1 The exhibition. Elena Lux-Marx

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1 Logic Unfettered: European and American Abstraction Now : Exhibition and Lecture Series at the Mondriaanhuis in conjunction with the symposium Aesthetics and Mathematics at Utrecht University. Exhibition dates November 10, February 10, Juliette Kennedy October 6,

2 I think that these two cultures [Japanese and European], and, for that matter, any two foreign cultures, can only inspire one another in the realm of art, out of a deep, inner comprehension, out of a mutual fascination with the exotic, as it has always been in art.... Art is always dependent on the inspiration that comes from other cultures, and from other intellectual pursuits. Elena Lux-Marx 1 The exhibition On the 2nd of November the exhibition Logic Unfettered: European and American Abstraction Now will open at the Mondriaanhuis. Works of some of the great names in contemporary constructivism will be on view, such as those of Bob Bonies, Andreas Brandt, Matti Kujasalo and Elena Lux- Marx; also included are works which may take their inspiration from classical constructivism, but which then branch off from it in various ways, such as Kathrin Hilten, Wanda Kossak, Marjatta Palasto, Steven Rand and Fred Sandback. Lux-Marx s comment about art s essential relation to other intellectual pursuits captures much of the original idea behind the organization of the exhibition. Accordingly, the exhibition (and corresponding lecture series, see LINK) is held in conjunction with two events: the interdisciplinary symposium Aesthetics and Mathematics, at the Utrecht University Philosophy Department November 9th-10th; and the meeting A Day in Mathematical Logic to take place November 8th at ILLC University of Amsterdam. (See below or iemhoff/beauty.html) 2

3 By linking these three events together we hoped to create a dialogue across cultures, focused on the role of aesthetics as a driving force in both mathematics and art. For example, an idea we wish to explore in both contexts is one which grounds the enterprise of constructive painting and of mathematics, to wit: creativity expressed within exact frameworks. Of course it is well known that artists have always created works according to some system; and similarly mathematicians face a very powerful constraint in the notion of a proof. What is perhaps new about what we bring to the discussion of these things is the analogy we are drawing between what artists do and what mathematicians do. Our contention is that both are committed in a fundamental way to aesthetics. Accordingly, some of the art to be featured represents the particular direction within constructivism, in which the works are made according to a system, or plan, with respect to which, modulo questions of handling of material, the painting is in a precise sense predetermined. In such cases chance is often used as a constraint, for example by Kujasalo, who rolls dice; as is the so-called golden section, used for example by Brandt. Other works reflect on abstraction from a different point of view, namely one which privileges spontaneity and lack of restriction within a precise vocabulary. Other works veer off into the direction of minimalism. What is common to all of the works is their existence in the transcendent, semi-mystical space invented by Mondrian. A work of Kathrin Hilten, (Circle, fig. X) illustrates something of the point of view we have taken on constructivism in the exhibition. The circle is an accidental artwork: that is to say it began as the first step in the creation of one of Hilten s abstract landscapes (fig. Y). On measuring the circle, however, Hilten discovered that she had unintentionally drawn an essentially perfect circle and therefore she left it as it is. TITLE is still part of her landscape series works, that is to say, even so that it is by coincidence 3

4 a geometrical-abstractionist work, it is still a landscape in some sense. But (fig. X) also exemplifies what is to us the bifurcated nature of constructivism: on the one hand, constructivism expresses the human fascination with essential structures or arrangements, that is to say, compositions which are somehow given already in nature or at least in our idealizations of nature; whereas on the other hand constructivist works not only allow for, but are precisely humanized and made into real works of art by the handprint of the particular person who has internalized these pre-given structures. In the case of (fig.x) the little break in the circle at the right (at 30 degrees) tells of the human presence in nature: it s aspiration toward the perfect; its incorrigible compulsion to leave its own mark on it; on, in this case, the ideal objects of mathematics. (fig.x) communicates all of this to the viewer, and more besides. One simply has to stand and look at it for awhile! If Hilten s work represents a direction within abstraction which privileges spontaneity and lack of restrictions in the execution of the work, and in fact Hilten has always belonged more to the category of lyric abstraction than constructivism, strictly speaking, the work of Brandt, Kujasalo, Bonies and Lux-Marx place indeterminacy at a much earlier stage in the process of creation. These four giants of contemporary European painting, are, among European constructivists, perhaps closest to Mondrian in the sense of creating powerful works in which structure, color and action continue the abstract geometric space created originally by Mondrian. Brandt uses the so-called golden section proportions as a frame for the action of the works, while at the same time the colors, in being complex expressions of coldness, heat and warmth, give a sense of, respectively, seriousness and play; or, in other works, an equilibrium between these (see fig.x): life as usual, mixing everything together at the same time. Brandt s constructivism leans toward minimalism. One also thinks of the New York School in connection with them, an influence on Brandt dating from a series of important visits to New York in the 4

