Max Bill

This December, the exhibition ‘space-time continuity’ at the gallery’s new space on Bahnhofstrasse 1 will examine the dialogue between Max Bill, artist, designer, theorist, writer, curator and pedagogue, and a group of his contemporaries who explored a similar territory to his own art and ideas. Many of the works on display are from Max Bill’s private collection, indicating personal friendships as well as aesthetic exchanges.

Max Bill’s contribution stems from the way we define and describe the art on view: the precise manner he approached the use of terms such as abstract, concrete, construction, non-objective; and the relationship between art, geometry, and mathematics. At the centre of the exhibition is an extraordinary, white marble sculpture by Bill, titled ‘konstruktion aus einem kreisring’ (Construction from a Ring) (1942), which is shown alongside two - and three dimensional works spanning from the 1940s to the 1970s, such as ‘drei linien’ (three lines) (1944-46) and ‘acht flächen gleicher grösse‘ (Eight Fields of Equal Surface) (1970-1971). The exhibition offers a way to understand Bill’s own consistent journey as an artist in the context of an ongoing aesthetic conversation and exploration of form.

Such a continuum was expressed by Bill through his moebius-shaped sculptures of endless ribbons, and by Vantongerloo particularly in his hanging works, such as ‘Ligne circulaire et cercle à rayons variables’ (Circular line and circle with changeable radii) (1946). Both artists explore the possibilities of topological form in a variety of materials. Through these shapes Bill and Vantongerloo sought to express ideas of continuity and infinity in their work, as well as exhibiting their profound interest in a changing understanding of energy, movement, cosmology and astrophysics.