Minimalism

Minimalism is one of the key movements in post-war art. Having emerged in America in the 1960s, it has had an enormous influence on artists, designers, architects, musicians and others, from its inception to the present day. The work of the artists most associated with Minimalism, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt and Robert Morris, bears certain hallmarks: it is three-dimensional, serial, factory-produced (or looks that way), and is often modular. While perhaps best exemplified through its objects, the paintings of artists such as Frank Stella, Robert Ryman, Robert Mangold, Agnes Martin and Brice Marden also use the forms of Minimalism. Critic and art historian James Meyer, a leading authority on Minimalism, examines it from inception to its broader cultural influence. The excellent selection of images illustrate the surprising variety in the work, and also relate it to other artists such as Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson. Including seminal texts, previously unpublished material and documents from little-known or out-of-print catalogues, this is the most comprehensive sourcebook available on this fundamental moment in twentieth-century art history.Themes and Movements This exciting series situates the work of individual artists in the bigger picture of late twentieth-century art. The uninitiated reader and the scholar alike need look no further to understand the prevailing art tendencies of our time. The development of modern and contemporary art has been dominated by fundamental, revolutionary movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Conceptual or Minimal art, and recurring themes such as the artist`s relation to the body and the environment, and questions of gender and identity. The Themes and Movements series is the first fully to document late twentieth-century art by combining expert narrative, key works and original documents. As exhaustive as a full-scale museum overview, it presents many of the most significant works of art associated with a particular tendency. The series also offers direct access to the voice of the artist and to primary texts and documents by critics, historians, curators, philosophers and theorists. A unique archive of the innovations, discourses and controversies that have shaped art today, each book features a comprehensive survey by a distinguished scholar. Each title features an introductory essay charting the genealogy of the theme or movement, 250 color plates presenting the most significant works of art -including rarely published installation shots and preliminary drawings- an anthology of documents including artist statements, interviews, manifestos, project notes reviews and articles by key critics, parallel texts from other cultural, philosophical and literary sources biographies of all artists and authors, and a comprehensive bibliography and index.