5 1970s. Bonies s method is not tied to the golden section but to the series Of all the works shown, his dynamic paintings belong most genuinely to hard-edged constructivism. An early inspiration for them was the social utopian project in art of the 1960s, in which art was thought of as a set of simple instructions, which would be transmitted to the consumer, who would then execute the piece on his or her own. In fact Art for Everyone has been a tradition in constructivism since Malevich. Such associations may not come immediately to mind while looking at Bonies s work. Nevertheless one senses something in them, which hints at the collective life of human beings. Lux-Marx s elegant, iridescent paintings reflect her dialogue with concrete art, though the dimensions of the visual elements, be they stripes or parallelograms, are intuitively chosen. Hers are beautiful, transcendent works, which shimmer and vibrate against the wall. Some artists suffer the particular fate, perhaps all do, that, to be understood at all, their works can only be seen. Lux-Marx is certainly one of those the vibrancy and depth of her colors must be seen face to face. The formica pieces of Steven Rand come uncannily close to capturing the shimmering effect of Lux-Marx s works, but in a completely different medium two dimensionally, and also in sculpture. Rand is decidedly not a constructivist but he comes close in these works. Matti Kujasalo, the seminal figure in Finnish constructivist painting, places almost microscopic colored squares against now white, now black, now grey backgrounds, where the distribution of the squares are dictated by rolls of dice. Kujasalo started out as one of the great colorists, (Vasarely being an important influence) in a series of extravagantly vibrantly hued early abstractions. Thirty years on he has poured all of his color into a series of transcendent black and white paintings: the black is not quite black, but 5

6 something like the color of the night sky; and the white could occur in nature. Standing in front of these rigorous, complex, incredibly lively works, one cannot help but think of death, or of the Finnish winter; or of Hans Castorp in the snowstorm on Der Zauberberg; or even of Tintin in Tibet. Like Hilten, Marjatta Palasto, one of Finland s leading sculptors, is an accidental constructivist. But fig.x bears a clear relation to Bart van der Leck. This is not surprising as Palasto, a very versatile sculptor, is in the process of revisiting art history through her work, the constructivist idiom being one of a number of Palasto s allegiances. Another accidental, lyrical constructivist is Wanda Kossak, a photographer and film artist from New York via Warsaw. Her work converses with constructivist figures like Brandt and Bonies. Other works, such as TITLE, dialogue with the shimmering light of Lux-Marx s paintings; yet other works capture the moonlit quality of the light of Bill Viola s work. Finally, included in our exhibition is the work of American artist Fred Sandback ( ). Sandback s sculpture, largely constructed from acrylic yarn, forms simple geometric shapes that explore the physical relationship between the sculpture, its architecture, and the viewer. By creating transparent sculptures that almost eliminate mass and volume Sandback s work challenges traditional notions of sculpture s mass and density. Making an art that, like Mondrian s, is entirely without referents, Sandback commented, In no way is my work illusionistic. Illusionistic art refers you away from its factual existence towards something else. My work is full of illusions, but they don t refer to anything. The real achievement of all of the works we exhibit in this exhibition, then, has to do, in the end, with their strange motion from the inside out ; so that an inner experience a deep, inner comprehension, in Lux-Marx s words, of the outer world, becomes embodied. The viewer is inexplicably but deeply moved in the face of these artworks. They all seem to say something 6

7 essential about the life of human beings in the world. Can one put what they say into words? Perhaps not, but then that is why the artworks are there in the first place: to gesture at the what-cannot-be-said. 7

8 Added in press: We are pleased to include some machine drawings of Professor Remko Scha of the ILLC: logician, composer, conceptual artist, chance art theorist, and finally, underminer of the notion of art as an aesthetic enterprise: Esthetically motivated art thus faces a curious challenge: if it is created by humans, it will always be inferior to nature! In the course of the twentieth century, this challenge has been taken up by many artists. Some of them have suggested that they are in fact natural forces, beyond the ken of ordinary humans. Others have tried to withdraw from their artworks, by developing objective art-generating processes which they initiate without controlling the final result: chance art, criture automatique, physical experiments, mathematical calculations, biological processes. 8