Asian philosophies, including Zen Buddhism, have had a profound influence on Minimalist artists in the East and the West. Both of the artworks displayed at the entrance of the exhibition at Level 3 of ArtScience Museum relate to one of the sacred symbols within Japanese Zen, an ink circle known as an ensō. In Zen, the ensō symbolizes enlightenment and strength but also the nothingness of the Void (or mu).

+ and – by Mona Hatoum (1994–2004)

Steel, aluminum, sand and electric motor, 27 x 420 x 420 cm

General Purchase Funds, 2007, Collection of Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Mona Hatoum’s circular sculpture at the centre of the gallery takes inspiration from Japanese Zen gardens. Building on an earlier artwork from 1979, + and – mechanizes the process of creation and destruction. It contains over 750kg of sand, and rotates at a rate of five revolutions per minute. The repeated sweeping movements and hypnotic sound evoke both absence and presence, existence and non-existence. 

Enso by teamLab (2017)

Digital work, 18 min 30 sec (loop)

Courtesy of Ikkan Art International, Singapore

Japanese collective teamLab have brought the ensō into the 21st century with a digital version that glides into existence before slowly dissolving into nothingness.  In the Buddhist tradition monks were often taught this style of ink painting as a type of meditative practice. When the mind is still the monk takes up a brush and, in a single stroke, attempts to paint a perfect circle – the ensō.  Whilst perfection is almost impossible to achieve, this artistic expression of zero, or nothingness, stimulates deep contemplation. 

Whilst Minimalism is often referred to as a movement within Western modern art which began in the 1960s, its roots can be traced to spiritual and philosophical ideas from Asia.

In 1915, the Russian artist, Kazimir Malevich created perhaps the first truly Minimalist artwork. His landmark painting, Black Square consisted of a 79.5cm x 79.5cm black square on a white background. That sparse and seemingly simple painting revolutionized modern art, showing that the simplest gestures can create the most profound impact, and that the absence of form is sometimes more powerful than presence.

Black Square arose from Malevich’s interest in Eastern philosophies. The link between American Minimalism and Eastern spirituality can be traced to the Japanese scholar, D.T. Suzuki's public lectures on Zen Buddhism in New York in the 1950s. Attended by artists who went on to influence Minimalism, they raised the profile of Zen teaching for a generation of artists.

Throughout this exhibition we explore Minimalism as seen in Zen, Chinese Maximalism and contemporary art from Asia, as a counterpoint to the analytic geometry of much Western Minimalist art.

Artist in this gallery: Zhang Yu

Ink Feeding 20150506 by Zhang Yu (2018)

Plexiglas, Xuan paper, ink and water, 80 x 80 x 50 cm

The trajectories of Western art and traditional Chinese ink painting converge in the work of Zhang Yu. His sculpture displayed here is a point of confluence between Western Minimalism and Chinese Maximalism, a more Eastern approach to art-making that emerges from Zen and Taoist culture.

Using both traditional and everyday materials, Zhang’s experimental ink paintings and sculptures often evolve over time. In this work, he stacks thousands of sheets of rice paper in a clear acrylic box, then in a performative action, slowly pours in ink from a large kettle. The ink is slowly absorbed by the paper, and the process is repeated until eventually the work is transformed into a black cube – one of the most iconic symbols of the Western minimalist aesthetic.

The work is one of many artworks by Zhang that refer to Buddhism. He notes, “Zen, Buddhist or Taoist practice […] is a road in the most profound way to the human heart. At the end of this road, there is a kind of wisdom we are looking for, and to achieve wisdom, we […] need calmness, simplicity and clarity.”

At the high point of Minimalism in America in the 1950s and 1960s art critics and curators established a set of rules that they then applied in order to determine if something could be considered Minimalist or not. The use of simple geometric forms, basic materials, a limited colour palette and repetition were all important factors.

Repeated elements, such as identical sculptural objects, were often placed directly onto the floor, without the need for plinths or showcases.  As shown in this gallery, the use of repetition could be found in other mediums, such as printmaking and photography where the artist explores simple shapes, volumes and lines.  Repetition could be found in performance too, with dancers abandoning traditional technique to concentrate on repeated natural movements that they developed into a unique movement vocabulary.

