BEHIND AN EXHIBITION
minimal - pinault collection
form, material, and process
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THE BOURSE DE COMMERCE HOSTED A COMPREHENSIVE EXHIBITION DEDICATED TO MINIMALIST ART. THE EXHIBITION BRINGS TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME OVER A HUNDRED SIGNIFICANT WORKS THAT TRACE THE DIVERSITY OF THIS MOVEMENT, WHICH BEGAN IN THE 1960S WITH A GENERATION OF ARTISTS INTRODUCING A RADICAL APPROACH TO ART. ALONGSIDE THESE MASTERPIECES FROM THE PINAULT COLLECTION, WORKS ON LOAN FROM PRESTIGIOUS COLLECTIONS HIGHLIGHT THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE AND INTERNATIONAL RESONANCE OF THE THEMES EXPLORED THROUGHOUT THE EXHIBITION. CURATED BY JESSICA MORGAN, THE EXHIBITION IS ORGANIZED INTO SEVEN THEMATIC SECTIONS: LIGHT, MONO-HA, BALANCE, SURFACE, GRID, MONOCHROME, AND MATERIALISM, HIGHLIGHTING THESE UNIQUE YET INTERCONNECTED GLOBAL ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENTS THROUGH AN EXTRAORDINARY GROUP OF WORKS FROM THE PINAULT COLLECTION.
A view of the “Minimal” exhibition featuring works by Meg Webster, Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur.
The magnificent Bourse de Commerce building hosted a major exhibition dedicated to Minimalist art. Minimal, a selection from the François Pinault collection, focused on the radical artistic approach developed by a generation of artists (Dan Flavin, Robert Ryman, On Kawara, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, and others) since the first half of the 1960s. Revealing the general dissemination and diversity of this movement, the exhibition featured practices created largely throughout a period extending to the 1980s. Jessica Morgan’s curatorial perspective, which categorized works under thematic headings such as Light, Grid, Materialism, Surface, Monochrome, and Balance in the context of form, material, and process, structured the exhibition according to spatial scale and possibilities through fluid and flexible evaluations.
Minimal art undoubtedly enabled a global-scale reconsideration of the status of the art object within the context of the minimal aesthetic it effectively proposed. For instance, the Mono-ha movement in Japan emphasized the interdependence of objects, space, and viewer by focusing on bringing objects together in their natural, unmodified states. In Brazil, Neo-Concrete artists embraced a more sensorial abstraction by opposing the rigid forms of concrete art and establishing an intimate connection with the viewer. Or, movements such as Zero in Germany and Arte Povera in Italy challenged the boundaries of sculpture through minimalist forms and direct interaction with space. Minimalist artists in the United States are known for rejecting traditional compositional techniques in favor of simplicity and materiality.
Ground Floor: Salon, Rotunda and Passage
Minimal was installed across the floors of the Bourse de Commerce building, possessing a fragmented, fluid, and continuous structure. On the second basement level, spaces called the Foyer, Studio, and Engine Room were specifically allocated to light-themed works. The ground floor, with its areas such as the Salon, Rotunda, and Passage, housed solo presentations by individual artists. Also on this floor (Gallery 2), Brazilian artist Lygia Pape’s works were presented as a separate curatorial exhibition integrated into the overall concept. Additionally, with the Galleries and Mini Salon on the 1st and 2nd floors, along with Charlotte Posenenske’s sculptural works between floors and two separate site-specific arrangements by Kippenberger and Gander presented in situ, exhibition coherence was achieved.
In the ground floor rotunda serving as the entrance to the Minimal exhibition, Meg Webster greeted visitors with her pyramidal masses composed of natural materials such as earth, salt, clay, and wax. In the Passage section, numerous examples from Japanese artist On Kawara’s iconic Today series were displayed in corridors and vitrines. Kawara’s works, markers of a universal and collective history, were adapted to the museum’s circular architecture as a reminder of time’s dramatic passage. Therefore, in each of the antique cabinets placed around the central area, a single On Kawara Date Painting was installed, with white letters and numbers indicating the date the painting was made. (1) For example, in the box beneath the painting dated June 20, 1975, there is a full-page printed advertisement for the film Jaws, which was released in US cinemas that day. In the Salon section of the same floor, a reiteration of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s famous 1991 work Untitled (Portrait of Dad), composed of candies, was featured.
