Between Order and Life
Constructive Art Today

In what ways does Constructive Art manifest itself today? What ideas are currently being generated through clear principles of order, and how are they brought to artistic fruition? This exhibition gives a panoramic view of current developments in this field by looking at eight different positions. Along with paintings, drawings and photographs, it brings together numerous sculptures, assemblages, ceramics and objects, along with several installations conceived specially for the show.

Important in these works it that a geometric grammar of forms and a systematic approach are viewed not as purely formalist or rigid systems, but as an open field for devising new artistic concepts. Consequently, the exhibition paints a broader and more complex picture of Constructive Art: central here are questions concerning everyday phenomena and how we relate to life’s realities, its social structures, and to personal realms of experience. This embrace of reality often arises through the artists’ choice of quotidian objects to create their works. Sometimes they craft almost utopian architectural structures by means of such mundane materials as cheap packing materials or cotton buds; at other times, familiar home fittings such as string curtains or second-hand furniture are transformed into visionary art.

Many of the paintings in this exhibition combine a clear formal language and the principles of colour-field painting with a richly nuanced palette. Sometimes they straddle the boundary between abstraction and figuration, producing for instance paintings that are reminiscent of familiar landscapes, or that allude to the symbolic language of indigenous cultures. As such, these biographically inspired works evince a clear connection to their creators’ distant homelands. Juxtaposed with them are works in which the rigour of geometric arrangements is disrupted and enlivened by painterly splashes of colour, hand-drawn lines, folds, or gaps in the system.

With works by Nándor Angstenberger, Doris Erbacher, Clare Goodwin, Erika Hock, Peter K. Koch, Mona Radziabari, Nicola Staeglich, and Amalia Valdés