The artistic current known as Minimal Art and especially the installations and objects of the representatives of classical 1960s Minimalism - artists such as Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and the recently deceased Sol LeWitt - have made such an impact on the genre that it is often perceived as an autochthonous and purely North American phenomenon. That said, beyond the circumstance of its American birth, perhaps Minimalism does not consist so much in a thematic current but, more likely, in a kind of pluralism that is based, above all, on abstraction, constructivism and formal reduction.

Based on that argument, the exhibition Before and After Minimalism: A Century of Abstract Tendencies in the DaimlerChrysler Collection reveals the formal minimalist approaches and typical geometric abstractions of minimalist works in an essentially broader context. What is clear is that the origin of the procedures and methods of minimalist practices should also be sought in the abstract and constructivist tendencies born in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century.

Distinct from other modern and contemporary art collections with more general objectives with regard to their representation of art, the DaimlerChrysler Collection, as of 1977, took advantage of the presence of Daimler-Benz AG in Stuttgart - although it also has headquarters and plants worldwide - and focused their collecting on the origins of abstraction. They focused on the Stuttgart Academy and Hölzel, a true pioneer of abstract art, whose teachings would later influence the professors of the Bauhaus. With selective criteria and growing internationalization, the collection, comprised of approximately 1,500 works by some 400 artists, has continued to expand its holdings of art by the Abstract-Constructivists, Conceptualists and Minimalists.