NOTLAR
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Ground Floor / Passage: On Kawara, SEPT. 13, 2001, 2001, acrylic on canvas, 25.5 × 34.3 cm. Pinault Collection © One Million Years Foundation.
Lygia Pape, Ttéia 1, C (2003/2025), Installation view of Lygia Pape, “Ttéia 1, C” (2003-25), golden thread, wood, nails, light, dimensions variable. © Pinault Collection. © Projeto Lygia Pape.
Gallery 2 / Lygia Pape: Weaving Space
Weaving Space, consisting of important works by Brazilian avant-garde artist Lygia Pape and essentially built around the light installation titled Ttéia 1 C, 2003-2017, was a separate exhibition integrated into Minimal. Ttéia 1 C, 2003-2017, which draws visitors into a sensory experience with copper wires stretched across the space, reshapes itself according to the angle of light and visitors’ movements. The artist’s concept of weaving space is literally reflected, redefining its relationship with the viewer. (2–3)
Gallery 3 / Mono-ha or School of Things Movement
Mono-ha is the name of a movement that emerged in Japan in the late 1960s, which both drew from and influenced international discussions about sculptural forms. Rejecting the implied objectivity of manufactured objects, this movement is known for preferring organizational principles that resonate as object or matter. Moreover, Mono-ha artists brought together various materials in ways that would emphasize their intrinsic properties, drawing attention to the exhibition space and the viewer as transitory components in the world. Drawing on theories of perception and philosophy, Mono-ha artists pursued a distinct anti-formalism they believed could effectively address questions about the nature of existence. (4)
Gallery 4 / Agnes Martin
Agnes Martin (1912–2004), whose numerous works are in the Pinault Collection, is an artist characterized as minimalist with a meditative and austere style based on a geometric language. Her works, focusing on distinctive linear texture and grid usage, seem to be built upon an idea of open landscape where silence, contemplation, and nature can coexist in an order.
Gallery 5 / Materialism
Works by artists such as Hans Haacke, Maren Hassinger, Walter de Maria, Dorothea Rockburne, Nobuo Sekine, Michelle Stuart, Kishio Suga, Jackie Winsor, and Iannis Xenakis were brought together in Gallery 5 under the heading of Materialism. Works produced in the 1960s and 70s by artists who explored the associative qualities of natural materials such as fiber, earth, water, oil, beeswax, and wood, and transformed them into geometric and serialized forms not seen in nature, are featured. As is known, during this period, with Land Art, artists intervened in nature, transforming it into geometric forms or placing sequential and/or artificial objects within or upon it. Alternatively, evocative materials brought into the gallery space, displaying their making processes through folding, binding, stacking, and weaving, separate natural materials from their origins while referencing both traditional craft and traditional labor. (5)
Gallery 6.1 / Grid
In the first section of Gallery 6, works by McArthur Binion, Eva Hesse, Mary Heilmann, Sol LeWitt, Francesco Lo Savio, Enzo Mari, François Morellet, Howardena Pindell, Steve Reich, Bridget Riley, Robert Ryman, Jiro Takamatsu, and Günther Uecker, gathered under the heading Grid, were presented. The grid, used as a spatial and temporal tool in art, became a preferred pattern in global abstract or minimalist art from the 1960s onward. With its potential for infinite expansion, serial nature, being contrary to nature, and pointing to industrial forms, the grid is produced using lines and rhythmically placed elements. The grid, particularly from the 1960s onward, contains collapsed or ambiguous structures that imply a more corporeal and unstable state, weakening the rigidity of structure. It also possesses functionality that enables the use of handmade works laden with implications for body politics discussions in minimal forms, as seen in Eva Hesse’s works. (6) Here, there is a subtle compositional understanding that resists uniformity with the production precision of industrial materials.
