Press release
Galerie Michael Werner is pleased to announce a group exhibition of paintings, drawings and sculptures made between the early 20th century and the 1980s. Paintings and drawings by Auguste Herbin (1882-1960), Hans Arp (1886-1966), Jaques Lipchitz (1891-1973), Reuben Nakian (1897-1986) and Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902-1968) enter into a dialogue with sculptural works by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), André Masson (1896-1987), Roberto Matta (1911-2002) and Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002): a dialogue where figuration meets abstraction.
Following the words of Hans Arp, abstraction helps us to find the essential core, to find true knowledge: This mixing, intertwining, resolving of boundaries is the way which is leading to the basics. Like clouds, the figures of the earth are merging. The more intimately they are intertwined the closer they will come to the essence of the world. If the physical is vanishing, the essential will shine in splendor. (Hans Arp: „Konkrete Kunst“, in: Unsern täglichen Traum, Zürich 1955) The diverse selection presented at Galerie Michael Werner traces this development of abstraction and grants viewers a conclusive awareness.
Clear contours characterize the soft, sketch-like pencil studies of Jaques Lipchitz (made in 1913 and 1914/1915): bowls placed on a desk house carefully placed fruits in their curvature. Similarly, Auguste Herbin outlined the elements of his 1912 still life of a carafe and jar with a charcoal crayon. The change from figuration to abstraction during the 20th century is pointedly represented by the works of Ernst Wilhelm Nay, as both the artist‘s early and late work bear witness to his central focus: the interplay of color and form. The early paintings Fisherwomen at the Boat (1937) and Bathing Women (1939) are formulated clearly in both title and execution. The abstract tendencies become more obvious in the so-called “elementary“ works of the late 1960s where the figure is missing and smooth swaths of color float and transparent points seem to dissolve. The clear contours which distinguish the early paintings are replaced by overlapped, blended and frayed color fields. The watercolor Yellow-Red (1966) links immediately to Nay‘s Augenbild of the early 1960s, which focus on the viewer with their slit-shaped lenses. Similar to the art of Ernst Wilhelm Nay, the exhibited works on paper by Hans Arp share an interest in both figurative and abstract representation. The five torsi placed side by side in the collage Les cinq (1962) – referring to Arp’s sculptures – put volume and corporeality in one’s mind, while in other works the shapes skim along monochrome color fields lacking in any spatiality. Finally, Reuben Nakian’s drawing Leda and the Swan (1982) is dedicated return to figuration, having turned his back on abstraction.
The finely balanced relationship between figuration and abstraction finds its correspondence in the sculptures featured at Galerie Michael Werner as well. Rodin‘s Tête de Baudelaire (1885-1895, cast in 1964) is still attached to its natural presentation, while Masson‘s Minotaure I (Le grand) (1942, cast in 1987) thematically withdraws from reality and loses clarity in its formal development. Matta’s bronze sculpture L’Impensable (1959) actualizes the unthinkable, a concept that intuitively evades formal representation. Contrastingly, Jean-Paul Riopelle’s sculpture Gaulois presages the head, arms and legs of a striding gaul, cape soaring into the air. Observing the sculpture, once-recognized details evaporate and the sculptural construct turns into an abstract landscape. When corporeality passes away, the bare essentials will shine, Hans Arp says.
The exhibition opens at Galerie Michael Werner in Märkisch Wilmersdorf 2nd February 2015 and remains on view through 2nd April 2015. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10am to 5pm. Booking in advance is recommended by phone +49 (0)33731 32010 or email galeriewerner@michaelwerner.de.