Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
7 May - 27 July 1997
THE AGE OF MODERNISM - ART IN THE 20TH CENTURY
3. Abstraction and Spirituality
The pioneers of abstraction display a very different
kind of radicalism. The works of Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich,
Piet Mondrian and Constantin Brancusi stand for the rejection
of the object.
Robert Delaunay, First Disc, 1912, Druchmesser 135 cm, Private Collection, Switzerland
Early in the century, Malevich`s black square became the icon of a revolutionary
abstract art. 'Spirituality and Abstraction' are
the key words here. This is a theme that runs like a scarlet
thread through the art of the entire century. The drip paintings of Jackson
Pollock, the compositions of Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman`s radical reduction
of painting to surface and colour, Mark Rothko`s mystic colour fields and the
sculptures of Minimal Art represent the American response to the art of the European
pioneers; but the same fascinating path can also be traced in Europe itself, from
Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni and Yves Klein toGünther Förg.
Kazimir Malevich, Suprematism, 1921-1927, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam