The Barberini Museum in Germany traces the history of geometric abstraction in the 20th century.^e century through its leading figure, Wassily Kandinsky, accompanied by around one hundred works from more than 70 iconic artists from Europe and the United States.

The group exhibition explores, over six decades, the considerable power of the universe of Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), shaping a new path that traces "connecting lines in the history of geometric abstraction." Constructivism, the Bauhaus, De Stijl, Abstraction-Création, Hard Edge Painting, Color Field Painting, and Op Art, interpreted as distinct movements, define the various boundaries of this radical expression that unfolded in Europe and the United States. This is what the Barberini Museum in Potsdam reveals. The cultural institution probes the different facets of this movement, which, over time, was reduced to a play of colors, lines, and forms through the vision of numerous emblematic artists.

Visual language of the modern world

The works of Josef Albers, Sonia Delaunay, Barbara Hepworth, El Lissitzky, Agnes Martin, Piet Mondrian, Bridget Riley, Frank Stella, László Moholy-Nagy, and Victor Vasarely are thus exhibited on the walls. According to their respective movements, these pioneers of art drew upon the advanced technologies and theories of their time.  

Some were inspired by the concepts of the fourth dimension and the space-time continuum in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, while others, from Op Art for example, were inspired by the space race through the moon landing in 1969. 

The aim of the exhibition is therefore to bring Kandinsky's universe back into the spotlight, as a foundation that gave birth to paintings and sculptures that foreshadowed "current reality" and offered new experiences "of space and time".

Avant-garde theories

Ortrud Westheider, director of the Barberini Museum, recalls that the artist whose work highlights the synergies between art and science found his inspiration in the paintings of Claude Monet (The Haystack, 1886), during an exhibition on the Impressionists in Moscow in 1896. 

It was from 1910 onwards that he introduced abstraction into his painting, publishing his treatise a year later The spiritual in art, and in painting in particular, centered on "the effort to reduce the intangible – inspiration, soul and harmony". This champion of "inner necessity" has always asserted the importance of spirituality in artistic creation.  

With his book Point-line-plane: a contribution to the analysis of pictorial elements, appeared in 1926, He laid the theoretical foundations of the forms. Since then, his in-depth analyses of color, plane, volume, space, time and movement have continued to exert a multifaceted and extensive influence over the years.

Exchange of ideas

Her contribution to art and science, to synesthesia and neuroscience, to memory and theosophical thought (and more) remains today "one of the most radical and provocative," Ortrud Westheider reminds us. And this group exhibition is a perfect example of that.

"With images of geometric shapes floating in undefined space, the exhibiting artists sought to represent cosmic themes and higher spiritual levels."she explains. The curatorial analysis thus covers a broad spectrum, addressing artistic exchanges in Eastern and Western Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. The exhibition also traces the migration of ideas to the United States under conditions of exile and includes Great Britain for the first time.    

"Over seventy years, these artists have reduced painting to its fundamental forms."she continued, adding: "They all sought to transcend pictorial limits through grids and fields of color, and expanded their pictorial possibilities and the imaginative space of their viewers again and again." 

“Kandinsky’s Universe: Geometric Abstraction in the 20th Century”
Museum Barberini
Alter Markt, Humboldtstraße 5–6, Potsdam (Germany)
From February 15 to 18 May 2025

museum-barberini.de