I'm Abby Jacobson and this is a piece of work. today we're talking about minimalism. The art of not that much a stack of boxes a series of blank canvases a single

fluorescent light it's the kind of work that people sometimes see in museums and say,

huh, how did this end up here?

You know, when I take my mom to this museum, hates these she can't handle it I mean I just

saw before a few young women standing in the front of this work being like you've got

to be kidding me to each other I can understand that. Minimalist work seems almost like anti-art. You can't

get a sense of the artist's hand. And that can lead you to thinking that there's nothing

there, no effort, no beauty.

But that's just not entirely true.

There's a lot in what seems like very little.

I'm standing in one of the MoMA galleries with Mark Joshua Epstein, a teaching

artist here. I work for the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of

American Art, the Jewish Museum, and when I'm not doing any of those things, I'm in a studio space

in East Williamsburg of five flights of stairs.

And we're looking at what appears to be three blank canvases. They're squares and each has a thin colored band of paint

around the edge, red, green, blue, and each is surrounded by a thicker band of

black paint. The piece is called Primary Light Group, Red, Green, Blue, and it's by the artist Joe Bear. I personally love it. I feel like it allows me a space to be calm and think about

what's happening in my life. I just found it extremely peaceful. But I also don't entirely get it.

Whenever I go into a museum or a gallery and look at art,

I find, and I hope this doesn't come off as insulting as an art educator

bring it my thing is like I don't always want to know what the intention was

because I kind of am of the mindset like I was just saying this and sort of discovered it I'm like well my

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