Gallery 6.2 / Monochrome
The Monochrome painting approach or practice has a deep-rooted history extending from Malevich to the 1960s and 70s. Particularly artists engaged with minimal and reductionist art began to test the boundaries of monochrome painting. While discovering its material potential, they examined color perception and questioned the singularity of monochrome painting. The capacity of light to transform surface and space is already sufficiently attractive in this process. Such monochrome applications capture, reflect, and refract light, giving dimension and movement to painting, inviting the viewer to a dynamic visual experience that is unique each time. The minimalist idea that art is not merely an object to be contemplated but a continuously renewed perceptual experience is thus highlighted. (7)
Gallery 7.1 / Balance
Exploring various color and material fields and interacting with the visitor’s interactive experience, artworks exhibited under the heading Balance emphasize the concepts of balance and surface. Works by artists such as Melvin Edwards, Susumu Koshimizu, David Lamelas, Seung-Taek Lee, Lee Ufan, Bernd Lohaus, Senga Nengudi, Nobuo Sekine, and Richard Serra, which challenge gravity and perception, evoke the process of creation. Works no longer exhibited at a certain distance from the viewer, on pedestals or leaning against walls, entered the visitor’s space in the 1960s, beginning to establish direct communication with the viewer while incorporating the environment in which they were installed. In many parts of the world, this new understanding of three-dimensional form and its relationship to perception led to the development of a dialogue with performance through process-based creation of works, choreographic collaboration, or interaction with the artwork. These works are generally indicators of action and evoke the weight and gravitational pull of the materials used, while also implying a relationship relevant to the human body and identity politics. (8)
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Ground Floor - Gallery 2 / Lygia Pape: Weaving Space, Curated by Emma Lavigne, Chief Curator and Director in charge of the Pinault Collection, with Alexandra Bordes, Curatorial Projects Manager at Pinault Collection. As part of the Brazil-France 2025 season.
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Ground Floor - Gallery 2 / Lygia Pape, Ttéia 1, C, 2003-2025, Golden thread, wood, nails, light, variable dimensions. Pinault Collection. Photo: Pedro Pape © Projeto Lygia Pape.
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1st Floor - Gallery 3 / Mono-ha Koji Enokura, Susumu Koshimizu, Kishio Suga, Jiro Takamatsu, Lee Ufan, Yoshi Wada.
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2nd Floor - Gallery 5 / Materialism, Hans Haacke, Maren Hassinger, Walter de Maria, Dorothea Rockburne, Nobuo Sekine, Michelle Stuart, Kishio Suga, Jackie Winsor, Iannis Xenakis.
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2nd Floor - Gallery 6.1 / Grid, McArthur Binion, Eva Hesse, Mary Heilmann, Sol LeWitt, Francesco Lo Savio, Enzo Mari, François Morellet, Howardena Pindell, Steve Reich, Bridget Riley, Robert Ryman, Jiro Takamatsu, Günther Uecker.
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2nd Floor - Gallery 6.2 / Monochrome, Mary Corse, Blinky Palermo, Howardena Pindell, Robert Ryman, Günther Uecker.
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2nd Floor - Gallery 7.1 / Balance, Melvin Edwards, Susumu Koshimizu, David Lamelas, Seung-Taek Lee, Lee Ufan, Bernd Lohaus, Senga Nengudi, Nobuo Sekine, Richard Serra.
A view of the “Minimal” exhibition featuring works by Richard Serra and Lee Ufan, Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur.
A view of the “Minimal” exhibition featuring works by Meg Webster, Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur.
