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5/9/2013

Piet Mondrian - Barnett Newman - Dan Flavin

Kunstmuseum Basel - Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Basel

curator Bernhard Mendes Bürgi

Piet Mondrian, Barnett Newman, and Dan Flavin are three eminently important modernist artists and representatives of three different generations. They dedicated themselves to abstract art, but each did so under very different spiritual and social premises. The exhibition unites three selfcontained solo presentations. The chronological arrangement highlights revealing analogies as well as contradictions between the oeuvres—an organic panorama of artistic developments emerges, bristling with energy.

The point of departure is marked by dense painted panels, almost icons, that Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) created in Paris starting in 1919. The artist confined himself to the use of horizontal and vertical lines and the three primary colors red, yellow, and blue as well as the non-colors black, white, and gray. Mondrian called his form of abstraction “New Plasticism” and explored its application to all domains of life, aiming to reveal the “pure vision of the universal”.

In a programmatic assessment of Mondrian’s art, Barnett Newman (1905–1970) said that its representative illustration of the mathematical equivalents of nature transported the beholder into a world of flawless sensory lucidity. Newman wanted to release color from its compositional subordination and all other principles. This liberating expansion of color into sometimes gigantic pictorial formats aimed to convey a metaphysical exaltation Newman suggested with the term “sublime”.

Dan Flavin (1933–1996) decided in the early 1960s to eschew painting and sculpture. He adopted a factual stance and made his light installations by combining off-the-shelf fluorescent tubes. The repetitive use of these elements is formly committed to everyday life and industrial production; despite the magic of light they radiate, his works negate the overarching metaphysical dimension that unites Mondrian and Newman.

The Kunstmuseum Basel has central works by all three artists. These familiar pieces form the backbone of the exhibition, complemented by carefully selected significant loans from important museums and private collections in Europe and the United States.

Image: Dan Flavin, untitled (in memory of Urs Graf), 1972/1975. Gelbe, rosa, grüne und blaue Leuchtstoffröhren, Dauerinstallation, vier Teile à je 244 cm und vier Teile à je 1340 cm, vertikal Kunstmuseum Basel © ProLitteris, Zürich

Press office:
Christian Selz Tel +41 61 2066206 Fax +41 61 2066252 pressoffice@kunstmuseumbasel.ch

Press conference and preview of the exhibition on Friday, 06 September 2013, at 11 a.m.

Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst
St. Alban-Graben 16 CH-4010 Basel
Opening Hours:
Tue - Sun 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
closed on Monday
Open
29.03. Good Friday
31.03. Easter Sunday
01.04. Easter Monday
01.05. Labour Day
09.05. Ascension Day
19.05. Whit Sunday
20.05. Whit Monday
Admission:
Adults over 19 years CHF 21 / EUR 19
Teenagers 13-19 years CHF 8 / EUR 7
Students 20-30 years CHF 8 / EUR 7
Disabled visitors with ID CHF 8 / EUR 7
Groups (over 19 pers.) CHF 16 / EUR 14

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