The celebrations of colours and shapes
For the second exhibition of the year, and to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Fondation Beyeler and the 150th year of the birth of Piet Mondrian, the Fondation is dedicating it's summer show to one of the greatest and most important male artist of modern art.
The artist, which will inspired many modern and contemporary artists such as Alexander Calder, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and more recently Bridget Riley and Sarah Morris, will also being one of the key artist of the collection of Ernst Beyeler, with seven works made between 1912 and 1938.
While inspiring other, the oeuvre of Piet Mondrian is popular with his latest work, made with lines, color blocks and strange but intriguing composition. But, the exhibition of the Fondation is going further by showcasing his (self) portraits, landscapes, flowers, cubists and pointillists period of his oeuvre. All of them are always linked to the composition of the oeuvre, the balance between colours and lines.
The exhibition is made with 89 works from European and American museum and private collection.
Evolution and perception
In the oeuvre of Mondrian, three spaces or memories were quite important. First, the Netherland, his hometown will always inspire him to create numerous scenes (such as the windmill, the landscape, the lighthouse, etc). Secondly, his studio and how it developed his art and his studio accordingly. Thirdly, the use of a limited colour palette, with blues, greens, oranges, pinks and reds, with the use of white and black to lighten and darken the colours.
In the first room of the show, four artworks are hanged (Picture N° 2-3) and placed in dialogue to each others.
The first two one are two pairs of paintings. The first one is showed alongside a work from 1934 titled "Composition in Black and White with Double Lines". While the two works are spaces of fourteen years, the comparison in term of composition and the structure of the grid in the background of "Woman With Spindle, C".
The second dialogue appear between the two pictures "Woods Near Oele" and "New York City 1". Both of them are linked to each other for the use of primary colours (Red, blue and yellow) and the experimentation of the medium, between the fluid paint of "Woods Near Oele" to the use of tapes and coloured paper for "New York City 1".
With this first introductory room, the visitor is invited to see the evolution of the oeuvre of Piet Mondrian, in eight different rooms. From his landscape, his views of windmills, his trips to Paris and his latest oeuvre made in the US.
While the oeuvre of Piet Mondrian is know for his line, his inspiration and his oeuvre, there are more then a single red line, it's an endless road and dialogue between figuration and abstraction, themes and memories of his life in Netherlands, and his influences due to his many trip to Europe and the US.
"It's about seeing the abstract of nature until you get to the essence of the image, the foundation of what an image really is."
This exhibition is quite an important oeuvre in the rediscovering of an unknown part of the oeuvre of this world famous artist, and even more when there not being any retrospective of his oeuvre since 50 years in Switzerland.
From his two year stay in Paris before the first wold war, were he work closely around the Neoplasticism style to his return to the Netherlands his returned to figuration were he work closely around the Neoplasticism style to his return to the Netherlands his returned to figuration.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Fondation Beyeler
Date: 5.6.2022 – 9.10.2022
Curators: Ulf Küster
Ticket: Available online OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Fondation Beyeler
Baselstrasse 101
CH-4125 Riehen/Basel
Phone: +41 61 645 97 00
Fax: +41 61 645 97 19
Mail: info@fondationbeyeler.ch