Color and form coalesce without any representational theme into a single visual experience that nevertheless allows for multifaceted associations. In this respect, geometrical abstraction conforms to the principle of grasping the world in a systematic way and making art comprehensible sensually as well as rationally. The geometrical abstraction tendencies in the HEUKING art collection can be summed up under the title “Forms of Color.” The most important representatives of this artistic current include Max Bill, Hans Richter, Günter Fruhtrunk and Imi Knoebel, as well as the most up-to-date contemporary tendencies.
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Photo: Achim Kuklies <br>
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German sculptor Ernst Hesse (b. 1949 in Düsseldorf) is represented with two paintings in the Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek collection. <br>
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The distinctive landscape format of the picture from the work group “Space behind Space” is dominated by withdrawn colors. The geometric elements of the image are generously dispersed within the picture, while the background of the picture consists of rectangles that suggest spatial depth. The oval shapes in the foreground are in motion. Fine, chromatic repetitions of shapes emphasize and increase the movements within the image space
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Photo: Achim Kuklies <br>
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With a winking eye, Felix Breidenbach (b. 1986 in Langen) takes the position of a lookout. The student in the class of Andreas Gursky in Düsseldorf creates a large yellow X; a colorful feather clings to a steel wire on its upper right beam. Is this game with forms a picture or an object, a letter or a cross? The small feather breaks the solemnity of all reflection and hints at the well-kept secret that pure love of life can be found in the apparently rational idealism of forms. (Thomas W. Kuhn, Catalogue 2016)
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Photo: Achim Kuklies <br>
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With a winking eye, Felix Breidenbach (b. 1986 in Langen) takes the position of a lookout. The student in the class of Andreas Gursky in Düsseldorf creates a large yellow X; a colorful feather clings to a steel wire on its upper right beam. Is this game with forms a picture or an object, a letter or a cross? The small feather breaks the solemnity of all reflection and hints at the well-kept secret that pure love of life can be found in the apparently rational idealism of forms. (Thomas W. Kuhn, Catalogue 2016)
© Hans-Richter-Archiv
Photo: Achim Kuklies <br>
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In 1923, the painting “Fuge in Rote und Grün” by Hans Richter (i.e., Johannes Siegfried Richter, b. 1888 in Berlin, d. 1976 in Minusio) came into existence as an oil painting in the course of producing the abstract film – lost today – that bears the same title. Richter strings together twelve sequences of his abstract film in a row. The word fugue refers here to music, in particular Johann Sebastian Bach‘s. Like his contemporary Wassily Kandinsky, Richter was interested in the transposition of music into the visual, an approach that is linked with the concept of synesthesia: a common experience of diverse sensory stimuli. Thus, the pictures stands in equal measure for the idea of a painting moved by film and the possibility of a visible music. The forms in the image are based on the graphic system of a “universal language” that Richter publishes in 1920 together with the Swedish artist Viking Eggeling, who also contemporaneously creates important works of abstract film. (Thomas W. Kuhn, Catalogue 2016)
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Photo: Achim Kuklies<br>
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Nigel Hall (b. 1943 in Bristol) is one of the most eminent sculptors and draftsman in Great Britain. Since the 1960s, he has concerned himself with spatial structures, and in so doing has explored the interaction of shadow effects and the balance of geometrical forms.<br>
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Powerful black circular shapes are hovering behind bright light orange and deep green stripes, set against the light gray background in painting #585. The three-dimensionality of the forms is thereby intimated and generates dynamic movements of the image elements. The play with visual perception is increased and enables the viewer to mentally follow the forms.
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Photo: Achim Kuklies <br>
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Nicola Stäglich (b. 1970 in Oldenburg) deals with the border between painting and sculpture in her objects; as a consequence, color and form take center stage in her artistic exploration.<br>
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The object “Sequences of light and shade #1.” consists of medium density fiberboard and expanded plastic slabs painted white and yellow that lie on top of one another in layers. Vertically running shapes pile up, emanating from the vertical rectangle that is the picture support. Lines and shadows result from their arrangement in layers, and the object gains plasticity. The fluent border between painting and sculpture can be seen in the works of Nicola Stäglich in the relationships between space, picture support, and color.
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Photo: Achim Kuklies <br>
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Japanese artist Ruri Matsumoto (b. 1981 in Tokyo) studied at Katharina Grose, Markus Lüpertz, and Herbert Brandl at Düsseldorf Academy of Art. <br>
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Dynamic geometrical abstraction is at the center of Matsumoto’s interaction with the art of painting. Densely placed color strips fill the entire visual space almost like a collage, with strips lying on top of each other, some vertically and some horizontally. Despite the density of the irregularly colored tracks in the picture, a contemplative tranquility prevails.
