At the beginning of the 20th century, a profound change occurred in painting: artists no longer sought to represent the visible world, but instead embraced a new universal pictorial language that reduced artistic expression to the interaction of color, line, and shape. In Europe and the United States, this radically modern approach gave rise to multifaceted currents of geometric abstraction that tested the limits of painting: from Suprematism and Constructivism, to the Bauhaus and post-war British abstraction, to Hard Edge painting and Op Art.
Geometric abstraction
Kandinsky's Universe: Geometric Abstraction in the 125th Century is the first exhibition in Europe to tell the story of geometric abstraction not by presenting a series of national movements, but by tracing the lines of connection between them. Twelve works by Wassily Kandinsky, a key figure in abstraction who influenced generations of artists with theoretical writings such as Point and Line on Surface, serve as a common thread throughout the exhibition. A total of XNUMX paintings, sculptures and installations by seventy artists show how geometric abstraction has repeatedly challenged viewers' imaginations. The artists represented include Josef Albers, Sonia Delaunay, Barbara Hepworth, El Lissitzky, Kasimir Malevich, Agnes Martin, Piet Mondrian, Bridget Riley, Frank Stella and Victor Vasarely. Loans for the exhibition come from the Courtauld Gallery, London, the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæek, Denmark, the Fondation Gandur pour l'Art, Geneva, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. The exhibition also includes works from major American collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, as well as the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Who was Wassily Kandinsky?
Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow and initially trained as a lawyer. In 1896, he began studying art in Munich and from 1908 exhibited his first expressionist works, characterized by bold colors and simplified forms. In the period that followed, he founded the art group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) and increasingly moved away from the direct representation of visible reality. In 1911, he published his groundbreaking theoretical work Concerning the Spiritual in Art, which continued to influence the art world until the 1914s. In it, Kandinsky drew on insights from neuroscience related to music, dance, physics and biology and combined them with spiritual concepts such as theosophy, which had a strong influence on his work. His aim was to demonstrate that colors and geometric shapes inherently possessed – and were in a reciprocal relationship with – universal qualities. After the outbreak of the First World War in 1917, Kandinsky was forced to leave Germany. He returned to Moscow, where the first works of Suprematism and Constructivism had already been produced. The art groups to which Kasimir Malevich, Ljubov Popova, Ivan Kljun and El Lissitzky belonged envisioned a future in which art and technology, spirit and mind were united. Their abstract pictorial language, based on geometric lines and planes, became the expression of a utopia of progress. By XNUMX, most artists in Russia devoted their efforts to the service of the revolution and embraced industrial production; Kandinsky, more interested in the psychological effect of art on humans and convinced of its “inner necessity”, became an outsider.
The period of the Second World War
World War II marked a turning point in the development of geometric abstraction. With the German occupation of Paris, many artists, art dealers and critics fled to London before emigrating to the United States. Under the influence of Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, the British capital became a new center of geometric abstraction. After World War II, the so-called Constructivists formed in London, inspired by the Constructivists of the pre-war years. They used newly developed synthetic materials such as plastic, acrylic and fiberglass, combined with wood and aluminum. The works of Mary Martin, Victor Pasmore and Kenneth Martin reflect the optimistic wave of modernization that characterized post-war reconstruction. In the United States, too, the ideas of European exiles continued to influence the development of geometric abstraction in the works of American artists.
The sixties
In the 60s, Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, and Carmen Herrera pioneered the movement known as Hard Edge painting. Characterized by clear forms, sharp contours, and bright colors, it was a departure from the expressive approach that had dominated the New York art scene of the 50s. A contemporary, contrasting movement emerged with Minimalism, with works by Donald Judd, Jo Baer, and Agnes Martin embracing radical simplicity.
