Georges Vantongerloo

A Pioneer of Modern Art

9 July - 12 September 2020

Zurich

‘Georges Vantongerloo. A Pioneer of Modern Art’ is a special presentation of rarely seen works by the 20th- century Belgian master. Curated by Dr. Angela Thomas Schmid, President of the Max Bill Georges Vantongerloo Stiftung, the works in the exhibition retrace Vantongerloo’s artistic evolution throughout his five- decade career. This focus exhibition is on view at Hauser & Wirth’s new space at Rämistrasse 16. The building was initially converted into offices and private viewing rooms in 2018 and is now opening as an exhibition space. The presentation at Rämistrasse 16 is complemented by a display of archival material and books on Vantongerloo and his contemporaries at Hauser & Wirth Publishers’ headquarters at Rämistrasse 5.

Georges Vantongerloo (1886–1965), born in Antwerp, Belgium, was a sculptor, painter, architect, designer and theorist. Working across a variety of mediums as a member of some of the most important avant-garde groups of the 20th century, Vantongerloo’s artistic language became a pioneering and ever-evolving force in the history of modern art. After making innovative abstract sculptures and paintings as a founding member of De Stijl, in the 1930s Vantongerloo developed concrete compositions with simplified, undulating lines that gently and playfully materialise through an interplay of colour, light and transparency. These works – intense and exuding energy – exerted great influence, especially on Latin American artists. As a leading figure in the Paris-based Cercle et Carré in 1930 and co-founder of the group Abstraction-Création in 1931, Vantongerloo associated with contemporaries like Piet Mondrian, Barbara Hepworth, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Wassily Kandinsky, Josef Albers, László Moholy-Nagy and close friend Max Bill.

The exhibition at Rämistrasse 16 is a selective survey of Vantongerloo’s artistic research into colour and abstraction, and examines his influence on concrete art over a 50-year period. A selection of 15 works on paper from the estate and 2 important sculptures encapsulate his significant contribution to international modernism. Exploring the relationship between space and volume, his early horizontal-vertical compositions from the late 1920s and 1930s draw on geometry and algebraic formulae as a starting point. In works such as the study for ‘Composition dans le cône avec couleur orangé (Composition in the cone with orange colour)’ his use of the colour orange reflects a shift away from the primary palette adhered to by his elder peer Piet Mondrian. Instead, Vantongerloo chose a palette that highlights the different levels of energy inherent in different colours. He saw this as a new way of creating harmonic structures in a work of art, akin to keys and harmonic progressions in music.

Over the years, Vantongerloo’s expression became freer, as seen for example in his study ‘Fonction de courbes (Function of curves)’ (1939). Reflecting his growing interest in atomic physics and cosmology, these later works move away from straight-line geometry to notions of curved space, electro-magnetic energy, and light. His studies for ‘Sur fond noir (On a black background)’ (1948) and ‘Radiation de diverses zones (Radiation of various zones)’ (c.1960) arose from his profound interest in the cosmos. Vantongerloo’s ground-breaking approach to light, space and colour is also seen in his sculptures that use coloured Plexiglas and metal bands to evoke micro-galaxies of colours and lines.

At Hauser & Wirth Publishers’ HQ unique archival materials from the estate – books, historical photographs and documents – further contextualise Vantongerloo’s practice. Located at Rämistrasse 5, Hauser & Wirth Publishers’ headquarters occupies the former home of the Oprecht & Helbling bookshop, opened in 1925, and Emil and Emmie Oprecht’s legendary Europa Verlag publishing house, founded in 1933, both of which were closely affiliated with Max Bill, the Swiss polymath and close friend of Vantongerloo’s. In an additional nod to the cultural history and context of the Rämistrasse location, the bookshop’s counter area is constructed on the basis of a previously unrealised design for an architectural interior by Vantongerloo titled ‘Bar (Interior) with Colours Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Violet’ (1932) and is an integral part of the space.

These two presentations in Rämistrasse provide an insight into the ways in which Vantongerloo’s singular vision influenced the broader development of abstract and concrete art in the 20th century. His multidisciplinary work and artistic practice was a constant search for innovation in visual art.

Installation views

1 / 5

About the Artist

Georges Vantongerloo

Georges Vantongerloo, born in Antwerp, Belgium, was a sculptor, painter, architect, designer and theorist, and a member of De Stijl. While living in Holland and working on architectural designs during the years of World War I, Vantongerloo became part of the circle of Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, and Theo van Doesburg, who founded the magazine ‘De Stijl’ in 1917. In 1924 Vantongerloo published his pamphlet ‘L’Art et son avenir’ and in 1931 joined the Abstraction-Création group, which counted among its members Piet Mondrian, Barbara Hepworth, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Wassily Kandinsky, Josef Alberts, László Moholy-Nagy and Max Bill. From the end of the 1930s onward, Vantongerloo distanced himself from the straight line in favour of the curved line, producing influential work characterized by greater lyrical compositions and plays of transparency, color, and light.

Georges Vantongerloo was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1886. A member of the association Abstraction-Création, he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts and Brussels until the first World War. One of the 900,000 refugees who fled Belgium in 1914, Vantongerloo produced early figurative paintings and sculptures in Holland, but faced personal and political turmoil during these early years. This turbulent period of Vantongerloo’s life in exile would leave a lasting impression on his life and work.

In 1918, Vantongerloo became a co-signor of the De Stijl manifesto and a contributor to the movement’s publication De Stijl, along with a principal group of artists including Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian, and Vilmos Huszár. In the following years, Vantongerloo would come to define his practice through the use of mathematical equations, science, and ethics. He theorized an equation, ‘volume + void = space,’ and began experimenting with abstract linear and geometric works which gave form to his series of works Construction in a Sphere. As his practice developed through the 1920s, Vantongerloo became more invested in scientific-like methods and research; he gave mathematical titles to his works, employed Cartesian analytical geometry, and used parabolic and hyperbolic functions to invent complex shapes and forms, realized in a multifaceted oeuvre of paintings, sculptures, and architectural designs.

After moving to Paris from Menton, France, Vantongerloo joined Abstraction-Création in 1931; he served as vice-president of the artists’ association until 1937, organizing frequent exhibitions and producing annual booklets with contributions from an international group of artists. His models of bridges and a proposed airport were exhibited at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1930. In 1936 he participated in the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His first solo show was held at the Galerie de Berri in Paris in 1943, in an act of resistance to Nazi occupation.

The Max Bill Georges Vantongerloo Stiftung was established by Bill’s widow, the independent curator and scholar Dr. Angela Thomas Schmid, to represent the part of these two artists’ estates entrusted to her care. Despite maintaining entirely distinct artistic practices, artists Max Bill and Georges Vantongerloo were bound together in their desire to forge new developments in the field of twentieth-century abstraction, and by their lifelong friendship. Their close relationship and an extended personal written correspondence—which unfolded over the course of more than three decades—united their independent artistic and intellectual endeavours, and helped each to push the boundaries of his work to the fullest. The progress of this extraordinary creative exchange mirrors the artistic and philosophical breakthroughs that defined the last century.