Gallery 7.2 / Surface
In the second section of Gallery 7, called Surface, artists who blurred the boundaries between painting and sculpture, associated with reductionist artworks in the 1960s and 70s, who explored the potential of color, process, and materiality to reciprocally transition between different mediums, are featured. The exhibited paintings are laden with saturated, identity-defining intense color applications consisting of unconventional paints or substances. (9)
Foyer, Engine Room, Studio-Level 2 / Light
Works gathered under the heading Studio / Light in the space called Engine Room consist of works created by certain artists, primarily Dan Flavin, using electric light (such as fluorescent bulbs, neon, reflected light, natural light, and black light), representing a development seen as a radical movement in the same period. Inspired by neon advertisements abundantly present in the increasingly commercialized urban space, the aesthetics of industrial materials, the immaterial nature of light, and the potential of light to involve the viewer and architectural environment in the experience of the work, the phenomenon of light undoubtedly became a central motif in works of this period. In these illuminated choreographies, there is also a timed movement that appears as sequential images and visual effects. (10)
Interstitial Areas / Charlotte Posenenske
Finally, Charlotte Posenenske was presented not only in the thematic section called Surface but also with her work Vierkantrohre Serie D, which she placed in the floor transitions of the Bourse de Commerce building. Designed with inspiration from industrial duct systems, this work consists of square tube elements that can be assembled into complex forms through bending, branching, and rotating movements. It is produced from galvanized steel sheet, a durable material that can withstand extreme weather conditions and can be installed in both indoor and outdoor spaces. Posenenske’s such works have also been exhibited in various commercial and public spaces, from airport hangars to parking lots, from train stations to intersections.
Sources:
- Minimal-Pinault Collection (Press Kit) This article has been compiled from the Minimal-Pinault Collection Press Release.
- Adrian Searle, “Minimal review – primal, oddly vulnerable and boasting a man’s weight in mints”, Pinault Collection, Bourse de Commerce, Paris, The Guardian, 29 Oct 2025.
- Minimal, Pace Gallery.
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2nd Floor - Gallery 7.2 / Surface, Rasheed Araeen, Donald Judd, Brice Marden, Hélio Oiticica, Pauline Oliveros, Blinky Palermo, Charlotte Posenenske, Dorothea Rockburne, Robert Ryman, Anne Truitt, Merrill Wagner.
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Foyer, Engine Room, Studio-Level 2, Light, Chryssa, Mary Corse, Dan Flavin, Nancy Holt, Robert Irwin, François Morellet, Keith Sonnier
COLLECTION EXHIBITION
Exhibition view from Minimal, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, 2nd Floor: Materialism, Gallery 5.
Nobuo Sekine, "Phase of Nothingness - Water," 1969/2012, steel, lacquer, water, 120 × 120 cm. Pinault Collection. © Nobuo Sekine Estate. View of the exhibition “Minimal,” Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur.
A view of the “Minimal” exhibition featuring works by Meg Webster, Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur.
ARTISTS
Hassinger / Mary Heilmann / Eva Hesse / Nancy Holt / Robert Irwin / Donald Judd / On Kawara / Susumu Koshimizu / David Lamelas / Seung‑Taek Lee / Lee Ufan / Sol LeWitt / Francesco Lo Savio / Bernd Lohaus / Brice Marden / Enzo Mari / Agnes Martin / François Morellet / Senga Nengudi / Helio Oiticica / Pauline Oliveros / Blinky Palermo / Lygia Pape / Howardena Pindell / Charlotte Posenenske / Steve Reich / Bridget Riley / Dorothea Rockburne / Robert Ryman / Nobuo Sekine / Richard Serra / Keith Sonnier / Michelle Stuart / Kishio Suga / Jiro Takamatsu / Anne Truitt / Günther Uecker / Yoshi Wada / Merrill Wagner / Meg Webster / Jackie Winsor / Iannis Xenakis
CURATOR
Jessica Morgan joined the Dia Art Foundation as director in January 2015 and was appointed Director of the Nathalie de Gunzburg in October 2017. At Dia, Morgan is responsible for strengthening and energizing all aspects of Dia’s multifaceted program, including pioneering Land Art projects, site-specific commissions, and collections and programs in various locations. Since assuming the directorship, Morgan has spearheaded a series of initiatives that reaffirm and revitalize the nonprofit organization’s founding vision and principles.
