Germany's Museum Barberini traces the history of twentieth-century geometric abstraction through its figurehead, Wassily Kandinsky, accompanied by a hundred works by over 70 iconic artists from Europe and the United States.
The group exhibition explores the considerable power of the universe of Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) over six decades, shaping a new path that traces "connecting lines in the history of geometric abstraction". Constructivism, Bauhaus, De Stijl, Abstraction-Creation, Hard Edge painting, Color Field painting and Op Art, interpreted as isolated movements, here define the various boundaries of this radical expression that unfolded in Europe and the United States. This is what the Barberini Museum in Potsdam is revealing. The cultural institution explores the various facets of this movement, reduced over time to a play of colors, lines and shapes, through the vision of a number of emblematic artists.
Visual language of the modern world
Works by Josef Albers, Sonia Delaunay, Barbara Hepworth, El Lissitzky, Agnes Martin, Piet Mondrian, Bridget Riley, Frank Stella, László Moholy-Nagy and Victor Vasarely are on display. According to their respective currents, these art pioneers drew on 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 to bring Kandinsky's world back into focus, as a foundation for paintings and sculptures that prefigured "present-day reality" and offered new experiences of "space and time".
Avant-garde theories
Ortrud Westheider, director of the Museo Barberini, recalls that the man whose work highlights the synergies between art and science found his inspiration in the paintings of Claude Monet(La Meule de foin, 1886), at an exhibition on the Impressionists in Moscow in 1896.
It was in 1910 that he introduced abstraction into his painting, publishing a year later his treatise Du spirituel dans l'art, et dans la peinture en particulier, centered on "the effort to reduce the intangible - inspiration, soul and harmony".This champion of "inner necessity" always claimed the importance of spirituality in artistic creation.
With his book Point-ligne-plan: contribution à l'analyse des éléments picturaux, published in 1926, he laid the theoretical foundations of form. Since then, his in-depth analyses of color, plane, volume, space, time and movement have continued to exert a plethora of influence over the years.
Ben Nicholson, Painting 1937, 1937, Oil on canvas, 79.5 x 71.5 cm, The Courtauld Gallery, London
Exchange of ideas
His contribution to art and science, synaesthesia and neuroscience, memory and theosophical thought (and more) remains today "one of the most radical and provocative", as Ortrud Westheider reminds us. And this group show is a perfect example.
"With images of geometric shapes floating in undefined space, the artists on display 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 fundamental forms," she continues, adding, "All have sought to transcend pictorial limits by means of grids and fields of color, and have expanded their pictorial possibilities and the imaginative space of their viewers again and again."
Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Sammlung BeyelerKenneth Noland, Half-Time, 1964, Acrylic on canvas, 177.8 x 177.8 cm, Private collection
"Kandinsky's Universe: Geometric Abstraction in the 20th Century"
Museum Barberini
Alter Markt, Humboldtstraße 5-6, Potsdam (Germany)
February 15 - May 18, 2025
