Postminimalism is an art term coined (as post-minimalism) by

Robert Pincus-Witten Robert Pincus-Witten (April 5, 1935 – January 28, 2018) was an American art critic, curator and Art history, art historian. Biography Born in New York City, Pincus-Witten earned his undergraduate degree at Cooper Union, in New York City in 1956 ...

in 1971Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 569. . and used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of

minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

. The expression is used specifically in relation to

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

and the

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

, but can refer to any field using minimalism as a critical reference point. In music, postminimalism refers to music following

minimal music Minimal music (also called minimalism)"Minimalism in music has been defined as an aesthetic, a style, and a technique, each of which has been a suitable description of the term at certain points in the development of minimal music. However, two ...

Visual art

Postminimalist visual art uses

either as a conceptual art aesthetic or a

generative art Generative art is post-conceptual art that has been created (in whole or in part) with the use of an autonomous system. An ''autonomous system'' in this context is generally one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an ...

practice. Like

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

, 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 aesthetics or

post-conceptual Post-conceptual, postconceptual, post-conceptualism or postconceptualism is an art theory that builds upon the legacy of conceptual art in contemporary art, where the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take some precedence over traditional ...

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 Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...

and her use of

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...

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

of someone like Carl Andre.

Richard Serra Richard Serra (November 2, 1938 – March 26, 2024) was an American artist known for his large-scale Abstract art, abstract sculptures made for Site-specific art, site-specific landscape, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings, a ...

was another prominent postminimalist though his large metal sculptures are completely machine made.Smith, Roberta (14 April 2011).
Richard Serra's Drawings at Metropolitan Museum of Art
, ''NYTimes.com''. Accessed 8 June 2012.

Music

In its general musical usage, "postminimalism" refers to works influenced by

, and it is generally categorized within the meta-genre

art music Art music (alternatively called classical music, cultivated music, serious music, and canonic music) is music considered to be of high culture, high phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerationsJa ...

. Writer

Kyle Gann Kyle Eugene Gann (born November 21, 1955, in Dallas, Texas) is an American composer, professor of music, critic, analyst, and musicologist who has worked primarily in the New York City area. As a music critic for ''The Village Voice'' (from 1986 ...

Kyle Gann. 2001.
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). has employed the term more strictly to denote the style that flourished in the 1980s and 1990s and characterized by: #a steady

pulse In medicine, the pulse refers to the rhythmic pulsations (expansion and contraction) of an artery in response to the cardiac cycle (heartbeat). The pulse may be felt ( palpated) in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surfac ...

, usually continuing throughout a work or movement; #a

diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair ...

pitch language, tonal in effect but avoiding traditional functional tonality; #general evenness of dynamics, without strong climaxes or nuanced emotionalism; and #unlike

, an avoidance of obvious or linear formal design. Minimalist procedures such as

additive Additive may refer to: Mathematics * Additive function, a function in number theory * Additive map, a function that preserves the addition operation * Additive set-function see Sigma additivity * Additive category, a preadditive category with fin ...

and subtractive

process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management * Business process, activities that produce a specific s ...

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

External links

Minimal Music, Maximal Impact
by

© 2001 NewMusicBox
A Discography of Postminimal, Totalist, and Rare Minimalist Music
by Kyle Gann
MINUS SPACE reductive art
{{Western art movements 1971 neologisms 20th-century classical music Contemporary classical music Contemporary art movements 1970s in art 1980s in art 1990s in art

Visual art

Music

See also

References

External links