Artists in this gallery: Simone Forti, Anna Halprin, Joan Jonas, Donald Judd, Tan Ping, Yvonne Rainer, Wang Jian

Untitled (Six Boxes) by Donald Judd (1974)

Collection of National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, © Judd Foundation/ARS. Copyright Agency, 2018

Brass
Installation: 101.6 x 736.6 x 101.6 cm;

Donald Judd is of the most important artists of American Minimalism. His work epitomises Minimalism in terms of the use of bare materials, simple forms and repetition.  This sculpture, one of Judd’s most important works, is composed of six identical brass boxes spaced precisely 15 cm apart. By using repeated simple forms, the artist creates a visual rhythm in the gallery and encourages viewers to walk past and around the object. The slightly reflective surface of the sculpture shows a shadow of the body as the viewer walks by and hints at the space in which the sculpture sits. Having abandoned the need for a plinth, the work modifies the architecture in which it is positioned and challenges visitors to consider the sculpture in relation the gallery space.

Several other sculptures by Judd are on view at National Gallery of Singapore.

60 x 60 by Tan Ping (2010)

10 editions, Courtesy of the artist

Woodcuts on paper
14 pieces, 60 x 60 cm (each); 6 pieces, 60 x 120 cm (each); 2 pieces, 60 x 180 cm (each)

Tan Ping is one of the leading figures in Chinese Maximalism.  Like many Chinese Maximalist artists, he often takes a deeply spiritual approach to art-making.  Whilst making the woodcut prints on show in this gallery, Tan Ping recorded feeling as though he was walking in fathomless water, that the black areas in the composition were not merely a plane but a deep space. He felt there was an infinity existing between the black plane and the white lines carved into it referencing nothingness and the ‘void’ — both themes that are repeated throughout this exhibition.18.

Various by Wang Jian (2009)

Number 1 in an edition of 3 plus 1 artist’s proof, Courtesy of the artist and PIFO Gallery, Beijing

Giclée print on archival paper
30 x 22.5 cm

The abstract and minimal artwork of contemporary artist, Wang Jian draws from Eastern philosophies, Chinese Maximalism, and Western influences.  Echoing the repetition apparent in Minimalist art from the 1960s, he takes hundreds of photographs as he goes about his daily life.  The unassuming beauty of simple actions and the everyday are his inspiration.  His photographs capture moments in time such as a shadow, the way that light spills from a window onto a smooth wall, the curve of someone’s neck as it falls to the shoulder or a bare window in the side of a blank wall.  Wang Jian’s recurring ritual of photographing his daily life produces seemingly simple images that articulate the sublime in the mundane. 

Minimalist Performance

Trio A by Yvonne Rainer (1966/1978)

As well as being a trend in visual art, Minimalism had a deep impact on the performing arts, including music and dance. In the 1960s, several dancers began employing pared back approaches, abandoning traditional dance techniques. Minimalist dance pioneers such as Anna Halprin, Yvonne Rainer, and Simone Forti reacted against the established forms of dance at the time, best represented by choreographer, Martha Graham. Her style was technical, expressive and narrative - all things that Minimalist dancers would go on to reject. Instead they developed an approach to dance that focused on basic, often naturalistic movements. Many important dance works of the 1960s were staged at Judson Dance Theater, established by Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown and others in 1962. It became a highly influential space that served that as a testing ground for the development of Minimalist dance, and a forum for the work of many famous artists including Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Morris and Andy Warhol.

The works on view are:
- Trio A by Yvonne Rainer (1966/1978)

- Wind by Joan Jonas (1968)

- Solo No. 1 by Simone Forti (1974)

- Excerpt on Anna Halprin from the documentary, Artists in Exile: A Story of Modern Dance in San Francisco by Austin Forbord and Shelley Trott (2000)

The choice of materials was extremely important in determining if a work of art could be defined as Minimalist. Many artists chose natural, easily available or organic materials, sometimes creating works outdoors or bringing elements of the environment into the gallery.  Many of these environmental or land artworks did not survive for long, their temporary, ephemeral nature adding to the minimalist aesthetic. 

