Neo-minimalism is an amorphous art movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It has alternatively been called "neo-geometric" or "neo-geo" art. Other terms include: Neo-Conceptualism, Neo-Futurism, Neo-Op, Neo-Pop, New Abstraction, Poptometry, Post-Abstractionism, Simulationism, and Smart Art.

Art

The aspects of "postmodern art" that have been described as neo-minimalism (and related terms) involve a general "reevaluation of earlier art forms." As its various titles indicate, the movement draws on earlier mid-to-late-20th century developments in Minimalist art, Abstract Expressionism

Abstract expressionism

Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...

 and its offshoots

Post-painterly Abstraction

Post-painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic Clement Greenberg as the title for an exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964, which subsequently travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toronto....

, plus Pop Art

Pop art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...

, Op Art

Op art

Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...

, and other threads of artistic development.

Contemporary artists who have been linked to the term, or who have been included in shows employing it, include David Burdeny, Catharine Burgess, Marjan Eggermont, Paul Kuhn, Eve Leader, Tanya Rusnak, Daniel Ong, Laurel Smith, Christopher Willard

Christopher Willard

Christopher Willard is an American-born novelist, critic, short story writer and visual artist. He currently lives in Calgary, Canada and teaches at Alberta College of Art and Design....

, and Tim Zuck

Tim Zuck

Tim Zuck is a Canadian artist living in Calgary, Alberta.Zuck has lived in Canada since 1969. He earned a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1971 and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1972...

. The steel sculptures of Richard Serra

Richard Serra

Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...

 have been described as "austere neo-Minimalism...."

Design and music

Beyond painting, sculpture and other "museum art," the term has been applied to architecture, design, and music. In architecture, indeed, neo-minimalism has been identified as a part of "the new orthodoxy...."

"After the bacchanal of post-modernism

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...

, the time has again come for neo-minimalism, neo-ascetism, neo-denial and sublime poverty."