THE IRONIC EXPLORATION FROM ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM TO MINIMALISM

An art movement in sculpture and painting that began in the 1950s and emphasizedextremesimplification of form and colour. A school of abstract painting and sculpture that emphasizes extreme simplification of form, as by the use of basic shapes and monochromatic palettes of primary colors, objectivity, and anonymity of style. Also called ABC art, minimal art, reductivism, rejective art. The early 1960s brought about a significant shift in American art, largely in reaction to the critical and popular success of the highly personal and expressive painterlygestures of Abstract Expressionism. Minimalist artists produced pared-down three-dimensional objects that have no resemblance to any real objects. Their new vocabulary of simplified, geometric forms made from humble industrial materialschallenged traditional notions of craftsmanship, the illusion of three dimensions, or spatial depth, and the idea that a work of art must be one of a kind.