ArtScience Museum in Singapore Lit Up at NightArtScience Museum in Singapore Lit Up at Night
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  3. Minimalism: Space. Light. Object
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Introduction

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Introduction
Asian philosophies, including Zen Buddhism, have had a profound influence on Minimalist artists in the East and the West. Both of the artworks displayed at the entrance of the exhibition at Level 3 of ArtScience Museum relate to one of the sacred symbols within Japanese Zen, an ink circle known as an ensō. In Zen, the ensō symbolizes enlightenment and strength but also the nothingness of the Void (or mu).
Featured artworks
+ and – by Mona Hatoum (1994–2004)
General Purchase Funds, 2007, Collection of Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

+ and – by Mona Hatoum (1994–2004)

Steel, aluminum, sand and electric motor, 27 x 420 x 420 cm

Mona Hatoum’s circular sculpture at the centre of the gallery takes inspiration from Japanese Zen gardens. Building on an earlier artwork from 1979, + and – mechanizes the process of creation and destruction. It contains over 750kg of sand, and rotates at a rate of five revolutions per minute. The repeated sweeping movements and hypnotic sound evoke both absence and presence, existence and non-existence. 

Enso by teamLab (2017)
Courtesy of Ikkan Art International, Singapore

Enso by teamLab (2017)

Digital work, 18 min 30 sec (loop)

Japanese collective teamLab have brought the ensō into the 21st century with a digital version that glides into existence before slowly dissolving into nothingness.  In the Buddhist tradition monks were often taught this style of ink painting as a type of meditative practice. When the mind is still the monk takes up a brush and, in a single stroke, attempts to paint a perfect circle – the ensō.  Whilst perfection is almost impossible to achieve, this artistic expression of zero, or nothingness, stimulates deep contemplation.