Other artists chose industrial materials such as plaster, glass, metal and household bricks, often working with factories to fabricate each piece.  The materials they used were not trying to represent something else, or to tell a story.  Whatever material was used, it was simply that.  A rock was simply a rock, a pre-fabricated cube was purely a cube. As American Minimalist painter Frank Stella said in 1964, “What you see is what you see.”

Artists in this gallery: Jeppe Hein, Richard Long, Mary Miss, Zhou Hong Bin

Battery Park Landfill by Mary Miss (1973)

Courtesy of the artist

BC-prints on paper
3 photographs, 52.5 x 80 cm (each)

Mary Miss has been creating striking sculptural and architectural interventions into public space since the 1960s. A contemporary of Donald Judd, Miss had significantly fewer opportunities to show her work in museums or galleries. Instead she chose to create large outdoor sculptures that were intended to give the viewer an experience of space.  In her work, Battery Park Landfill, Miss uses her materials to highlight something inherently intangible - a column of air.  One of the few large open spaces in New York in the 1970s, was a landfill site that was later to become Battery Park City. Miss used this location to construct five billboard-like structures spaced approximately 15 metres apart. Each structure had a circle neatly cut within it, each one set at decreasing heights. The three photographs in this gallery show that from a particular angle, the structures appear to be directing a column of air towards the ground.

Also on view is:
- Portable Window (1968)

Ring of Stones by Richard Long (1982)

Stone Installation: 1068 cm (diameter); 258 stones

Since the 1960s, British artist Richard Long has been at the forefront of Land Art, pioneering a form of practice centred around long walks in natural landscapes. This monumental sculpture is an example of his involvement with the landscape, evoking the natural cycles and rhythms of the wilderness. Comprised of 258 stones arranged in four concentric circles, it echoes the circular forms seen in other areas of this exhibition.

Ring of Stones is one of the largest examples of many stone circles Long has created in remote natural landscapes and in the gallery, beginning with Circle in the Andes in 1972, which is on view at National Gallery of Singapore. Using materials such as slate, stone, wood, even pine needles, his circles can be found in landscapes as diverse as the Sahara, Ecuador, Mongolia and Ireland. Long describes his work as a “balance between the patterns of nature and the formalism of human, abstract ideas like lines and circles. It is where my human characteristics meet the natural forces and patterns of the world”.

Purchased 1993 with funds from the International Exhibitions Programme, Collection of Queensland Art Gallery

Also on view are the photographic works:
- Tsunami Coastline Walk (2013)
- A Bend in the River, China (2010)

Moving Neon Cube by Jeppe Hein (2004)

Collection of ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Denmark

Neon tubes and transformer, 70 x 250 x 250 cm

Taking inspiration from the cubic geometries of the sculptures of Robert Morris and Donald Judd as well as the conceptual work of Sol Le Wit, Jeppe Hein’s sculpture is a playful, ironic yet meaningful reinterpretation of the static forms of the Minimalists of the 1960s and 1970s. In a darkened space a series of cubes — a form that has come to epitomise Minimalism — is made from neon lights that switch on an off in sequence and, as a result, appear to roll around the floor. The complex materials and electronics as well as the spectacle of the sculpture’s ‘performance’ seem to contradict Minimalist aesthetics while simultaneously representing the most iconic Minimalist form — the cube.

Still • Life (Various) by Zhou Hong Bin (2015)

Courtesy of the artist

C-print on Dibond, 90 x 90 cm (each)

One of the often cited criteria for a work of art to be considered Minimalist is the use of simple geometric, repeated forms as seen in the sculptures of Donald Judd for example, or in the abstract paintings of Carmen Hererra. Zhou’s starting point for these ghostly photographs was the construction of small plaster sculptures ranging from simple spheres and columns to more complex forms, which she then went on to photograph. Once the photograph was taken Zhou destroyed the original sculptures. The only record that remains of her minimalist works are in the form of a thin layer of ink on a digitally reproduced photograph. These works convey a sense of weight, or solidity, yet they are transient images that capture a fleeting moment in time. The short-lived objects these photographs document seem strangely contradictory to the permanence of the photographic images themselves.