MINIMALIST ARTISTS
DONALD JUDD
Donald Judd, Untitled, (Detail), 1965, Galvanized steel Dimensions, 297,7 × 101,6 × 76,2 cm NMSK 1927 Collection Materialitet, Art © Donald Judd Foundation/Bildupphovsrätt 2026, Sweden/VAGA, New York
Donald Judd (1928-1994) describes his series of works, which shifted from painting to sculpture and consisted of a few identical elements mounted on the wall through radical experiments, as “specific objects,” in accordance with the term he used in his 1965 manifesto. Judd’s works, created with an extremely simple and radical approach to abstraction, have a distant spatial effect. Conceiving his objects in an equivalent relationship with space, Judd envisions a minimalist and unsettling plane derived from form and structural formation. He thus spreads a spirit of minimal transcendence, legitimized by creating a potential for questioning the causality and uniformity of the perceptible, across the object and space. By withdrawing the sensory perception caused by things and thoughts in an abstract and ambiguous relational environment, he recreates the expanded rigidity emitted by the pure image within an aesthetic mise-en-scène. With his hard lines and angular boundaries, Donald Judd leaves nothing behind from the plane of perceived consistency and immanence in the context of constantly repeating new impossible forms.
MEG WEBSTER
Meg Webster'ın eserlerinin yer aldığı“Minimal” sergisinden bir görünüm, Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Koleksiyonu, Paris, 2025. Fotoğraf: Nicolas Brasseur.
Meg Webster‘s three-dimensional works, composed of minimal geometric and monumental forms, also reference ecological concerns. Her installations, created from red ash piles shaped like hemispheres, white salt, and beeswax, alongside living plants, highlight ecological pollution threatening the natural world and the endangered cycle of organic components. Webster’s salt or clay clusters, which grow largely through the functional power of organic micro-arrangements, take on a meditative function that triggers a kind of sensory effort. Here, there is an extraordinary spiritual molecular mass where the body and sensations turn inward and layer perception thresholds. These minimal clusters, simple yet containing a multiplicity of sensations, carry the fragile yet complex dimension of the relationship established with the natural environment into a conceptual phase. Webster’s simple arrangements also solidify with the smooth boundaries of the material form, evolving into an experiential threshold and a powerful natural landscape that transforms its own perception order. With their simple forms, they are like an extremely powerful critical emotional response to the new world order. Or these minimal forms are, in a way, sensitive and interactive monumental metaphors for sensing the world. Gülay Yaşayanlar
RICHARD SERRA
Richard Serra ve Lee Ufan'ın eserlerinin yer aldığı “Minimal” sergisinden bir görünüm, Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Koleksiyonu, Paris, 2025. Fotoğraf: Nicolas Brasseur.
Richard Serra (1938-2024) is one of the first Minimalist artists known for his monumental sculptures. He uses industrial materials such as steel to create simple, continuous surfaces that bend or curve in space. He attempts to influence our perception of space and dimension by compelling the viewer to enter the sculpture. The rusty textures that form on the plate surfaces lend a pictorial quality to the conceptual origins of his artistic practice. To the extent that he avoids ostentation, a monumental effect based on the structural and graphic integrity of the form is always present. That is why Serra’s metal plates have an extremely disturbing, metaphysical, and existential quality. Arrangements consisting of massive panels, especially flat walls or irregular rows or rising, falling, sloping narrow passages, resembling a labyrinth, take on a chaotic quality. They persistently make the viewer feel the threatening space of the sculpture. In this process, the aura of the sculpture enters into a psychological and intellectual concentration within the mediation of heavy mass reality.
DAN FLAVIN
Dan Flavin, Alternate Diagonals of March 2, 1964 (to Don Judd), (Detail) 1964, red and yellow fluorescent light, 365.8 cm (diagonal), Pinault Collection. © Dan Flavin / Adagp, Paris, 2025. View of the exhibition “Minimal,” Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2025. Photo: Nicolas Brasseur.
