How to live with Minimalism

Hank S. McNeil, Jr. believed that art was not meant to be kept at a distance. It was meant to be lived with. In his residence, works by some of the most influential artists and designers of the post-war period became part of the everyday rhythms of domestic life. For his children, Calder and Cole, growing up with Minimalism meant encountering these objects not as austere institutional monuments but as companions in space — works that quietly shaped the rooms they inhabited and the experiences that unfolded within them.

In celebration of Defined Space: The Collection of Henry S. McNeil, Jr. coming to Christie’s 20th and 21st Century sales this May and Christie’s Design sale in June 2026, both in New York, with future sales to be announced, we return to the ideas of the artists and designers who helped shape this remarkable visual language. Through their own words, a broader vision of Minimalism comes into focus, revealing a philosophy shaped by form, material, space, experience…

Spend time with a great piece of Minimalist design or sculpture and detail slowly emerges: nothing is pretending to be anything else. Wood looks like wood. Steel feels like steel. Grain, weight, and texture are not concealed but quietly celebrated. The legendary furniture maker George Nakashima described this relationship to nature not as a struggle for control but as a collaboration:

In Nakashima’s hands, the life of the tree — its knots, edges, and flowing grain — remains visible within the finished object. A similar respect for material clarity runs through Minimalist sculpture. Carl Andre once framed his practice through the language of elemental matter:

Donald Judd likewise pushed this logic further, insisting on the direct, unmediated presence of materials themselves. What mattered was not representation, but the clarity of the object itself — its scale, structure, and physical presence:

Across both art and design, the message is remarkably consistent: beauty does not come from embellishment, but from allowing materials to remain fully and confidently themselves.

Sometimes the most powerful element in a Minimalist room is not the object itself, but the atmosphere it creates through light, shadow, and reflection. Dan Flavin’s fluorescent installations offer perhaps the clearest example. Rather than projecting focused beams, the tubes emit often coloured light that spreads across walls and surfaces, subtly altering the perception of a room. Reflecting on his early fluorescent works, Flavin described how light could exceed the physical limits of its source:

Other artists have approached light more indirectly, through its interaction with form. Reflecting on his own work, Richard Tuttle noted the role that shadows play in shaping a piece:

Designers working within Minimalist parameters have long been attentive to similar optical effects. Poul Kjærholm, whose furniture often pairs slender steel frames with leather or glass, spoke of the way light interacts with metal surfaces:

In this way, Minimalism often operates through quiet atmospheric shifts. Light, shadow, and reflection become the subtle forces through which a room — and the objects within it — are experienced.

Perhaps one of the most misunderstood aspects of Minimalism is the notion that it is distant or cold, when in fact many works were conceived with the viewer firmly in mind. Whether encountered in a gallery or lived with in the home, these objects unfold gradually through movement, touch, and time. Andre’s sculptures offer a particularly direct example. Composed of repeated units laid across the floor, they quietly record use and material change. As the artist remarked:

Fred Sandback similarly imagined sculpture as something encountered within the rhythms of everyday spaces. Rather than placing sculpture on a pedestal, he sought to situate it within what he called “pedestrian space” — the same everyday environment we inhabit.

Designers working in parallel traditions have long embraced this intimate relationship between object and user. The American woodworker and furniture maker Sam Maloof spoke of his work in similarly human terms:

Minimalism, in this light, becomes not only a question of form but of lived experience. Through movement, use, and the quiet passage of time, these works continue to unfold long after their making.

Minimalist works rarely behave like decoration. Instead, they quietly structure the rooms around them, establishing rhythm, proportion, and movement within an interior. A single object — a sculpture, a line drawn through space, a carefully placed chair — can anchor a room without overwhelming it. As Judd observed, space itself often emerges from the relationships between things:

Designers working in interiors approached space with a similar sensibility. Florence Knoll, trained as an architect, understood furniture not as decoration but as part of a larger spatial framework. As she explained:

Furniture, in this sense, becomes an active participant in the choreography of a room. The Danish designer Hans Wegner famously insisted on this total consideration, treating every angle and contour with equal significance:

Designed to be viewed from every direction, Wegner’s chairs — and other beautifully resolved objects — move easily within the full spatial experience of a room rather than sitting passively against a wall. Together, these perspectives demonstrate that Minimalism is less about reducing objects than about sharpening our awareness of the space they shape.

Minimalism rests on a simple premise: what happens when form is reduced to its most essential elements? Cubes, lines, and repeated units become the building blocks through which artists explore proportion, rhythm, and spatial balance. Judd’s sculptures exemplify this clarity. Built from simple volumes arranged with careful intervals, his works allow form and space to assert themselves without illusion. As he observed:

LeWitt pushed this logic further, developing systems in which basic units could generate entire works through repetition and variation. For him, the idea itself became the structure through which form unfolded, writing:

Designers have continued to explore this language of elemental geometry. The hard-to-classify, Ron Arad, whose sculptural furniture often plays with the tension between line and curve, once remarked:

What emerges is a language of form — one through which even the simplest elements can structure both artworks and the spaces in which they live.

Citations

[I] George Nakashima, Philosophy, Nakashima Woodworkers; [II] Carl Andre, quoted in “Carl Andre: The Turner of Matter?” Willamette Week’s Fresh Weekly, 12–18 August 1980, p. 9; [III] Donald Judd, “Specific Objects,” 1964; [IV] Dan Flavin, ‘… in daylight or cool white.” An Autobiographical Sketch’, Artforum, August 1965; [V] Richard Tuttle interviewed by Bob Holman, Bomb Magazine, 1 October 1992; [VI] Poul Kjærholm, quoted in Danish Modern: Between Art and Design, London, 2016, p. 125; [VII] Carl Andre, quoted in ‘A Redefinition of Sculpture’, Carl Andre: Sculpture 1959-1977, New York, 1978, p. 32; [VIII] Fred Sandback, Remarks on My Sculpture, 1966–86, 1986; [IX] Sam Maloof interviewed by Rick Mastelli, Fine Woodworking, November–December 1980; [X] Donald Judd, quoted in Donald Judd: Colorist, Sprengel Museum Hannover, 2000, p. 80; [XI] Florence Knoll, From the Archives: Under Review; [XII] Hans Wegner, quoted in ‘7 Iconic Chairs by Hans Wegner,’ Dwell, February 2014; [XIII] Donald Judd, Complete Writings 1975-1986, Eindhoven, 1987, p. 7; [XIV] Sol Lewitt, ‘Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,’ Artforum, Summer, 1967; [XV] Jon Arad, quoted in ‘Jon Arad: A Straight Line is also a Curve’, Artflyer, London, 2015