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 historian. Biography Born in New York City, Pincus-Witten earned his undergraduate degree at The Cooper Union, in New York City in 1956. He wrote ...

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 post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

. The expression is used specifically in relation to

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

and the

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

, 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 o ...

Visual art

In visual art, postminimalist art uses minimalism either as an aesthetic or conceptual reference point. Postminimalism is more an artistic tendency than a particular movement. Postminimalist artworks are usually everyday objects, use simple materials, and sometimes take on a "pure", formalist aesthetic. However, since postminimalism includes such a diverse and disparate group of artists, it is impossible to enumerate all the continuities and similarities between them. 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 ...

is also postminimalist: it uses "grids" and "seriality", themes often found in minimalism, but is also usually hand-made, introducing a human element into her art, in contrast to the machine or custom-made works of minimalism.

Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, urban, and architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material quality and exploration o ...

is a prominent post-minimalist.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 phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerationsJacques Siron, ...

. Writer

Kyle Gann Kyle Eugene Gann (born November 21, 1955, in Dallas, Texas) is an American professor of music, critic, analyst, and composer who has worked primarily in the New York City area. As a music critic for ''The Village Voice'' (from 1986 to 2005) and ...

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, a pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the cardiac cycle (heartbeat) by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surface of the body, such as at the nec ...

, usually continuing throughout a work or movement; #a

diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize Scale (music), scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, Interval (music), intervals, Chord (music), chords, Musical note, notes, musical sty ...

pitch language, tonal in effect but avoiding traditional

functional tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitch (music), pitches and/or chord (music), chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triad (music), triad ...

; #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-functionn see Sigma additivity * Additive category, a preadditive category with f ...

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 se ...

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 Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy. Cantillation includes: * Chant ...

, and so on). For a musical style derived from minimalism, see

Totalism (music) Totalism is a style of art music that arose in the 1980s and 1990s as a response to minimalism. It paralleled postminimalism but involved a younger generation of creators, born in the 1950s. This term, invented by writer and composer Kyle Gann, ha ...

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
{{Avant-garde 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