Minimalist capitalism: From the art-object to the consumer-object vortex

Studying art from a psychoanalytic perspective remains relevant because it expresses the link between subjects and their desire and how they relate to objects in general. This article focuses on analyzing minimalism and the latent fantasy of the artistic movement. We question the narrative of the minimalist as something clean and empty and explain why, despite its efforts, instead of slowing down consumption, it ends up accelerating its rate and making the subject’s alienation to capitalism even stronger, creating a lot more suffering. We present the argument by linking the libidinal and political economies with Jacques Lacan and Karl Marx’s thoughts. The article concludes by reflecting on the suffering of the capitalist subject and the limits of its ethical behavior within a capitalist economy.