Edward Strickland (1)

[Review originally published in EST magazine, 1996]

Strickland discusses minimalism in visual art, as well as music and other fields, ensuring that the common factors linking La Monte Young with (say) Ad Reinhardt get a thorough airing. Other Minimalist visual artists featured include Robert Morris, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Frank Stella and Donald Judd, although the book would benefit considerably from more illustrations.

In contrast to the bare-essentials, anti-narrative approach that show more Minimalism entails, Strickland's book is anything but minimalist, exploring competing aesthetic theories, connections between different artists, anecdotes, chronology and influences with extraordinary thoroughness.

Just to please true obsessives, he even devotes several pages to the often vexed question of who first applied the term "Minimalism" to music. Was it Michael Nyman? John Rockwell? Tom Johnson? Anal-retentives can find out within.

In the section on music, the author is happy to acknowledge minimalist precursors like Erik Satie, John Cage, Morton Feldman or even Yves Klein (whose Monotone Symphony was performed in 1957), but it's his detailed history of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass that makes for the most fascinating reading.

Often forgotten connections between the composers are documented (e.g. the close relationship between Glass and Reich obscured by later acrimony), as are important but more obscure figures such as Terry Jennings, Richard Maxfield, and Dennis Johnson (although the sections on Young would benefit from an understanding of the criticisms made by Tony Conrad and others).

Strickland also pays attention to later minimalists such as Charlemagne Palestine, Philip Corner, Rhys Chatham, Ingram Marshall, Phill Niblock and others, although the book is intended more as a study of "origins" than anything else.

This is probably not an easy read for anyone not already partially familiar with the subject matter, but for anyone seriously interested in the development of Minimalist art and music, this book is absolutely indispensable. show less