Daimler Contemporary
Classical Modern Art of the Daimler Art Collection
Introduction
Adolf Hölzel
Three Nudes; 1923
Oil on Canvas
53,3 x 62,3 cm
Willi Baumeister
Montaru on Pink; 1953
Oil on Cardboard
135 x 185 cm
© VG-Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Max Bill
red squares; 1946
oil on canvas
60 x 60 cm
Classical Modernism - Constructivism and Concrete Art
The group of Classical Modern works in the Daimler Art Collection, started in 1977 by the purchase of a painting by Willi Baumeister, includes mainly painting, but also sculpture, wall objects and graphics. They present an image of the development of art to the 1960s, relating mainly to South-West Germany
(The Stuttgart avant-garde - from Hölzel to the Bauhaus - the ›Concrete‹ artists: the Ulm Hochschule für Gestaltung, the Zurich Concrete Artists, links with ›De Stijl‹).
The Daimler Art Collection's was first interested in artists from southern Germany, starting with pictorial works by teachers and pupils at the Stuttgart Academy like Adolf Hölzel, Oskar Schlemmer, Willi Baumeister, Hans Arp and Max Bill. They all shared an artistic interest in interdisciplinary dialogue between fine art, applied design, architecture and graphic design, as inherited from the Bauhaus. The DaimlerChryser Connection is still committed to this exploratory artistic thinking, always concerned about people, their imagination and their innovative powers. The Daimler Art Collection has established a clear profile with a sound art-historical basis by consistently expanding its abstract-constructive and minimalist positions and developing these focal points systematically in terms of content.
Two compositions by Adolf Hölzel date from the first decade of the 20th century, thus representing the beginning of the collection chronologically. Hölzel was appointed to the Stuttgart Academy in 1905, and among his pupils achieving later distinction are artists like Willi Baumeister, Camille Graeser, Otto Meyer-Amden, Oskar Schlemmer, Johannes Itten, Adolf Fleischmann and Ida Kerkovius; they figure with series of works or individual pieces - following the pattern of their development.
Schlemmer - who is particularly important in the Daimler Art Collection, featuring with nine works from three decades - taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau from 1921-1928. Josepf Albers, whose biography was also crucially shaped by studying and teaching at the Bauhaus, emigrated to the USA in 1933, where he became a leading teacher. Four works in the Collection identify important stages of his development in America.
Max Bill is a particularly interesting figure in the Collection. Bill studied at the Dessau Bauhaus under Schlemmer, Kandinsky and Klee, and was the co-founder and first rector of the Ulm Hochschule für Gestaltung in 1950. Bill had joined the "abstraction - création" group in 1931, to which Arp, Baumeister and Vantongerloo, who also figure in the Collection, belonged as well
.
With Camille Graeser, Verena Loewensberg and Richard
Paul Lohse, the last-mentioned formed the core of the "Zurich
Concrete" group, whose spokesman and theorist Bill remained
until the 1960s. Friedrich Vordemberg-Gildewart
- a student at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau for a short time,
member of "De Stijl", co-founder of "die abstrakten hannover",
a friend of Bill and later teacher at the Hochschule für Gestaltung
in Ulm - was in contact with all these circles and can be considered the
most important exponent of concrete art in Germany.
Günter Fruhtrunk
epitaph for arp; 1972
Acrylic, Oil on Canvas
195 x 194 cm
Anselm Reyle
untitled; 2005
Mixed media on Cnavas
234 x 119 x 20 cm
The Classical : Modern exhibition follows four principal lines.
First come about thirty works showing the progress of the Stuttgart Hölzel circle, starting with two paintings from Hölzel's early Stuttgart years (1908/14) and followed chronologically with works by his above-mentioned pupils. These range from Schlemmer's oil study Rote Dächer (Red Roofs), 1913, painted while he was still studying under Hölzel, and on to works by Johannes Itten and Camille Graser dating from the 1950s/1060s.
A second line of argument explores aspects of monochrome work and colour-field painting dating from 1950 to 1987 in monographic groups of works by Adolf Fleischmann, Rupprecht Geiger, Josef Albers and large-format individual works by Günter Frühtrunk.
The third main strand is devoted to examples of constructive and concrete art. Here Richard Paul Lohse's 1949 stripe picture sets the chronological starting-point, and the line extends to Max Bill's 1972 caput mortuum.The fourth line of argument follows the a principle of Daimler Art Collection exhibitions - whether these are thematic presentations on the company's premises, stops on a world-wide tour of museums or exhibitions in Daimler Contemporary Berlin -, which is to place Classical Modernist works of pieces by post-war avant-garde artists in a dialogue with works of contemporary art. So for example Günter Scharein's Sehnsuchtstriptychon (Triptych of Longing), 1987, is placed alongside the colour-field painting group. Three pictures by the Stuttgart painter Ben Willikens dating from 1984 to 2004 and a floor work by Philippe Pareno are placed in a rigorous intellectual exchange with works by Albers, Arp, Vordemberge and Vantongerloo. We have tied current works by Reyle, Rockenschaub, Hiepler, Gillick and Monk, who can be related in different ways to the formal vocabulary and analytical pictorial concepts of the classical artist, into the context of constructive and concrete art.