Five Decades of Minimalism

Van de Weghe is pleased to present an exhibition of works by key figures of Minimalism, spanning nearly 50 years from its beginnings in the 1960s to the 21st Century.  The exhibition includes works by Carl Andre, Jo Baer, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Sol Lewitt, Robert Mangold, Agnes Martin, Richard Serra, and Frank Stella. Often characterized as a reaction to the energetic and emotional exuberance of Abstract Expressionism, the art-historical label of “Minimalism,” is somewhat misleading as it implies that works identified as such similarly share a formal identity and their artists a common understanding. Minimalism, however, is best understood as discourse with artists defining themselves by proximity to and difference from each other.  The exhibition highlights this heterogeneity.

Minimalist painters stressed control and meditative rationalism over and against the Romantic freedom of Expressionism.  Pictorial space was eliminated in favor of an emphasis of the physical reality of paint on canvas.  Coolly planned and executed, Frank Stella’s paintings from the ‘60s helped to define our understanding of what abstract painting could be. Bampur, a striking, shaped canvas from 1965, pushes and pulls the eye over bands of primary color by exposed canvas “grooves.” The staggered shape of the canvas enhances this sense of movement. Robert Mangold’s paintings, too, appear as objects rather than images, comprised of simple elements put together by often complex means. The triptych, Curled Figure IX, 2000, highlights Mangold’s composed execution, its double nautilus perfectly contained on the panels. Agnes Martin, along with Jo Baer, was one of the few recognized female painters of the time.  Martin’s Untitled, circa 1995-1999 is a meditative work of graphite lines on white and cream ground. For Martin, painting was a world without objects.  Notably, she did not think of herself as a Minimalist as she felt her paintings to be a meditative expression of joy through sublime perfection