Sunday Edition
May 31, 2020
This week, we explore the notion that less is more as Minimalisms, yes, plural, is the focus of this Sunday Edition.
While most people may associate the term “Minimalism” to the modern art movement that originated in 1960s New York, the history of the design tendency for less is more global and multifaceted than many people may realize.
This week’s edition includes:
- A conversation with author Kyle Chayka about his new book, The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism, his interest in the topic, what initiated this investigation, and what it all means for a style that is now being used to sell everything from smartphones to coffee.
- Glenn Adamson dives into the Western perception that links Japanese art and culture with minimalism, he writes about a connection that is more myth than reality.
- Kate Wagner, of McMansion fame, makes her writing debut on Hyperallergic by researching the “loft aesthetic” that emerged in 1970s New York, and has since taken over the world.
- While we often think of minimalist tendencies in objects, artist Daniel Tempkin examines how hackers are using “minimalism” in their code, and how it may expand our understanding of the term.
- In terms of cinema, the minimalist tendency permeates many different genres but Dan Schindel noticed a particular strain that emerges in the work of nonfiction filmmakers who depict air travel.
- In light of the Guggenheim Museum introducing a new term, “decommissioning,” to their collection lexicon, Peter J. Karol discusses the artwork by Donald Judd that created the need for the term.
- And finally, Layla Passa reviews Chayka’s book and considers that “the truth of minimalism is that it is often just as materialistic as the bombastic high life it ostensibly counteracts.”
A huge thanks to editor Seph Rodney guest editor Rebecca Uchill, and our entire editorial team for their work and contributions to this issue.
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Enjoy this edition of Hyperallergic Sunday.
Our Obsession With Less and Its Co-option by Silicon Valley
Kyle Chayka’s new book, The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism, probes the corporate world’s love of minimalist design and what it might mean.
Hrag Vartanian
Getting to Noh: Myths of Japanese Minimalism
The stereotype of Japan as a “less-is-more” kind of country is, in fact, quite misleading.
Glenn Adamson
How Normie Minimalism and Farmhouse Chic Took Over Contemporary Design
An aesthetic of minimalism in architecture and interior design has been sold to consumers of high design for decades now in the pages of Dwell and the endlessly scrollable interfaces of websites like designboom and ArchDaily.
Kate Wagner
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The Hacker Aesthetic of Minimalist Code
Ask most programmers about minimalist programming and they invoke the word elegance, yet working with extreme code minimalism often means exposing the chaotic underside of our engagement with logic.
Daniel Temkin
Minimalism Takes Flight
Within the many intersections between cinema and minimalism, there’s a fascinating thread of nonfiction filmmakers depicting air travel.
Dan Schindel
Why Did the Guggenheim Decommission a Donald Judd?
The Guggenheim recently repurposed the term, “decommissioning,” to designate works in its permanent collection that it has “deemed to be non-viable.”
Peter Karol
A Minimalism of Ideas, Rather Than Things
In The Longing for Less author Kyle Chayka searches for a minimalist mindset that isn’t “obsessing over possessions or the lack thereof but challenging our day-to-day experience of being in the world.”
Layla Fassa
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