In Asia, Minimalism as an artistic style can be traced back hundreds of years before it came to prominence in the West.  At its root is an ancient Sanskrit text known as the Rig Veda.  Parts of this text reference abstract concept Absence and Endlessness s such as nothingness, endlessness and the Void – ideas that have fascinated and challenged artists and scientists for centuries.

Eastern philosophies, particularly Zen Buddhism, were brought to greater attention in the West in the early 20th century, partly through the teaching of Japanese scholar, D.T. Suzuki. These ideas fascinated many of the artists who would go on to become important figures in Minimalism and in art history. Notions of spirituality, temporality and the cycles of life continue to underpin the work of many contemporary Asian artists today, including those associated with Chinese Maximalism. 

Artists in this gallery: Song Dong, Tan Ping, Charwei Tsai

+40m by Tan Ping (2012)

Woodblock print on paper, 20 x 4000 cm

This 40m long print of a line by Chinese artist Tan Ping acts as a visual and conceptual centerpiece of the Minimalism exhibition at ArtScience Museum. The line was carved into a block of wood in one continuous gesture by the artist over a period of six hours. While one end of the line can be seen the other cannot, suggesting both endlessness and formlessness. The work epitomises Minimalist aesthetics, but also carries with it an incredible emotional power, rooted in the spiritual approach of Chinese Maximalism. 

Whilst creating the line, Tan was fully immersed in the carving process and wrote that “all of my energy, experience, my understanding of art, and my internal struggles, all are sealed by the pivotal moment the knife collides with the panel”. 

A Pot of Boiling Water by Song Dong (1995)

Courtesy of the artist and Pace Gallery

12 parts, 33.3 × 50 cm (each)

Chinese contemporary artist, Song Dong creates performances, sculptures and installations that reflect on notions of impermanence and transience. The series of black and white images on view are documentation of a live action. They show the artist walking along a Beijing alleyway while pouring boiling water from a large kettle. The poured water marks a line on the ground, while the steam rising from it leaves a trail in the air. The steam dissipates quickly while the water evaporates slowly, eventually leaving no trace of the artist’s action.

The simplicity of the action and the fact that nothing remains after the performance, gestures to Minimalism and the pared down, natural movement styles seen in the work of dance-artists Anna Halprin and Simon Forti.  It also calls to mind the work of Zhang Yu, on view in the first gallery of the exhibition.

Circle by Charwei Tsai (2009)

Commissioned by Fondation Cartier, Paris; Sound: Morning October 2008 by Hayato Aoki
Purchased 2010 with funds from the Bequest of Grace Davies and Nell Davies through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation, Collection of Queensland Art Gallery

Video, single channel, 4:3 format, colour and sound (stereo), 40 sec (loop)

Taipei-based artist, Charwei Tsai, creates highly personal, often politically engaged performative artworks.  In the work, Circle, she takes the ensō, or ink circle, as a starting point, echoing the circular structures created by several artists in the exhibition. Tsai paints one smooth brushstroke on the surface of a block of ice. As the surface of the ice melts the ink painting slowly expands and washes away, eventually leaving no trace. The video is looped so the whole process appears to repeat itself endlessly. The ensō — a symbol of the universe and the void, or mu — can be read as a metaphor for the transience of human existence, where things are created and slowly pass, only to begin again.

Minimalism also had a profound influence on music. Sometimes austere and terse, other times expansive and mind-altering, Minimalist music aims to strip away all non-essential elements revealing the essence of sound. 

The history of minimalist music can be traced back to the late 1800s, however, it was the radical experiments of American composer John Cage that showed that silence can also be part of music. Minimalist music came to prominence in parallel to Minimalist visual art that emerged in the 1960s.  If Donald Judd and Frank Stella can be thought of as key proponents of ‘High Minimalism’ in the visual arts, then their musical equivalents are Terry Riley and Steve Reich. 

Their compositions can be heard in the Sound Room – a listening space – as part of a programme of work by 40 composers and musicians.

