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Exploring the power of reduction in contemporary art

The exhibition Minimal at the Bourse de Commerce traces this evolution of reduction in visual art from the 1960s onward. It begins inside the reinforced concrete cylinder designed by Tadao Ando, where five sculptures by Meg Webster connect minimalism with ecology. Made from clay, earth, beeswax, and branches, they awaken sight, smell, and sound, prompting viewers to notice sensory qualities often overlooked in art.

Throughout history, art has often pursued fullness: colour, detail, representation. Over time, this pursuit inverted, and the idea that less can reveal more emerged. Japanese woodblock prints played a pivotal role in this shift—a fact echoed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who viewed them as “the gospel of simplification,” capturing the geometry beneath appearances. This sensibility went on to influence architecture, music, design, and fashion—from John Cage’s silent 4’33” to minimalist aesthetics in contemporary life—eventually arriving at visual art.

@Valentina Cannava
Figure 1View of the exhibition “Minimal”, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025

Figure 2 View of the exhibition “Minimal”, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection.

Figure 3 Vue de l’exposition « Minimal », Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. Photo : Florent Michel / 11h45 / Pinault Collection

From the Rotunda, the exhibition expands across seven sections: Light, Mono-ha, Balance, Surface, Grid, Monochrome, Materialism. Mono-ha—prominent in the Pinault Collection—repositions materials directly in space, reducing distance between object and viewer. In Susumu Koshimizu’s From Surface to Surface – a tetrahedron, four bronze tetrahedra, identical in size and weight, are arranged to create distinct visual configurations, allowing material presence to speak for itself.

Figure 4 View of the exhibition “Minimal”, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection.

In the Materialism section, artists of the 1960s and 70s explore earth, wood, water, wax, and fibre through folding, stacking, weaving, and binding. Nobuo Sekine’s Phase of Nothingness – Water (1969) places equal amounts of water into two containers—cylindrical and rectangular—filled to the brim to appear solid. Their reflective surfaces absorb the viewer and surroundings, emphasizing the fluidity and impermanence of form.

Figure 5 View of the exhibition “Minimal”, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection.

The grid, a key minimalist device, reflects seriality and industrial order. Artists often softened or destabilized it to express shifting societal tensions. Eva Hesse’s No Title (1967) arranges steel washers with slight irregularity, introducing a tactile human sensibility into mechanical structure. The exhibition then turns to balance, exemplified by Richard Serra’s Right Angle Prop, where two lead sheets support each other without illusion or ornament.

Figure 6 View of the exhibition “Minimal”, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection.

The section on surface examines how artists blurred the line between painting and sculpture.
Dorothea Rockburne’s Tropical Tan uses creased pig-iron panels sprayed with commercial paint to explore how surface responds to pressure and light.

igure 7 View of the exhibition “Minimal”, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection.

The final rooms turn to light as medium and environment, as artists such as Dan Flavin and Mary Corse used luminosity—neon, fluorescent, projected, or natural—to shape perception and dissolve boundaries between artwork, architecture, and viewer.

Figure 8 View of the exhibition “Minimal”, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur/Pinault Collection.

Minimalism redefined the relationship between art, matter, and observation. By stripping away narrative and excess, it invites viewers to become active participants: meaning emerges through presence and perception. Even the simplest forms open onto complex reflections—on how we inhabit space, encounter objects, and shape the world through the act of looking.