Dan Flavin (1933–1996) is considered one of the pioneers of Minimal Art for his work with fluorescent light beams and his radical and innovative sculptures. In the early 1960s, he experimented with fluorescent light, a mysterious material that suggested simplicity and singularity, emphasized its form and therefore itself, and possessed independent qualities. With this material, he created radically simple and transformative light installations that led to a new breakthrough. His work to Don Judd (1964), found in the Pinault Collection, consists of neon lights arranged in an alternating cross pattern. Here, the cross pattern extending along the wall brings together industrial aesthetics, the sensuality of the material, and the intensity of the light, conveying a palpable sense of energy that alters the viewer’s perception of space and draws their gaze. This work is the first in which Flavin systematically used the wall sconces and standard fluorescent tubes found in stores. It transforms an everyday object into a work of art and reconfigures the spatial experience.
AGNES MARTIN
Installation view: Agnes Martin: Innocent Love, Pace Gallery, New York, 2025. Courtesy Pace Gallery. Photo: Pace Gallery. (https://brooklynrail.org/2025/12/artseen/agnes-martin-innocent-love/)
Agnes Martin (1912–2004) Martin’s square-format works lean on a dialectic of line, contrasting with the concept of order. Martin has actually transferred the effective conceptual elements of Minimal Art into a formable spiritual perception with her works, which exclude subject matter and exist within a rhythmic flow. She seems to define a manifesto of liberation on a grid plane carrying harmonious linear vibrations that are constantly recoded. On the other hand, Agnes Martin produces permeable and simple forms with a metaphor of social and intellectual exaltation that centers on humanity with a perfectionism that originates from herself. She appears to possess an effective minimal power with her ability to foresee, construct, and transform this unique mystical power of transmission into a power of contemplation that changes. Emotional thresholds without subject or form change the nature of visual arrangement each time and are positioned on a new grid plane. Therefore, the determination of the rhythmic structure using the visual field and homogeneous differentiation in Martin’s paintings undoubtedly creates the conditions for the potential for production. Therefore, in this environment where a deep spirituality meets a static and silent vibration, the transformation of forms of feeling woven from intuitive codes and layers, originating from an inner fusion, is narrated… Gülay Yaşayanlar
SOL LEWITT
Sol LeWitt, Installation view, Paula Cooper Gallery, September 2016. [https://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/sol-lewitt2#tab:slideshow]
Sol LeWitt (1928-2004) One of the leading figures of Minimal Art, LeWitt is known for his wall drawings or geometric sculptures, which he referred to as “structures.” By creating multiple variations of his structures, LeWitt explored a geometric and mathematical system using industrial materials such as aluminum, metal, or concrete. A key figure in the evolution of Conceptual Art, LeWitt insisted that the idea, the diagram, and the planning of these structures were the artwork itself. In doing so, the actual implementation of the sculptures—the objects themselves—was less important than the concept of the structure.
INTERSTITIAL Areas
CHARLOTTE POSENENSKE
Charlotte Posenenske, Vierkantrohre Serie D (Square Tubes Series D), 1967/2015-18. Installation view, Dia: Beacon, Beacon, New York. © Estate of Charlotte Posenenske, Frankfurt. Photo: Bill Jacobson Studio, New York, courtesy Dia Art Foundation (New York).
Charlotte Posenenske (1930-1985) Charlotte Posenenske, who began her sculptural work in the second half of the 1960s, is a significant figure in Conceptual and Minimal Art. The artist produced works that could be reproduced as widely as possible through industrial processes, developing series of geometric sculptures that fit together and can be endlessly rearranged. The sculptures from the Vierkantrohre Serie D (1967–2020) series, located in the interstitial spaces of the Bourse de Commerce building, were designed inspired by industrial channel systems. They consist of square tube elements that can be assembled into complex forms through bending, branching, and rotating movements. They are made of galvanized steel sheet, a durable material that can withstand extreme weather conditions and can be installed both indoors and outdoors. Posenenske’s works have also been exhibited in various commercial and public spaces, from airport hangars to parking lots, train stations to intersections.
PASSAGE
ON KAWARA
On Kawara, SEPT. 13, 2001, (Detail) 2001, acrylic on canvas, 25.5 × 34.3 cm. Pinault Collection © One Million Years Foundation.