Artists in this gallery: 40 composers including: Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, LaMonte Young, Tony Conrad, Èliane Radigue, John Cage, Erik Satie, Johanna Beyer, Daphne Oram; Ryoji Ikeda, Alva Noto Jana Wilderen.

The Sound Room

Minimalism within music is based on the idea that there is virtue in getting back to basics, in paring back, and revealing the essence of a sound, or even the absence of sound. It is music made with limited or minimal musical materials that holds that simplicity can be beautiful, and can reveal its own unexpected complexity. Sometimes austere and terse, at other times expansive and mind-altering, Minimalist music is characterized by steady pulses, gradual transformation, syncopated rhythmic loops, gliding drones, and the repetition of musical phrases. 

The Sound Room charts the course of the development of Minimalist music, from the avant-garde modernizers of early 20th century music, to Minimalist innovators such as Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, who worked alongside their visual art counterparts in the “High Minimalist" period of the 1960s and 1970s, to a new wave of Minimalism which emerged in the latter part of the century. It presents not only the canonical works of Minimalism, but also the emerging experimental practices that predated them, and those that show their legacy is not only living on, but is actively evolving with a new generation of musical experimenters.

The Sound Room offers visitors the opportunity to abandon the visual, to sit in a calm space, and become immersed in a musical form that shapes perceptions of time and space.

As conductor, Charles Hazlewood advises, "you have to drop your usual way of listening, lose your expectations and surrender to an eternal now."

The Sound Room Reader is written by Wesley Goatley and Honor Harger and edited by Nina Ernst and Adrian George. It introduces the three programmes which are presented in the Sound Room, and the 40 compositions featured.

Download here

Sound Room Programme 1: During Minimalism

Minimalist music emerged in parallel to the visual art that has become associated with Minimalism in New York in the 1960s.  If Donald Judd, Frank Stella and Robert Morris can be thought of as the key proponents of “High Minimalism” in visual art, then their musical equivalents are Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and La Monte Young.  The first programme of the Sound Room presents the work of a group of composers who helped define Minimalist music in the West. It also includes the work of groundbreaking composers who are sometimes overlooked within the canon of Minimal music, such as Maryanne Amacher, Èliane Radigue and Pauline Oliveros, and non-Western innovators, including Jo Kondo and Hiroshi Yoshimura.

Sound Room Programme 2: Before Minimalism

The second programme of the Sound Room explores composers whose work can be seen as influencing Minimalism, or in some cases, a precursor to it. The programme shows how figures such as Erik Satie, George Antheil, Pierre Schaeffer, and John Cage laid the conceptual and experimental groundwork for Minimalism, introducing many of the techniques and aesthetic ideas which would be utilized by later musicians in the 1960s and 70s.  It also focuses on the pioneering contributions of lesser known musicians who are now being reconsidered as vital early exponents of experimental Minimalist sound, such as Johanna Beyer, Daphne Oram, and Else Marie Pade.

Sound Room Programme 3: After Minimalism

The final programme of the Sound Room explores the new wave of Minimalism that emerged in the late 20th century, and continues to develop as a major aesthetic movement within contemporary experimental music.  “Digital Minimalist” musicians such as Ryoji Ikeda, Alva Noto and Tetsu Inoue incorporate glitches, digital reverb and compression artefacts into their compositions, creating a new kind of computational musique concrète.  Like the minimal techno which emerged from the underground clubs of Detroit in the 1990s, Digital Minimalism emphasizes rhythm and repetition, instead of melody and linear progression.  Other artists, such as Hildegard Westerkamp and Jana Wilderen explore new Minimalist ideas though recording and production techniques alongside field recordings, overlaying the natural world with the digital imaginary.  Meanwhile, a new generation of composers are embracing the cyclical drone so important for the High Minimalist period, with artists with as Thomas Koner and FM3 creating pulsating, hypnotic soundtracks that are entirely distinctive.

