What is minimal photography?

von Florian Kazimirski | Aug 24, 2018 | blog, current issue, Kunst/Art

The question I have encountered most recently is: “So … A gallery for minimal photography … What is minimal photography? ”

It’s not so much about manual technical effort, not about elaborate staging, groundbreaking post production … It’s much more about composing the everyday. To extract the aesthetics from the everydayness and to expose the banality of the aesthetics.

“what you see, is what you see”

Frank Stella

Minimal photography stands in the tradition of 20th century Minimal Arts. Their language is simplicity and their work is characterized by the reduction of picture elements to a minimum and their composition of components such as shape, color, and line.

The goal of minimalist art, or photography, is to convey a concept – or an idea – provoke an emotional response, or provide a unique visual experience. Compositional elements must be kept to a minimum, and the ones that are left should be essential for conveying the overall idea, or symbolism, of the photo.

“There is no particular reason to search for meaning.”

William Eggleston

The varieties are numerous. From schematic descriptions of the topography to purely flat, abstract compositions.

It’s always about reducing. To show things as they are. Or what you can discover in them – or what you discover in yourself through them. If you just look at them or look through them. To find something that you did not seek.