Kandinsky Malewitsch Mondrian – Der weiße Abgrund Unendlichkeit Kat. K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen

»The white, free abyss—infinity lies before us«, according to Kazimir Malevich in 1919 when describing his use of white as a monochrome ground in »Suprematist painting« and as a surface in front of which his geometric shapes seem to float weightlessly. For Wassily Kandinsky, the compositional white area in his expressive abstractions was the all-important opening of pictorial space through which the complexity of the world was to be reflected synaesthetically and thereby art simultaneously ranked alongside science. Piet Mondrian, for his part, tried to find universal harmonies through the depiction of mathematical problems behind visible phenomena. His exploration of »non-colour« in his grids of black lines and primary coloured surfaces forms a »neoplastic system« devoid of any representational function and is unique in the history of painting. On the occasion of the 2014 Quadrennial, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen will premiere an attractive synopsis the work of these three great artists, considered the most prominent pioneers of the avant-garde and of abstraction in the twentieth century. The show will focus upon selected major works and the complex issue of white surfaces, all which is meticulously recreated the catalogue. The discussion of materiality and immateriality of the colour white arising here is also reflected in the latest research results from the restoration process. This leads to some surprising answers that are treated separately. If the colour white provided an umbrella for art, science and parareligions, did it necessarily have to function as a symbol of a future world?

Exhibition:
K20 Kunsthalle Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 5/4–6/7/2014
 

Kasimir Melvitch (1879–1935) was a Russian avant-garde artist and theorist, whose pioneering work had a profound influence on the development of non-objective and abstract art in the 20th century. His Black Sqaure from 1915 formulates a revolution in pictorial invention and modern aestetics. He also did a White Square which is taken as general theme of the exhibition at K20 Kunsthalle Dusseldorf 2014 and connected to one other most influential non-objective but also abstract painter Vassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) co-founder of the German almanac Der Blaue Reiter together with Franz Marc in which surroundings artists as Macke, Münter, von Werefkin, Jawlensky, Kubin, Klee and Bolz situated themselves. The third pioneerin in that virtual round is Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), the Dutch innovative artist and founder of the De Stijl, who is also regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. His artistic vocabulary is the reduction in art to simple geometric elements in which the paint white also played a central role.

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