin. Each of the more than 750 light sculptures that Dan Flavin designed - usually in editions of three or five - were listed on index cards and filed away. When one sold,
10593-442: Was a popular art form for Constructivists to create visually striking art and a method to convey change; " ". The Constructivists were early developers of the techniques of photomontage . Gustav Klutsis' 'Dynamic City' and 'Lenin and Electrification' (1919–20) are the first examples of this method of montage, which had in common with Dadaism the collaging together of news photographs and painted sections. Lissitzky's 'The Constructor'
10700-471: Was a post-World War I development of Russian Futurism , and particularly of the 'counter reliefs' of Vladimir Tatlin , which had been exhibited in 1915. The term itself was invented by the sculptors Antoine Pevsner and Naum Gabo , who developed an industrial, angular style of work, while its geometric abstraction owed something to the Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich. Constructivism first appears as
10807-466: Was dedicated to Flavin's twin brother David, who died of polio in 1962. The Diagonal of Personal Ecstasy (the Diagonal of May 25, 1963) , a yellow fluorescent placed on a wall at a 45-degree angle from the floor and completed in 1963, was Flavin's first mature work; it is dedicated to Constantin Brâncuși and marks the beginning of Flavin's exclusive use of commercially available fluorescent light as
10914-515: Was derived around 1970 by Michael Nyman from the concept of minimalism, which was earlier applied to the visual arts . More precisely, it was in a 1968 review in The Spectator that Nyman first used the term, to describe a ten-minute piano composition by the Danish composer Henning Christiansen , along with several other unnamed pieces played by Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik at
11021-531: Was designed by Giovanni Muzio . The design for the piece was completed two days before Flavin's death on November 29, 1996. Its installation was completed one year later with the assistance of the Dia Center for the Arts and Fondazione Prada . The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas states that in 1990 Dominique de Menil approached Flavin to create a permanent, site-specific installation at Richmond Hall. Two days before his death in November 1996 Flavin completed
11128-636: Was intended to create a reaction, and function emotionally – most were designed for the state-owned department store Mosselprom in Moscow, for pacifiers, cooking oil, beer and other quotidian products, with Mayakovsky claiming that his 'nowhere else but Mosselprom' verse was one of the best he ever wrote. Additionally, several artists tried to work with clothes design with varying success: Varvara Stepanova designed dresses with bright, geometric patterns that were mass-produced, although workers' overalls by Tatlin and Rodchenko never achieved this and remained prototypes. The painter and designer Lyubov Popova designed
11235-561: Was mainly in vogue during the 1960s and 1970s, after which it once again gave way to more traditional haute cuisine , retroactively titled cuisine classique . However, the influence of nouvelle cuisine can still be felt through the techniques it introduced. The capsule wardrobe is an example of minimalism in fashion . Constructed of only a few staple pieces that do not go out of style, and generally dominated by only one or two colors, capsule wardrobes are meant to be light, flexible and adaptable, and can be paired with seasonal pieces when
11342-815: Was maintained by his 'letatlin', a flying machine which he worked on until the 1930s. In 1921, the New Economic Policy was established in the Soviet Union, which opened up more market opportunities in the Soviet economy. Rodchenko , Stepanova , and others made advertising for the co-operatives that were now in competition with other commercial businesses. The poet-artist Vladimir Mayakovsky and Rodchenko worked together and called themselves " advertising constructors ". Together they designed eye-catching images featuring bright colours, geometric shapes, and bold lettering. The lettering of most of these designs
11449-578: Was not until about 1934 that the counter-doctrine of Socialist Realism was instituted in Constructivism's place. Many Constructivists continued to produce avant-garde work in the service of the state, such as Lissitzky, Rodchenko and Stepanova's designs for the magazine USSR in Construction . Constructivist architecture emerged from the wider constructivist art movement. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 , it turned its attentions to
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