The absence of colour does not automatically mean something is minimal.  While some artists chose to work with black, white or shades of grey, others chose to combine natural, or neutral tones, with brightly coloured industrial materials such as perspex, metal or paint. By working systematically, and using simple lines and shapes, many artists, including those seen in this gallery, were able to employ colour to create bold, abstract geometric forms that exhibited a highly minimalist aesthetic.

Intense colours were used in minimalist sculptures and installations too. When colours are particularly vivid, and shapes and forms kept simple, the viewer is encouraged to consider the space around and between art objects instead of the objects themselves.  In this way the artwork draws attention to itself in relation to the space in which it sits.

Artists in these galleries: Chen Shiau-Peng, Carmen Herrera, Donald Judd, Anish Kapoor, Jeremy Sharma

Untitled (85-033) by Donald Judd (1985)

Private Collection, Korea

Painted aluminum
30 x 180 x 30 cm

Donald Judd referred to many of his Minimalist artworks, particularly his horizontal wall based pieces, as ‘specific objects’. For Judd these objects expressed aspects of both painting and sculpture but were not entirely one or the other. The sequence of box-shaped elements bolted together and fixed to the wall, is evidently a three dimensional sculptural object, whereas the choice of colours and the artist’s systematic approach to determining their placement suggests a much more painterly style. The work shown in this gallery was created more than a decade after the large floor based sculpture seen earlier in the exhibition. Many consider these works to demonstrate the artist’s return to the use of colour, whereas in fact he had always taken account of colour in his works, specifically the natural colours of the basic, or industrial materials that he often used.

Sunday by Carmen Herrera (1978)

Courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery

Acrylic on canvas, 162.6 x 106.7 cm

In New York of the 1950s, Carmen Herrera encountered a less-than-welcoming art scene. Abstract Expressionism was at its high point and Herrera, a Latin American woman, was overlooked. Rather than resigning herself to obscurity she felt liberated. Her geometric hard-edged style of painting, that she retains to this day, employs a palette of just two or three colours. Herrera considers her paintings to be sculptural objects, using the physical structure of the canvas as a compositional tool taking into account the surrounding gallery environment. The three paintings here, from her Days of the Week series demonstrate Hererra’s continued fascination with figure/ground relationships.

Also on view are the works:
- Friday (1978)
- Thursday (1975)

My Galleries VI–All Identical? (Surface–Entirety) by Chen Shiau-Peng (2012–2016)

Courtesy the artist and Main Trend Gallery, Taipei

Acrylic on canvas, 8 parts, 112 x 112 cm (each)

Simple geometries and hard edge abstraction involving few colours mark these works by Taiwanese artist Chen as Minimalist. Chen’s works are often created in response to architectural forms, so they begin in three dimensional space. For this series the artist responded to the contours of gallery buildings, her feelings and impressions of those buildings. Her works — that could almost appear as logos — are grouped into two sets, one representing the complete exterior of the buildings while the other set focuses on details that attracted the artist’s attention the most.

Spectrum Version 3 (The Monologues) by Jeremy Sharma (2018)

Courtesy of the artist

Audio, 34 min 30 sec (loop)
Voices: Bradley Foisset and Tan Rachel
New commission

Jeremy Sharma is an artist and musician from Singapore.  The sound art work presented in the exhibition was commissioned by ArtScience Museum. It meditates on the experience of colour.

Colour, and how we perceive it, is deeply subjective.  Each person sees colour in their own way. If the visual experience of colour is removed, and colour is described using words, it becomes immediately apparent that words are inadequate. Consequently, how we speak about colour becomes increasing poetic. 

Sharma explores this tendency in a minimal sound piece which uses the voice as the main sonic material. Actors read a script which combines texts by Virginia Woolf, Haruki Murakami, Marie Darrieussecq and Ludwig Wittgenstein, each trying to describe a colour or the experience of it.  The resulting sound art work explores the relationships between colour perception, memory and fiction, becomes an arresting counterpoise to the visual artwork on view in the gallery.

Nothingness and the Void are concepts that appear in the Eastern philosophies that influenced Minimalism, but they are also important ideas in science. The vacuum and the void are central features of physics, which have helped shape our understanding of reality. The emptiness that permeates the universe, and the structure of atoms, has long given artists and scientists pause for thought.  Whilst quantum mechanics teaches us that empty space in nature is never truly empty, undulating as it is with vacuum fluctuations and invisible quantum fields, it is still extraordinary to ponder the sheer sparsity of the cosmos.

