Avoiding Labels
Minimalism and Maximalism
“The decorative must be abolished! … Let us throw away monuments, sidewalks, arcades, steps; let us sink squares into the ground, raise the level of the city.” — Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Antonio Sant’Elia, “Futurist Architecture”, 1914
Recently a well-known if not niche decorator posted an image to his Instagram account of an interior he had worked on, a simple, elegant library with sheer wool blinds and white oak panelling captioned: “There’s nothing that bothers me more than being referred to as ‘Maximalist’, as it’s a totally inaccurate description of the rooms I try to create.” The post elicited numerous replies, with American interior designer Patrick Mele in total agreement, Cabana magazine founder Martina Mondadori (b. 1981) suggesting “Maximalist is a word to be banned” and, perhaps somewhat more unexpected, a New York-based antique dealer opined: “Maximalism is an asinine term, invented by some disenfranchised minimalist, who imagines that any interior that is ‘warm’ or in any way defined by the inherent integrity of its contents, art of furnishings of virtue, is somehow a frivolous show of excess. How small-minded and how tiresome.” To my mind, the room in question, and, in general, the decorator’s overall aesthetic, though overtly traditional in character, is by no means “Maximalist” — indeed the interiors he has worked on, if anything, verge on sparsely furnished, with the focus being on carefully chosen antiques and objet d’art. If one were to ask “the man on the Clapham omnibus” what “Minimalism” and “Maximalism” refer to in terms of architecture and interiors, it’s very likely he would have a narrow pre-conceived idea, or rather, misconception; that being, in the case of the former, a spartan white box, with little in terms of furniture, art, or, for that matter, signs of life, and in the case of the latter, a haphazard, colourful amalgam of bric-à-brac and souvenirs. It’s perhaps worth noting that both “Minimalism” and “Maximalism”, as terms of art, have their origins in the latter half of the twentieth century and so canonically speaking, the vast majority of interiors were created outwith the confines of such loaded descriptors. For example, the pattern-heavy Manhattan apartment of inimitable fashion editor Diana Vreeland (1903-1989), designed by the “dean of interior decorators” Billy Baldwin (1903-1983), and dubbed the “Garden of Hell”, might be thought of as the epitome of Maximalism, and its antithesis, the stark, white cubist Wittgenstein house, a veritable laboratory for living in, a minimalist’s wet dream — but neither designer had such terms in mind when creating these now-infamous abodes. In the lexicon of architecture and interiors, it was not until the late nineteen seventies that the term “Minimalism” was first used to describe works of an extremely reductive, minimal, appearance, and even then, it went practically unnoticed. It was really from the mid-1980s that we saw the widespread adoption of “Minimalism” and “minimal architecture” as shorthand for a new design movement characterized by a combination of basic essentials, situation and place, emptiness, infinite space, limited colours, simplicity, and the use of concrete, glass, natural materials and light. Of course, etymologically speaking, the term had absolutely nothing to do with interiors, having been coined in a 1965 essay by British philosopher Richard Wollheim (1923-2003), in which he addressed, non-exhaustively, monochrome painting and the “readymades” of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), as a means of demonstrating, philosophically speaking, the minimal criteria a work of art must meet so as to qualify as such. Maximalism, a philosophy that can be succinctly summarised by the aphorism “more is more”, was a reaction against Minimalism and is, inherently, an aesthetic of excess. Again, the term was first used in the context of the visual or plastic arts, by American art historian Robert Pincus-Witten (1935-2018) to describe a group of artists, including Julian Schnabel (b. 1951) and David Salle (b. 1952), associated with the turbulent beginnings of Neo-expressionism in the late 1970s. According to Pincus-Witten, these artists were in part “stimulated out of sheer despair with so long a diet of Reductivist Minimalism”.