On Kawara (1932-2014) Kawara’s works are conceptually defined and thus distinct from minimalism; however, the deliberately simplified form and style (or grammar) in works such as his History Paintings are distinctly minimalist. Like many conceptual artworks, Kawara’s paintings have adopted minimalism’s formal language as one of seriousness, reality, directness, and the language of truth. The Passage section displays numerous examples from Japanese artist On Kawara’s iconic Today series in corridors and display cases. Kawara’s works, markers of a universal and collective history, are presented within the museum’s circular architecture as a reminder of the relentless passage of time. Placed around the central area, each of these antique cabinets contains a single On Kawara Date Painting, with the date of the painting indicated in white letters and numbers. In a box beneath the painting is a page from the newspaper of the city where On Kawara painted that day. Beneath the painting dated October 5, 1982, a newspaper reports that Israeli planes attacked missile bases in Syria. Beneath the painting dated June 20, 1975, the box contains a full-page advertisement for the movie Jaws, which was released in US cinemas that day.
TWO ARTISTS OUTSIDE THE EXHIBITION
CARL ANDRE
Carl Andre (1935-2024) Works composed of stone and wooden blocks or metal squares and placed on the gallery floor in repeating units are considered early examples of minimalist sculpture. These arrangements, characterized as a conscious expression of the space they inhabit, are actually created in an objective silence. They also highlight concepts and situations such as balance, symmetry, and order as indicators of a rational approach. Andre insists that his works exist solely from their own materials, devoid of any spiritual or intellectual qualities, and are nothing else. Carl Andre’s sculptural practice is an effort to develop a sensitivity to raw materials through transformations carried out in the context of material-object and space, and through multi-unit/object arrangements. In this approach, where time and perception are concretized, a spiritual dimension, with its hidden depth and internal order, is made meaningful through a paradox that evokes a sense of ordinariness. The artist, who thus aligns the idea of sculpture with a sequential and variable relationship between surface and material, develops this approach as a radical and infinite solution strategy. (See. :https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/minimalism
ROBERT MORRIS
Robert Morris (1931–2018) is one of the most influential figures in post-war American art. He is one of the artists who developed Minimalism, which emerged in New York in the early 1960s, with his radically simplified practice. Starting his career as a painter, he adopted a new style consisting of sculptural arrangements. In the second half of the 1960s, he published a series of influential articles and helped define the minimalist movement with his exhibitions. He is also known as one of the pioneers of Land Art and is associated with Fluxus and Performance Art.
EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
Minimal, Editor: Jessica Morgan, Contributors: Emma Lavigne, Jessica Morgan, Jean-Pierre Criqui, Frances Morris, Alexandra Bordes, Clara Meister, Teresa Kittler, Nicolas-Xavier Ferrand ve Alexis Lowry, Pinault Collection & Éditions Dilecta, Paris, 2025.
LYGIA PAPE: WEAWING SPACE
Lygia Pape, Ttéia 1, C (2003/2025), Installation view of Lygia Pape, “Ttéia 1, C” (2003-25), golden thread, wood, nails, light, dimensions variable. © Pinault Collection. © Projeto Lygia Pape.
Lygia Pape: Weaving Space, Curated by Emma Lavigne, Chief Curator and Director in charge of the Pinault Collection, with Alexandra Bordes, Curatorial Projects Manager at Pinault Collection. As part of the Brazil-France 2025 season. 10 September 2025- 26 January 2026. Pinault Collection, Bourse de Commerce, 2 Rue de Viarmes, Paris, France.
The Bourse de Commerce also hosted Lygia Pape, one of the leading figures of Brazilian avant-garde art, as part of the Minimal exhibition. The exhibition, titled Weaving Space, featured a selection of Pape’s works and was described as a tribute to the artist’s experimental practice. Weaving Space revolves around Ttéia 1, C (2001–7), a light installation that is one of the key works in the Pinault Collection. Ttéia 1, C (2001–7), an installation consisting of gold-colored wires stretched across an imaginary plane in space, is essentially a combination of geometric diagrams and emotions. It also has a variable spatial geometry effect depending on the viewer’s movement. This is because, in this gold-colored space-time conception, forms and tones are constantly changing, and new forms or intersections emerge in flat and increasing or multiplying dimensions. In other words, this magical installation, which draws the viewer directly into a sensory experience, takes shape and comes to life according to the angle of the light and the movements of the visitor. This minimalist installation, which offers an immersive sensory experience that changes with movement, can also be described as a kind of magnetic field that envelops the viewer or traps the void, transforming into a new spatial capsule that complicates the time-space dimension. It demonstrates how Pape’s emotional atmosphere presents a multi-layered structure and how a construction that creates its own boundaries establishes a profound intellectual relationship with the concepts of sense and consciousness. In a way, it is like a silent melody reflected from copper wires, representing emotional intersections between the present and the future.
