Located on the heights of Antibes, in the magnificent villa-studio of one of the most mythical artistic couples of the 20th century, the Hartung-Bergman Foundation presents an exhibition devoted to the cosmic visions of Hans Hartung (1904-1989) and Anna-Eva Bergman (1909-1987) exploring their fascination with science.

"[...] forces that break free from gravity, scales that become blurred, worlds that are born and die […] 1”, evoking the effects of weightlessness, the gravity of stars, quasars and other black holes, some of their canvases would have, according to physicist Étienne Klein (associated with the exhibition), anticipated very recent astrophysical observations.

GOLD NOTHINGNESS

In 1963, after painting The Abyss, Anna-Eva produced two monumental monochromes in vinyl and metal leaf with eloquent titles, Golden Void and Silver Void, while between 1969 and 1970, on the occasion of the Apollo 11 mission, she created, again in silver leaf, extraordinary lunar visions. In search of universal harmony, believing in "a higher plane, a kind of spiritual and astral plane, beyond the tangible Universe" ", she will relentlessly seek to access this Cosmic Unconscious 2 through research on colors, the golden ratio and the right proportions, to the limits of alchemy… Painting " using the old medieval technique of gold backgrounds, petrified stars […] sailing in forever frozen skies 3”, she is also a painter of movement, because “ His paintings are spaces where forces of attraction and repulsion play out at a distance, as in a magnetic field. 1”.

HYPNOTIC AND PSYCHEDELIC

Having dreamed of becoming an astronomer and been fascinated from a very young age by the infinitely small and the observation of stars, Hans, for his part, found in abstraction the means to depict the physical energies that traverse space. Adopting the spray technique in the 1960s, he took painting into another dimension: evoking in turn black holes, interstellar travel, stellar collisions, or even the " passage of an electron through a magnetic field 1”, his vinyl and acrylic paintings are a maelstrom of splashes, nebulous trails and multicolored flows, with lemon yellows and turquoise blues rushing into bottomless blacks that draw the eye in. A veritable Stanley Kubrick-esque space odyssey propelling us into another world, Beyond the Infinite 4”, into infinity and beyond 1”.
1. Quotes from the exhibition catalogue.
2 Title of a work created in 1951.
3 Article published in 1956 in the magazine Le Musée vivant, cited in the catalogue.
4 Hans Hartung’s paintings after 1960 have often been compared to the “Beyond the Infinite” sequence from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, released in 1968.

"COSMIC TRIP: HARTUNG AND BERGMAN, BETWEEN DREAM AND SCIENCE"
HARTUNG-BERGMAN FOUNDATION – 173, CHEMIN DU VALBOSQUET, ANTIBES
UNTIL SEPTEMBER 29, 2023
FONDATIONHARTUNGBERGMAN.FR

"ANNA-EVA BERGMAN: JOURNEY INTO THE INSIDE"
Museum of Modern Art of Paris – 11, Avenue du Président-Wilson, Paris 16th
UNTIL JULY 16, 2023
MAM.PARIS.FR