The Maximalist home of fashion editor Diana Vreeland, designed by the “dean of interior decorators” Billy Baldwin, and dubbed the “Garden of Hell”, photograph by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, 1979
A Parisian pied-à-terre decorated by Hubert de Givenchy, demonstrating perfectly the designer's uniquely elegant aesthetic, image c/o Christie’s
In 2019 Jenelle Porter curated Less Is a Bore: Maximalist Art and Design at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, borrowing its theme from architect Robert Venturi’s (1925-2018) retort to modernist pioneer Mies van der Rohe’s (1886-1969) famously austere modernist edict “less is more” — thereby turning minimalism on its head and making a joke of the movement. Porter’s aim was to show how artists and designers she considered “Maximalists”, including many of those affiliated with the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s, sought to rattle the dominance of Modernism and Minimalism, and how, in doing so, they used ornamentation to transform not only craft and design, but feminism, queerness, gender, beauty, taste, multiculturalism and globalism. The show, which was, perhaps expectedly, a cacophony of textiles, vibrant colours and pattern aplenty, included such works as Ettore Sottsass’ (1917-2007) Casablanca cabinet (c. 1981), Marcel Wanders’s (b. 1963) BonBon chair (2010) and Liza Lou’s politically-charged glass beadwork Offensive/Defensive (c. 2008). “The show was intended to be a barrage,” explained Porter, “It was a lot. And frankly, I didn’t think there was another way to do a show that you were going to attach the word ‘Maximalism’ to. It’s such a great word. It means a lot and it means nothing. It’s a word that people think that they might immediately understand because it’s the opposite of Minimalism.” Of course, the origins of minimalist design can be found in the work of European modernists, when, in the early 1920s leading architects, the likes of Le Corbusier (1887-1965), Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) and the group de Stijl, Bruno Taut (1880-1938), and others, defined anew the role of for e.g. colour and ornamentation. In the 1978 essay, Art Hysterical Notions of Progress and Culture post-minimal artists Valerie Jaudon (b. 1945) and Joyce Kozloff (b. 1942), both prominent members of the aforementioned Pattern and Decoration Movement, whose work was featured in Porter’s exhibition, argued that the scorn expressed for decoration stemmed from the “machismo” of twentieth-century architects, artists and designers who shared in an inherent belief that the “high arts” of Western men were superior to all other forms of art, for e.g. “those arts done by non-Western people, low-class people and women” which were, in turn, categorized as “minor arts”, “primitive arts”, “low arts”, etc. Ex hypothesi, early proponents of “Minimalism” were, in fact, expressing prejudice against the “decorative” based on a belief in the moral superiority of the art of Western civilisations. It should be noted that it wasn’t ideas of “Maximalism” that guided such artists per se, but a desire to supplant the austerity and minimalism of “serious” art. Leaving aside for a minute the thorny question of whether or not the advent of European modernism can be attributed to toxic masculinity, interestingly, a belief in the simplicity of art and architecture pre-dates even twenty-first-century artistic theory. In 1889 Russian author Leo Tolstoy (1829-1910) wrote somewhat provocatively, and going some way to supporting Jaudon and Kozloff’s theory: “Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no ornaments, but counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be decked out.”
