“Less is more”: Everywhere we hear the mantra. Marie Kondo and
other decluttering gurus promise that shedding our stuff will solve
our problems. We commit to cleanse diets and strive for inbox zero.
Amid the frantic pace and distraction of everyday life, we covet
silence-and airy, Instagrammable spaces in which to enjoy it. The
popular term for this brand of upscale austerity, “minimalism,”
has mostly come to stand for things to buy and consume. But
minimalism has richer, deeper, and altogether more valuable gifts to
offer.
Kyle Chayka is one
of our sharpest cultural observers. After spending years covering
minimalist trends for leading publications, he now delves beneath
this lifestyle's glossy surface, seeking better ways to claim the
time and space we crave. He shows that our longing for less goes back
further than we realize. His search leads him to the philosophical
and spiritual origins of minimalism, and to the stories of artists
such as Agnes Martin and Donald Judd; composers such as John Cage and
Julius Eastman; architects and designers; visionaries and misfits. As
Chayka looks anew at their extraordinary lives and explores the
places where they worked-from Manhattan lofts to the Texas high
desert and the back alleys of Kyoto-he reminds us that what we most
require is presence, not absence. The result is an elegant new
synthesis of our minimalist desires and our profound emotional needs.