Although Minimalists may have strove to simplify their work, they still managed to convey themes within their art. In relative comparison to the previous ostentatious and symbolic movements precedent to Minimalism, they succeeded in communicating their message through simplicity.

The Absence of Meaning

An interesting aspect of Minimalism is its complete disregard of form and theme. The word that comes to mind when describing the movement is “nihilistic.” However, by applying this word to the movement, one would also be communicating a philosophy, which is the antithesis of the Minimalist outlook. In a nutshell, Minimalism only exists for the soul purpose of existing.

When Dan Flavin said: "One might not think of light as a matter of fact, but I do. And it is, as I said, as plain and open and direct an art as you will ever find." In this quote he is referring to this theme of absence, in which there are no extraneous meanings and hidden ideas.

“Be aware that what you are doing is meaningless.”- Walter De Maria

 

Reaction to Vietnam

"The museum acceptance of Minimalism [...] coincided with the politicization of the New York art world in the late 1960s. Many of the Minimalists became involved in anti-war and urban politics. Judd, along with his then-wife Julie Finch, was active in the War Resisters' League in 1968." -James Meyer

On Dan Flavins, "Primary Structures," (seen left): "both the title and the red colour reflect Flavin's awareness of a growing death tollof the burgeoning Vietnam war." -Meyer

"In the 1960s, mainstream society underwent radical changes as the civil rights movement fought for equality for all Americans and the Vietnam War transformed American attitudes toward government. These dramatic political events, momentous social changes, and the development of alternative lifestyles introduced a period of increased experimentation in American art and culture. Throughout this decade of experimentation and change, artists rejected traditional art practices and challenged the institutions and structures of art. They embraced a more open-ended, suggestive variety of materials and forms and produced work in diverse styles." -whitney.org

[...]"Judd continued to insist on the paramount importance of the ‘plain power’ of art in ‘Specific Objects,’ the essay he published in 1965 that is often taken as a kind of keynote essay for the Minimalist movement. Minimalism began to coalesce as a vision in 1964 and 1965 when the first group shows bringing together the artists now regarded as the Minimalists took place. Historically, 1965 is also the year regular American combat troops entered Vietnam; the year the US started massive bombings of North Vietnam; the year Watts exploded in riots; and the year Malcolm X was assassinated. De Maria’s Death Wall of 1965, small stainless-steel plinth marked by a notch-like opening with the word DEATH engraved over it makes an exceedingly discreet, but evidently directed nod towards the violence of the time. Here, however, as with Minimalism generally, the arts political moment remains implicit largely in its acts of negation” –Anna C. Chave, Minimalism and the Rhetoric of Power, 1990.

Because art communicates struggles and feelings, there is often a theme of disillusionment after major wars or tragedies. Artists have a common theme that revolves around conveying art without convolution; they write with a terse and concise style, most likely to avoid previous art movements and social conceptions. The French drama Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is an example of one such work. In addition to simplification, the theme of pointlessness and nihilistic existence dominate as the major themes. Beckett wrote the drama in 1948, approximately three years after World War II. The war’s psychological impacts on Beckett seem to appear in the novel. As Enoch Brater in Beckett at 80/Beckett in Context claims:

War and occupation would temporarily put Paris on hold as a center for artistic frenzy, but the city Beckett returned to soon after liberation offered him a unique challenge and a special opportunity. It was now possible to graft the recent experience of Europe -- both the hideousness of history and its philosophical implications -- onto the not-so-new ideas about theater that had already been established before the war. Art, theater art, could now be produced without the capital letter A. Beckett's development of Dada into Didi is, therefore, clear, precise, almost, historically speaking, "inevitable." (Brater 9)

Hemingway’s work is another example of the theme of simplification as a result of disillusionment. After serving in the army during World War I Hemingway wrote many of his works such as his short story “A Solder’s Home,” in which the protagonist Krebs feels disillusioned and passionless about everything, from courting women to living life. Lisa Tyler states in her Student Companion to Ernest Hemingway:

Hemingway’s influence is particularly associated with minimalism, an American literary movement that began in the 1970s. Best represented by writers like Raymond Carver and Ann Beattie, minimalism is characterized by ordinary subject matter, an effaced authorial presence, a passive and affectless protagonist, very little plot in the traditional sense, the use of the historical present tense, and a spare, emotionally restrained writing style. ( Tyler 30)

Although Minimalism developed most during and after the Vietnam War, the artists’ life experiences combined with their social conditions led them to communicate their thoughts and emotions through simplicity, which questioned previous social and artistic conventions.

 

The politics of the 1960s coincided with the Minimalist art movement.

 

Power and dominance

Many minimalist works strove to dominate the room. Carl Andre was inspired partly by the fascist architecture in Germany and Italy during WWII. "More than that, though the works are as self-consciously downmarket as the presentation, 'aesthetic fascism' nevertheless creeps back into the binders in the form of incidental beauty. Carl Andre’s sheets, xeroxes of wooden blocks dropped semi-randomly onto the machine’s glass surface, are casually gorgeous, their power a result of a virtuoso combination of material and talent." -Mark Kingwell, Harvard Design Magazine, 2003.

 

Sexual themes

Dan Flavin's "Diagonal" was meant to be phallic. Carl Andre's "Cock/Cunt" also contained blatantly obvious references to the act of coitus.

"From a recent diagram, I declared the diagonal of personal ecstasy (the diagonal of May 25, 1963), a common eight-foot strip with fluorescent light of any commercially available color. At first, I chose ‹gold.›... (I put the paired lamp and pan in position at an angle forty-five degrees above the horizontal because that seemed to be a suitable situation of resolved equilibrium but any other positioning could have been just as engaging.)" -Dan Flavin