The pattern festooned interior of Jacques Abreu (c. 1960), designed by acclaimed French decorator Henri Samuel
An interior by English interior designer David Nightingale Hicks, which, whilst a reflection of the designer’s penchant for unusual colour combinations, is relatively minimally furnished
In terms of interiors “Maximalism” is perhaps harder to pin down, and rather than a style it’s more akin to an ethos or approach. Seemingly somewhat polarizing, there are certain designers who will take such a moniker as a compliment, whereas others see it as the ultimate insult. Like yin and yang, Minimalism and Maximalism are inherently bound up with one another and both can, to some extent, be seen as two sides of the same coin. As a movement, we can say without controversy that Maximalism embraces excess, decoration and luxury, and from its origins in the 1970s centred around a rebuttal of asceticism and a Jean-Michel Frank-esque spartan design aesthetic. It might be helpful, however, if we didn’t necessarily think about contemporary design in such polarising terms, as with the prevalence and popularity of the sort of Instagram ready interiors championed by cult quarterly Kinfolk magazine, many people now mistakenly label any interior falling outwith its sun-dappled, bare-walled, neutrally-hued Millenial-friendly aesthetic as by default: Maximalist. Essentially Minimalism and Maximalism, as with a good many design trends, can both be seen as a generational reaction to “norms” and an attempt to do something different to that which came before. Art historically speaking, the “Kinfolk look” is merely another example of Minimalism responding to consumerism, for e.g. the egalitarian, populist ideals of French modernists such as Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) and Jean Prouvé (1901-1984) who were taking a stand against the maximalist excesses of the Parisian haute bourgeois in an attempt to make good design available to everyone. Some even argue that such decoratively simple contemporary interiors are a result of the 2008 financial crisis that engulfed economies worldwide, leading to the widespread belief that extravagance in interiors would be seen as nothing more than gauche overindulgence. As a result, for the wealthy and unimaginative, living in a hyper-curated white-on-white box became the safest way to “chic”, aping connotations of simplicity, frugality and eco-consciousness without actually having to give up on any beloved class signifiers. Inherently, such minimal interiors necessitate having enough of a disposable income to “invest” in art, furniture and objet d’art; in a similar way to creating a capsule wardrobe of “basics” from the likes of Prada, Margiela and The Row (where ironically a pair calfskin leather “Fisherman” sandals are currently priced at £860, conjuring to mind the Picasso quote: “I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money”) requires a considerable upfront investment.
Design is, by its nature, entirely cyclical and at some point, a younger generation will come to consider the current trend for mid-century furniture, linen bedsheets and fiddle-leaf figs entirely démodé, redolent of their parent’s homes, and in turn, they will look for new ways of expressing their creative identities, which may very well result in an upsurge in Maximalism. After all, in recent years we’ve seen “cottagecore” and “grand-millennial”, both of which aim to elevate such tasteless, chintzy tat as crochet blankets and faux fruit into desirably kitsch interiors. There are also socio-economic implications, as it becomes increasingly difficult to get onto and climb the property ladder, the amount of money required for deposits grows ever exponentially, which, when considered in the context of a cost of living crisis, by implication, there’s little left over for an artfully spare Minimalist interior replete with heirloom vegetables and an assortment of high-ticket gallery-sourced Hygge-y, folk-y wooden-ish things. For a younger generation the idea of creating a Maximalist interior, whereby a patchwork of flea-market finds and treasured mementoes are layered, indiscriminately, on top of one another, seems a far more accessible, realistic way in which to furnish a home. At the same time, at the opposite end of the economic spectrum, a good many those high-end interior designers who also embrace a Maximalist aesthetic have a tendency to sneer at the sort of homes designed by architects John Pawson (b. 1949) and David Chipperfield (b. 1953); scoffing at the idea of living in a “white box”, and pouring scorn on those such as art dealer Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn (b. 1967) and art enthusiast Emmanuel de Bayser, who choose to live in homes whose emphasis is on a carefully curated collection of furniture and art and not, at least in a widely held sense, on personal clutter and everyday detritus. Yet in reality, the interiors of many collectors often occupy something of a mid-ground, without fully ascribing to the moniker of either Minimalist or Maximalist, for e.g. the homes of Henri Samuel (1904–1996), Roger Vivier (1907-1998), Maja Hoffmann (b. 1956) and Hubert de Givenchy (1927-2018) all vary wildly in style, and whilst by no means could any of them be described as Maximalist, they certainly don’t meet the widespread conception of a “Minimalist” interior. Of course, for the average aesthete, those who are passionate about art and design, yet exist outside the rarified world of the money-is-no-object-super-collector, it’s often the case that, as they become more knowledgeable about a particular area or genre and develop a greater level of expertise, their taste becomes more refined and ergo, they would rather have fewer pieces around them that are more significant in terms of artistic merit or design.
