An exhibition displays the vital and creative journey of the pioneer of abstraction, who dazzled in Paris after fleeing from Stalin and Hitler
"Schwarze Linien (Black Lines)", at the Guggenheim exhibition. EFEThe Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao opens this Friday an exhibition dedicated to the artistic evolution of Vasily Kandinsky (Moscow, 1846 - Paris, 1944), a pioneer of abstraction and one of the most innovative artists of the 20th century.
Through 62 works, of the 152 that make up the artist's collection owned by the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation in New York, the exhibition traces a parallel journey between the artist's creative and vital trajectory, placing the works exhibited in four geographic sections : Munich, Moscow, again Germany (Desau) and Paris, places where he lived.
Open until May 23, 2021 , the exhibition is sponsored by the BBVA Foundation and has been curated by Megan Fontanella, curator of Modern Art and Origin of the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation.
During his presentation in the museum's atrium, the director of the Guggenheim Bilbao, Juan Ignacio Vidarte, highlighted that the journey through the life and work of this pioneer and renovator of painting "reflects very well European history during the first half of the 20th century ".
In his opinion, his artistic evolution and biography are in keeping with historical events, from his first departure from Germany during the First World War; after Russia with the rise of Stalin ; again, from Germany after the rise of Nazism , to finally land in Paris, the cradle of the artistic avant-gardes.
Vidarte stressed that this exhibition is "very important for the Bilbao museum because Kandinsky was a precursor of the idea of art as a transforming axis, something that links him to this museum, which was also born with that vocation".
Kandinsky, recognized theorist of aesthetics , set himself the objective of "freeing painting from its links with the natural world", for which he undertakes a crusade against conventional aesthetic values and led him to discover a new theme based exclusively in the "inner need" of the artist, in his longing for a more spiritual future through the transforming power of art.
In this way, as his calligraphic outlines and rhythmic forms reveal less and less trace of his figurative origins in his early artistic stages, Kandinsky begins to develop abstraction and to formulate what he calls "the hidden power of the palette."
For Kandinsky even the most abstract forms have "expressive and emotional" content , where the triangle embodies action and aggressiveness; the square means peace and calm; and the circle, the realm of the spiritual and the cosmic.
The show goes back to its beginnings during the 1900s and early 1910s, while in Munich, and where it begins to explore the expressive possibilities of color and composition.
In this sense, and as explained by the Guggenheim Bilbao curator who replaced Fontanella in the presentation, Lekha Hileman Waitoller, Kandinsky "was interested in the idea of color and how it can produce or reflect feelings".
Waitoller has pointed out that Kandinsky "undoubtedly marked a path for all those who tried to paint differently, without ties to this world but to the world of the spiritual." Kandinsky thought that the artist could contribute something of his spirit and that this could come out and be present in his works as something personal, and that is why he is still a century later, someone so important in the evolution of painting ".
By 1913 the recurring themes in his work, such as the horse and the rider, the rolling hills, the towers and the trees, were already subjected to line and color. As his calligraphic outlines and rhythmic forms reveal less and less trace of his figurative origins, Kandinsky begins to develop abstraction and to formulate what he calls "the hidden power of the palette."
The industrialist and founder of the Museum that bears his name, Solomon R. Guggenheim , began collecting Kandinsky's work in 1929, and his enthusiasm for modern art led him to inaugurate in New York in 1939 the Museum of Non-objective Painting (Museum of Non-Objective Painting), forerunner of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Today, the Guggenheim Foundation owns more than 150 pieces by the artist.
In his last period, Kandinsky synthesizes earlier elements of his career, his time at the Bauhaus and the practice of his contemporaries. He works in large-scale formats and uses dark backgrounds reminiscent of his expressionist canvases and his works on Russian legends. It also incorporates motifs that allude to the surrealists who are still active in Paris, where he lived for his last 11 years of sight and despite his reluctance to associate with this movement.
In mid-1942, the hardships of the war led the artist to make small works on panel, far removed from the large canvases of his previous work in Paris. Yet Kandinsky continues to create imaginative compositions that increasingly reflect his interest in the sciences, drawing inspiration from magazines and encyclopedias that include illustrations related to biology.
During World War II , the German authorities confiscated Kandinsky's work and that of other modern painters, declaring it as "degenerate art". The Stalinists of the Soviet Union closed down museums and paintings by Kandinsky sent to stores. The artist passed away in 1944 at the age of 78, leaving behind a prolific work.