ganz konkret. Form, Farbe, Raum aus der Städtischen Sammlung Erlangen
In the organizer's words:
Interlocking squares in different color combinations, diagonal stripes in vibrating colors or an ever-shrinking grid of black on white.
The fact that the umbrella term for these and other such non-representational works is "concrete art" is initially quite confusing: why is art concrete when nothing concrete is depicted? The term, which goes back to Theo van Doesburg in 1924, is now almost exactly 100 years old, but the ideas of this art history, which has been developing since Malevich's black square, still have a strong impact on art today - and on our daily lives.
So what is concrete about Concrete Art? What you see, quite concretely, without interpretation: color, form, line, material and space. Often, the works also focus on following self-imposed rules for dealing with these elements; it is about science, precise conception and the investigation of variations within a defined system. It is about rhythm, perception and structure.
The release from the compulsion to create something representational, whether realistically depicted or abstract, offers great freedom for both the artists and the viewers. The freedom to play and experiment with these parameters. The freedom to perceive and compare with concentration, to see without interpreting. It is not without reason that Concrete Art was conceived from the outset as a democratic art: it functions and works without prior knowledge - and prejudices.
In line with these poles between clear rules and free play, this exhibition also imposes no constraints and combines works by strict Concretists such as Max Bill, Walter Dexel or Verena Loewensberg with those by artists who refer to this principle with a great deal of humor, such as Ad Minoliti, François Morellet and Alona Rodeh. Works by artists such as Verena Issel and Edoardo Paolozzi, who focus on the themes of form, color, space and seriality in their work, but also work with the depiction of real objects, have also been selected.
And that's not all: based on their intensive preoccupation with form and space, many artists in this art movement were also designers from the very beginning, whether in the field of advertising or commercial art (Günther Fruhtrunk, Allan D'Arcangelo) or in product design (Max Bill). The exhibition explores this interface between art and design using selected loans as examples.
The exhibition is a sensual, associative crash course in Concrete Art from the holdings of the Municipal Collection - which also includes works by artists who are not "Concrete" at all.
With works by:
Josef Albers, Max Bill, Allan D'Arcangelo, Günter Fruhtrunk, Verena Issel, Verena Loewensberg, François Morellet, Ad Minoliti, Verner Panton, Eduardo Paolozzi, Otto Piene, Georg Karl Pfahler, Alona Rodeh, Marco Stanke, Walter Zeischegg and others.
This content has been machine translated.Price information:
Reduced: 3 Euro
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