08.13 — 10.25.2010
Curator: Renate Wiehager
An overview of abstract trends in 20th-century art. On display is a selection of 100 works from the Daimler Art Collection, one of Europe’s most significant and long-standing corporate collections, with a particular focus on the ideas and works of the Bauhaus, Constructivist art, and Minimalism in Europe and America.
Curated by Renate Wiehager —Director of the Daimler Art Collection— the exhibition features works by renowned international artists such as Josef Albers, Oskar Schlemmer, Hans Arp, Max Bill, George Vantongerloo, Johannes Itten, Camille Graeser, Mathias Goeritz, and the Argentine artists Julio Le Parc and Zinny/Maidagán, among others.
It is divided into four major thematic sections: Classical Modernism, Zero Avant-Garde, Minimalism in Europe and America, and Form, Line, Space. It also includes a special section dedicated to automobiles, featuring commissioned works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Longo, and Sylvie Fleury.
“The initial concept behind this exhibition is to present the pictorial concepts of formal reduction and geometric abstraction—both as independent artistic phenomena—alongside classic minimalist art. Furthermore, European and American developments are no longer analyzed in clearly separate terms. “The thesis is that there is a history of influences yet to be discovered that begins with the emigration of the Bauhaus and Constructivism in the 1930s and their reception in the United States, continues with the profound discussions among European and South American artists, and extends into contemporary art,” explains the curator.
One of the key features of the Daimler Collection is that, in every city where it is presented, it is accompanied by an educational program comprising three interconnected components: guided tours of the exhibition for elementary, middle, and high school students; the distribution of a workbook to each student and teacher, specially designed for use during or after the tour (6,000 copies); and training for the teachers and professors participating in the visits.