These ideas, that bridge philosophy and science, fascinated Minimalist artists, inspiring many to find ways of representing the Void. Artists today are able to collaborate with scientists to create work that not only presents a void, but also gives the viewer the closest possible experience of what true ‘nothingness’ might be.

Artist in this gallery: Frederik De Wilde

Horizontal Depth³ — “This Is Not the Place We Go to Die. It’s Where We Are Born” by Frederik De Wilde (2018)

Stainless steel, carbon nanotubes, polymer, LEDs and electronics, 190 cm (diameter)
New commission

Frederik De Wilde works at the intersection of art, science and technology.  In 2010, he engineered a new colour believed to be the blackest black in the world. Working with closely with NASA scientists, De Wilde grew his ‘blackest black’ material inside a nanotechnology laboratory. He used it to create a number of black paintings which directly refer to Russian artist Kazimir Malevich’s iconic 1915 painting, Black Square, which is widely regarded as one of the most important precursors to Minimalism.

Echoing the circular form of the ensō explored elsewhere in the exhibition, and visually evocative of a black hole, this newly commissioned work uses De Wilde’s material to create an encounter with the Void, an idea that resonates in Minimalist art, Eastern philosophy and science.  The carbon nanotubes used to make the artwork are comprised of 99.99% air and 0.01% carbon and capture light at all frequencies. When gazing at this artwork viewers are literally looking into nothing – a void space – and the closest approximation of emptiness that is possible to experience on the Earth. 

In the same way that Malevich hoped that his Black Square painting would free art of the obligation to depict the real, De Wilde intends his work to open up a space of imagination for the viewer.  As he notes, “it is the ultimate celebration of the unknown.”

In the work of Minimalist artists like Donald Judd, the art object and its position in space is very much the focus.  The physical form and presence of the sculptures commands the viewer’s attention.

A different interpretation of minimalism was explored by artists associated with the Light and Space movement that arose in parallel to Minimalism in the 1960s and 1970s. These artists employed a similarly stripped-down aesthetic within their work, but focused more on installation, the space of the gallery and the use of intangible elements such as light. Their interest pivoted from the art object to the personal experience of the viewer. They created immersive and radiant environments that became spaces to probe the perceptual experience of seeing.  Their work showed many contemporary artists how minimalism could manifest in a non-material way, through the simple use coloured light. This is seen here in the work of Olafur Eliasson, a present-day artist-engineer of minimalist spectacle.

Artist in this gallery: Olafur Eliasson

Seu corpo da obra (Your Body of Work) by Olafur Eliasson (2011)

Olafur Eliasson, Seu corpo da obra (Your body of work) 2011 Installation view: Moderna Museet, Stockholm 2015
Photo: Anders Sune Berg

Transparent plastic sheets, wood and spotlights
Dimensions variable

Art and science collide in the work of Olafur Eliasson. His diverse practice includes dizzying installations and sculptures that explore perceptions of light and colour.  This work follows on from the Minimalist experiments of Light and Space artists such as Robert Irwin and John McCracken, who are on view at National Gallery of Singapore.

Eliasson’s work often employs elemental materials such as light and air. He concentrates on the experience of the viewer and the way that they see within a space, encouraging a deep consideration of how we inhabit the world.  In this gallery, a labyrinth of translucent coloured sheets suspended from the ceiling, invites visitors to wander through different spaces experiencing layers of colour that change depending on one’s position inside the work.

Eliasson’s earlier work, Room For One Colour (1998) is on view at National Gallery of Singapore.

Minimalism was a turning point within 20th century art, as we can see in the artworks displayed in the Level 3 galleries. It has had an extraordinary impact on a broad range of artistic and creative practices, from theatre, performance and music to architecture and design.  Its legacy in terms of the visual arts has been transformative.  Many artists working today choose to take Minimalism either as an aesthetic or conceptual starting point for their work and are therefore often referred to as Post-Minimalists.

