Post Minimalism refers to a range of art that was made in the 1960s and 1970s in reaction to the restrictive Minimalist movement. The term encompasses a number of subgenres, including Process Art, Performance Art, Installation Art, and Land Art. The Post Minimalist artists maintained an interest in the abstract formalism of Minimalist art. However, while the Minimalists created work with a mechanistic aesthetic that stood at a remove from the hand of the artist, the Post Minimalists wanted their work to emphasize the artist’s role. Process Art, by artists such as Richard Serra and Lynda Benglis, showed the methods by which it was made. Eva Hesse’s drawings of grids echo a form often used by the Minimalists, but they introduce a human element in the texture and imprecise nature of the lines. Post Minimalists also moved away from the sterile, commercially produced materials used by the Minimalists, incorporating new materials that had not previously been associated with fine art, like latex, fiberglass, polymers, dirt, and stones.

The human body maintained a central subject in the work of many Post Minimalist artists. Hesse and Benglis called the body to mind by using soft, fleshy substances to craft sculpture. The Body Art and Performance Art movements revolved directly around the human form—for example, Ana Mendieta’s Silueta Series consisted of images of landscapes into which Mendieta carved her own figure, referencing the female form and feminine power without explicitly depicting them. Other artists associated with Post Minimalism include Robert Smithson, Bruce Nauman, Keith Sonnier, Richard Long, and Chris Burden.