GEOMETRIC ABSTRACTION: EXHIBITION AT THE WHITECHAPEL GALLERY, LONDON FROM 15th JANUARY

Geometric abstraction: exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London from 15^th January

This is a personal summary of the review by Frances Spalding that was published in the Guardian newspaper on 10^th January 2015 of the exhibition Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 – 2015 at the Whitechapel Gallery, London from 15^th January until 6^th April 2015.

Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 – 2015

Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ (1915)

The title of the exhibition alludes to Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ of 1915: this painting served as a new beginning which provoked a response.  Russian art is significant in the history of geometric abstraction but the exhibition shows that it is a style that became ubiquitous in western culture in the Twentieth Century.   Even so, Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ remains influential. 

Mondrian’s ‘Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red’ (1937-42)

The painting at the centre of the exhibition is Mondrian’s ‘Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red’ (1937-42).  The red square at its centre has Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ as its inspiration.  In producing the work Mondrian was searching for ‘dynamic equilibrium’ and in the red square he recognises ‘the human hunger for the absolute and immutable, created by the relativity and mutability in things’.

British antipathy to abstract art

In 1936 the first British international exhibition of abstract art – ‘Abstract and Concrete’ - was held in Oxford, subsequently moving to Liverpool and then Cambridge.  The auction house Christies testified for customs and insurance purposes that the works in the collection, including those by Calder, Gabo, Kandinsky, Giacometti and Miro, were ‘almost worthless in terms of monetary value’.  London was belatedly added to the list of venues, when two Mondrians were added to the collection.  ‘Abstract and Concrete’ was organised by Nicolette Grey. 

The exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery makes few references to British antipathy to abstract art.  There is only limited British presence in the works in the Whitechapel Gallery show.   British artists who are absent include: Marlow Moss, Bridget Riley, Jean Spencer, Gina Burdass and David Hepher.  There is no mention of the magazine ‘Axis’ by Myfanwy Evans which inspired Nicolette Grey.  

The exhibition is a strong one

Nevertheless the exhibition is a strong one, with four themes: Utopia; Architectonics; Communication; the Everyday. 

The threads include: Architectonics’ ‘three dimensional abstract imaginings’ and Malevich’s models of ideal cities; the integration in the 1920s of abstraction with interior design; Mondrian’s quest to construct the perfect domestic living space; and the integration of art, architecture and life that provided the editorial agenda for several magazines. 

Van Doesburg’s ‘Concrete Art Manifesto’ was published in 1930.  Max Bill was Swiss: he founded the Allianz group of Swiss Concrete artists.  Bill understood Concrete art as works that exist uniquely and which express purity and harmony.  Bill particularly influenced Brazilian artists where ‘his ideas fused with the ambitions and utopian modernism of the country following World War Two’.  The Brazilian Concrete artists Lygia Clark and Waldemar Cordeiro have works in the show at the Whitechapel Gallery.

By the 1960s the value placed on geometric abstraction had lessened.  Abstract art was now engaging at a quotidian level and it had lost its radical spirit.