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Horst Bartnig:
"My Painting Belongs to the Realm of Thought" |
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| Thirteen squares – one large one surrounded by twelve smaller in size – set on a square surface in four variations: this is what Horst Bartnig presents in his "vier gleichen quadratgruppen" [four identical groups of squares] from 1995. The groups are "identical" inasmuch as the four colours red, blue, green, and orange are each given the same surface area. Viewed mathematically, an “equals” sign could be placed between each of the four canvases – the four canvases visualise a mathematical equation. |
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Horst Bartnig’s art is not rarely done on a computer, in close collaboration with mathematicians and programmers, with the point of departure always being a formal issue raised by the artist. The outcome is logical progressions that the concrete artist varies and transposes into visible, often square-based combinations of colours and shapes. Yet Bartnig is concerned with more than simply visualising mathematical combinations. Through the way he arranges the forms and distributes the colours, he produces images with intense rhythms and dynamics and a powerful visual impact. This effect is likewise brought into play in the works in his other series, such as his "kompositionen in zehn farben" [compositions in ten colours] and "unterbrechungen" [interruptions]. The latter in particular make the invisible, i.e. the omission of a line, visible. In his text "The Mathematical Approach in Contemporary Art", Max Bill, whom Bartnig first came to know in 1987, championed the view that art requires "emotion and intellect", with mathematics belonging to the intellectual department, and the question remaining as to which realm art belongs. Horst Bartnig answers here: "My painting belongs to the realm of thought".
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Biography
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1936
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born in Militsch/Silesia, lives and works since 1959 in Berlin
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1954-1957
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Studied at the Fachschule für angewandte Kunst, Magdeburg
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1964
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first concrete constructivist works
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since 1972
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interest in variable systems
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since 1984
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"unterbrechungen"
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1987
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first encounter with Max Bill and Richard Paul Lohse
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1993
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Will Grohmann Prize from the Akademie der Künste Berlin
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2001
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Hannah Höch Prize, Berlin
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