Gail Hastings’ collection of interviews seeks to counter narrow interpretations of Minimal art, especially those claiming that Minimal art, which emerged in the mid 1960s, is a reductive practice. That misunderstanding dates to its earliest critics, but it neither fits her own experiences nor what she thinks the artists proclaimed. Minimal art is spring loaded with creative energy, and what that force creates is space.

The central issues debated by Hastings and the six scholars, curators and collectors she interviewed in 2015 determine whether Minimal art is a subtractive formal practice or an expansive sensual one and, also, whether it was a short-lived American movement or a widespread tendency in Western art and culture that spanned the twentieth century. For readers new to Minimal art, this volume is a good introduction to historical practices and changing understandings. For artists and art historians, these conversations hold fresh insights into prominent figures, from Kazimir Malevich to Sol LeWitt, while also engage in many who are little known or largely forgotten, such as Charlotte Posenenske and George Ortman. For scholars, there are remarks that invite further research, such as the names of adventurous gallerists in Europe in the 1960s who first showed this art.

Excerpt from David Raskin, ‘Introduction’, The Missing Space Project: Six Interviews, Pigment Publisher, Sydney, 2015, p.8.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.