Postminimalism

{{short description|Art movement influenced by the aesthetic of minimalism}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2021}} '''Postminimalism''' is an art term coined (as '''post-minimalism''') by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971<ref name="Dictionary">Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 569. {{ISBN|0-19-923966-5}}.</ref> and used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Pincus-Witten|first=Robert|date=November 1971|title=Eva Hesse: Post-Minimalism into Sublime|url=https://www.artforum.com/print/197109/eva-hesse-post-minimalism-into-sublime-37510|access-date=29 May 2021|website=www.artforum.com|language=en-US}}</ref> The expression is used specifically in relation to music and the visual arts, but can refer to any field using minimalism as a critical reference point. In music, postminimalism refers to music following minimal music.

==Visual art== {{See also|List of postminimalist artists}} Postminimalist visual art uses minimalism either as a conceptual art aesthetic or a generative art practice. Like Fluxus, postminimalism is more of an artistic tendency than a particular style, but in general, postminimalist artworks often use everyday objects, simple materials, and sometimes take on a pure formalist aesthetic or post-conceptual approaches. However, since postminimalism includes such a diverse and disparate group of artists, it is impossible to enumerate all the continuities and similarities between them. But as two opposing examples, take the work of Eva Hesse and her use of modern art grids and minimalist seriality that were usually hand-made, introducing a human element into minimalism in contrast to the machine fabrication more typical of the minimalism of someone like Carl Andre. American sculptor Christopher Wilmarth falls within the post-Minimalist movement alongside Eva Hesse and Bruce Nauman. Wilmarth's work eschewed the perfect machine-made aesthetic of the minimalists, yet also resisted the process-oriented excess of much 1970s postminimalist sculpture.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.artforum.com/events/christopher-wilmarth-190658/ |last=Howard |first= Christopher |title= Christopher Wilmarth at Betty Cuningham |date=July 7, 2011 |publisher=Artforum Magazine |volume=42 |number=3 |website=artforum.com |location= |language=en-US |access-date=November 16, 2025}}</ref> Richard Serra was another prominent postminimalist though his large metal sculptures are completely machine made.<ref>Smith, Roberta (14 April 2011). "[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/arts/design/richard-serras-drawings-at-metropolitan-museum-of-art.html?pagewanted=all Richard Serra's Drawings at Metropolitan Museum of Art]", ''NYTimes.com''. Accessed 8 June 2012.</ref>

==Music==

{{See also|List of postminimalist composers}} In its general musical usage, "postminimalism" refers to works influenced by minimal music, and it is generally categorized within the meta-genre art music. Writer Kyle Gann<ref name="Gann2001">Kyle Gann. 2001. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20110604040811/http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=1536 Minimal Music, Maximal Impact: Minimalism's Immediate Legacy: Postminimalism]". ''New Music Box: The Web Magazine from the American Music Center'' (1 November) (Accessed 4 February 2012).</ref> has employed the term more strictly to denote the style that flourished in the 1980s and 1990s and characterized by: #a steady pulse, usually continuing throughout a work or movement; #a diatonic pitch language, tonal in effect but avoiding traditional functional tonality; #general evenness of dynamics, without strong climaxes or nuanced emotionalism; and #unlike minimalism, an avoidance of obvious or linear formal design.

Minimalist procedures such as additive and subtractive process are common in postminimalism, though usually in disguised form, and the style has also shown a capacity for absorbing influences from world and popular music (Balinese gamelan, bluegrass, Jewish cantillation, and so on).

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * [http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=31tp00 Minimal Music, Maximal Impact] by Kyle Gann © 2001 NewMusicBox * [http://www.kylegann.com/postminimaldisc.html A Discography of Postminimal, Totalist, and Rare Minimalist Music] by Kyle Gann * [http://www.minusspace.com/ MINUS SPACE reductive art]

Category:1971 neologisms Category:20th-century classical music Category:Contemporary classical music Category:Contemporary art movements Category:1970s in art Category:1980s in art Category:1990s in art