There seems to be a general misconception held by those who do not understand the mind of collectors, that such interiors are somehow lacking in personality; yet in reality, entirely the opposite is true, as most likely, every single item on display will have been carefully thought about, and often agonised over, to the extent that it is, in reality, a truly intimate manifestation of the inner psyche. This need not necessarily be in relation to twentieth-century and contemporary art and design, as can be seen at the historic Hôtel de Duc des Gesvres, the home of interior designers Joseph Achkar and Michel Charrière, who have amassed the most extraordinary collection of seventeenth and eighteenth-century antiques. Their interiors, whilst by no means “Minimalist”, are carefully curated and free from clutter, but of course, the use of such highly decorative furniture and art gives the impression of something altogether more “homely” and “lived-in” than the homes of for. e.g. contemporary gallerists Barbara Gladstone (b. 1936) and Xavier Hufkens (b. 1965) where a backdrop of sharp, contemporary architecture gives an altogether different feeling. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the now-iconic Rue de Babylone apartment of couturier Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008) is perhaps the perfect example of a “more is more” approach to collecting, where the designer’s obsessive hunger for art resulted in an interior in which almost every available surface was used as a means of displaying fine works of art — indeed in the library Art Deco straw marquetry boxes were quite literally stacked on top of one another, jostling for space amongst masterworks by Warhol (1928-1987), Léger (1881-1955) and Mondrian (1872-1944). One of the reasons Saint Laurent sought out his penthouse, or “bachelor suite”, on Avenue de Breteuil was that he needed a calm, simple space, away from Rue de Babylone, with clean lines and white walls in which to decompress, telling his designer Jacques Grange (b. 1944) that he wanted: “Something like out of a film by Michaelangelo Antonioni … a studio that is light, a place to work. At the Rue de Babylone I’m suffocated.”
Essentially, specific binary labels are wholly unhelpful and we shouldn’t think of design in such polarizing terms as placing “Minimalism” and “Maximalism” at either end of a seesaw and attempting to determine at which point any given interior tips in favour of one side or the other. Yet at the same time, to suggest Maximalism is merely a term “invented by some disenfranchised minimalist” seems entirely inaccurate, and for that matter, there are a good many contemporary interior designers, termed “new Maximalists”, for e.g. Martin Brundnizki (b. 1966), Beata Heuman (b. 1983) and Luke Edward Hall (b. 1989), who are advocates of a pick-and-mix approach to interiors in the sense that they don’t adhere to any one style or movement. Instead, elements from different eras and epochs are combined so as to suit a contemporary clientele who desire homes that are fun, frivolous, and to some extent, a means of escapism from a world that seems ever increasingly fraught and fractured. “Personally, when I enter a white space I feel like I’m being deprived of something”, Brudnizki explains, “I don’t understand people who have empty houses.” Also, as with many things — the merits of NFT art, the morality of ripping off twentieth-century design and whether or not white bouclé is now truly passée — one’s perspective is, for the large part, driven by anything and everything from socio-economic background, to friendships, relationships and even childhood trauma. For some, Mondadori’s textile strewn, colour laden, artisanal aesthetic might seem the very definition of the sort of over the top maximalist style that led Saint Laurent to seek refuge in a white-walled, minimally furnished eyrie, whereas, for others, it’s worldly, eclectic and elegant, an antidote to the sort of identikit interiors seen frequently splashed across the pages of glossy magazines. Of course, consumerism is fueling the environmental crisis and arguably the promotion of “Maximalism” as a “design trend” is entirely unhelpful at a time when the most logical mantra would be “buy less and buy better”. Self-expression, in terms of the home decor, does not after all necessitate an interior groaning under the weight of the lastest fashion-led purchase, be it ceramics, scented candles, paperweights or trinket trays. Each and every one of us should pay less head to the fripperies of “fashion” and “fast interiors” and instead focus on creating homes that are unique, timeless and a true reflection of our inner selves. Even if “Minimalism” as an aesthetic is unappealing, it would be well worthwhile adopting a key tenet of its most staunch advocates, in thinking carefully about each and every item we acquire, and to spend more on unique, original works that will, hopefully, be kept for a lifetime.