Thursday, February 25, 2010

Minimalism

Less is more, less is better.

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post-World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris, and Frank Stella. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism, and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract expressionism and a bridge to Postmodern art practices.

The terms have expanded to encompass a movement in music which features repetition and iteration, as in the compositions of Steve Reich, La Monte Young, Philip Glass, John Adams, and Terry Riley. (See also Postminimalism).

The term "minimalist" is often applied colloquially to designate anything which is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has also been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond Carver, and even the automobile designs of Colin Chapman.

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Reading List

  • Alain de Botton: The Consolations of Philosophy
  • Alec Wilkinson: The Happiest Man in the World
  • Bhagavad Gita As It Is
  • Daniel C Dennett: Breaking the Spell
  • Daniel C Dennett: Consciousness Explained
  • Daniel C Dennett: Darwin's Dangerous Idea
  • Daniel C Dennett: Freedom Evolves
  • David Weeks: Eccentrics
  • Edward O. Wilson: On Human Nature
  • Friedrich Schiller: Essays (The German Library)
  • G. I. Gurdijieff: Life Is Real Only Then, When "I Am"
  • Hil Washburn, ed: The Many Faces of Wisdom
  • John Kekes: The Art of Life
  • John Strohmeier: Divine Harmony (Pythagoras)
  • Matthew Stewart: The Truth about Everything
  • Michel Foucault: Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth
  • Michel Foucault: The Hermeneutics of the Subject
  • Michel Waldberg: Gurdjieff: An Approach to His Ideas
  • Osho: The Book of Understanding
  • Osho: The Book of Wisdom
  • P. D. Ouspensky: In Search of the Miraculous
  • P. D. Ouspensky: The Fourth Way
  • Paul C. Vitz: Faith of the Fatherless
  • Pierre Hadot: What Is Ancient Philosophy (tr: Michael Chase)
  • Robert Wright: Nonzero: the Logic of Human Destiny
  • Robert Wright: The Evolution of God
  • Robert Wright: The Moral Animal
  • Seneca: Dialogues and Essays
  • Seneca: Letters from a Stoic
  • The Upanishads
  • Xenophon: A History of My Time

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