After visiting several shows in London over the year, I think it is. It would seem that the austerity of the current socio-economic climate, coupled with a culture of consumer guilt and righteous recycling, have created fertile conditions for a new wave: Minimalism meets Arte Povera.
Minimalism has evolved over recent years from a reaction to Abstract Expressionism to a fusion of different art movements such a Conceptualism and Arte Povera. This return to a mature Minimalism is becoming prominent in the field of visual art as in other spheres. After the bacchanal of postmodernism, the time has again come for neo-minimalism. Artists are rediscovering the use of simple means in more elaborate ways, but without missing the main point of Minimalism: the beauty of the material.
Ever since Marcel Duchamp boldly exhibited a urinal as his now infamous 'Fountain' piece in 1917, artists have continued to comment on the relationship between people and material objects. Through the erosion of bourgeois artistic values, movements such as Dada, Arte Povera, Conceptualism and Minimalism have all extolled the value of the found object or 'Readymade'. This notion of the democratisation of 'art for all' has continued to influence artists; now, perhaps more than ever, the return to basic materials seems a particularly appropriate response. By employing everyday objects, occurrences, actions and sounds in subtly new ways, the artists in this show achieve a paradoxical richness through relatively minimalist processes. When means are scarce, you've got to make the most of what you've got.
Minimalism seeks the meaning of art in the immediate and personal experience of the viewer in the presence of a specific work. There is no reference to another previous experience (no representation), no implication of a higher level of experience (no metaphysics), no promise of a deeper intellectual experience (no metaphor). Instead Minimalism presents the viewer with objects of charged neutrality; objects usually rectilinear, employing one or two materials, one or two colours, repeated identical units, factory-made or store-bought; objects that are without any hierarchy of interest, that directly engage and interact with the particular space they occupy; objects that reveal everything about themselves, but little about the artist; objects whose subject is the viewer. So wrote Michael Craig-Martin in his introduction to the collection of minimalist works at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool.
And it is not just in Visual Art, also in Architecture, Fashion and many other fields. Simple is sexy. Less is more. The work is set out to expose the essence or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts. We welcome that and hope it is here to stay.