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Lygia Pape (1927–2004) is one of the most important figures of the Brazilian avant-garde art movement of the second half of the 20th century. She conceived of art not as a finished, completed object, but as a sensory entity that interacts with visitors’ senses and consciousness. A performance artist closely connected to social and political issues, Pape conceives of art not as a finished, completed object, but as a sensory entity that interacts with visitors’ senses and consciousness.
PINAULT COLLECTIONS AND MUSEUMS
Meg Webster’ın Minimal’da sergilenen, pürüzsüz, sıkıştırılmış kilden yapılmış neredeyse yarım küre şeklindeki kubbesi. Fotoğraf: Florent Michel, Pinault Koleksiyonu
François Pinault is one of the world’s most important contemporary art collectors. The collection he has assembled over the past fifty years comprises more than 10,000 works spanning from the 1960s to the present day. His cultural goal is to share his passion for the art of his time with as many people as possible. He stands out for his enduring commitment to artists and his relentless exploration of new creative fields. Since 2006, François Pinault has focused on three cultural activities in particular: museums, comprehensive exhibition programs, and initiatives to support artists and promote modern and contemporary art history.
The Museums showcasing selections from the Pinault Collection comprise three extraordinary venues: Palazzo Grassi, acquired in 2005 and opened in 2006; Punta della Dogana, opened in 2009; and Teatrino, opened in 2013. In May 2021, the Pinault Collection opened its new museum in Paris’s Bourse de Commerce with the Ouverture exhibition. These four venues were restored and developed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, winner of the Pritzker Prize. In all three museums, works selected from the Pinault Collection are presented in regularly changing personal and thematic group exhibitions. Artists invited to create new works also play an active role in this process. The museums’ cultural and educational programs continue through partnerships with local and international institutions and universities.
BOURSE DE COMMERCE / PARIS
Bourse de Commerce-Pinault Collection Building. Image: © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier
Opened in 2021, the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection building is a contemporary art space in Paris that combines historic architecture with striking design. It hosts exhibitions from François Pinault’s collection. One of the building’s most iconic features is the massive concrete cylinder designed by renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Located beneath the original glass dome, it serves as the central exhibition space, creating a striking dialogue between the past and the present. The François Pinault Collection, which began to take shape in the 1970s, comprises approximately 10,000 artworks spanning various disciplines, featuring world-renowned artists such as Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, and Cindy Sherman, as well as showcasing emerging talents. The collection is particularly known for its engagement with significant social and political issues surrounding race, gender, and politics. Pinault retains the rights to use the Bourse de Commerce under an agreement with the City of Paris. The recent restoration by Tadao Ando focused on preserving the historic architecture while seamlessly integrating contemporary elements. Known for his minimalist approach and extraordinary skill with concrete, Ando added a striking concrete cylinder to the interior, creating a powerful connection between the building’s rich architectural heritage and the cutting-edge artworks displayed inside. Ando’s design integrates harmoniously with the preserved glass dome, paying respect to the building’s heritage. Combining iron and glass, the dome allows natural light to illuminate the building’s central space. During Ando’s renovation work, glass panels were replaced with modern double-glazed systems, ensuring thermal efficiency without compromising the quality of natural light. Additionally, the historic frescoes adorning the lower part of the dome were carefully restored to preserve the building’s cultural and artistic heritage.
MINIMALISM / MINIMALIST SCULPTURE
İZMİR - LONDON
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