Like many artworks of the High Minimalist period, artworks seen here are either made from everyday objects or industrial materials.  They employ many of the criteria that helped originally define Minimalism as a style, such as the use of simple geometric forms, repeated objects or actions and a profound awareness of space. 

Artists in this gallery: Gerald Byrne, Tawatchai Puntusawasdi, Morgan Wong

Time Needle Series (No. 1–25) by Morgan Wong (2016–ongoing)

Collection of MILL6 Foundation, Hong Kong

Metal powder and glass
25 parts, each 11 x 0.5 cm (diameter)

The three artworks on view by Morgan Wong are based on the traditional Chinese saying that “with constant grinding an iron bar can become a needle”. The lesson to be learnt is that with sufficient application and determination, anything is possible. The action of filing an iron bar, repeated many times, has become an intense and ongoing durational performance for Wong.  He began performing the act described in the Chinese idiom in 2013, firstly in China and then in London, and continues the arduous and perhaps futile work of filing down an iron bar until a needle is made, on a daily basis.  

Simple actions echoed by repeated geometries are some of the most recognisable attributes of a Minimalist aesthetic.  The photographs and video on view document the bleak simplicity and conviction of Wong’s work.  The iron filings are saved and placed in needle-like glass phials presented on a series of identical white plinths to form the installation at the centre of this gallery.

Also on view are the works:
- Where is the Sage (2011)
- Filing Down a Steel Bar until a Needle is Made (2013–ongoing)

A Thing Is a Hole in a Thing It Is Not by Gerald Byrne (2010)

Co-commissioned by Lismore Castle Arts, C. Waterford, Republic of Ireland, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago and the 2010 Glasgow International festival of visual art, in collaboration with the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven Courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery

Video, high definition, 5 channels, 16:9 format (each), colour and sound (mono), varying duration,  2 min–30 min (loop)
Dimensions variable

Gerard Byrne is a contemporary artist from Ireland who works in film and installation. This multi-screen video installation explores the history of Minimalism. Five films move back and forth between re-staged moments Minimalist art history as well as contemporary scenes in museums showing Minimalist artworks being installed. 

In one film, a 1964 radio conversation between three of the giants of Minimalism, Frank Stella, Donald Judd and Dan Flavin, is re-created on screen. Another depicts the drive that artist Tony Smith took down an unfinished highway in the 1950s. The story of his experience became an influential text for Minimalism. Other screens show key artworks of the ‘High Minimalist’ period including Stella’s Tuxedo Junction (1960) and Robert Morris’ Column (1961). The title of the work further refers to the roots of Minimalism, taken from quote from Carl Andre that refers to the Minimalist idea that the space between artworks is just as important as the art itself. 

Byrne’s five screens, installed almost as Minimalist objects within the gallery, both meditate on the traditions of Minimalism, whilst also conveying narratives that act as a subtle critique or parody of Minimalism’s severity.

Haumea by Tawatchai Puntusawasdi (2016)

Courtesy of the artist

Aluminium plates and rivets, 210 x 120 x 218 cm

Tawatchai Puntusawasdi is a contemporary artist from Thailand who creates monumental sculptures that skew and contort visual reality. 

This piece draws on the traditions of both Minimalist art and scientific knowledge.  It is named after the dwarf planet, Haumea which orbits the Sun beyond Neptune. Haumea is a source of fascination for astronomers due to its rapid rotation and unusual elongated shape. Because it spins so quickly, Haumea’s form has become distorted over time, and now resembles the dramatic elliptical contour of Puntusawasdi’s sculpture.

Like many Minimalist artists, Puntusawasdi encourages a heightened awareness of space, drawing attention to the space around his artwork, and the volumes of space between artworks. He uses complex mathematical calculations to generate forms that are then constructed using everyday materials, without the use of digital technology.  His use of simple materials, repeating patterns and geometric forms is clearly Minimalist in nature. The unexpected morphology of his artworks also hints at other planes of existence, tangentially referencing ideas in Buddhism, that were so influential to Minimalist artists in the 1960s.