Passages – Landscape, Figure and Abstraction
12 February – 14 August 2022
This year’s first presentation of the Fondation Beyeler collection engages with the constantly changing relationship between figuration and abstraction in modern art, as exemplified by around 70 important impressionist, modernist and contemporary paintings and sculptures.
The transition from the figurative to the abstract becomes apparent not least in the different representations of landscapes and figures. Abstract pictorial elements, for example, quite often originate in natural motifs, which are subjected to a process of reduction and transformation. By the same token, however, abstract forms and structures can be incorporated into figurative compositions. Abstraction and figuration, in other words, can perpetually interpenetrate and be reciprocally revitalizing. This is exemplified by Claude Monet’s famous waterlily paintings dating from the early twentieth century, which in the 1950s inspired America’s Abstract Expressionists to hazard some radically new compositions. Under the conceptual umbrella of the “passage,” the presentation brings together works that allow the lines of influence between two completely different but complementary approaches to the image to be retraced. Understood as a transitional or transitory path, the “passage” concept can be detected in the motifs and imagery of many other works, too.
Among the artists represented in this collection presentation, Gerhard Richter (*1932) occupies a prominent position. To mark his ninetieth birthday, one gallery is devoted solely to the wide-ranging oeuvre of this prolific artist, bringing together works from the collection as well as works on loan, visualizing the artistic interplay of figuration and abstraction in the most impressive way.
Another gallery is dedicated to is the American artist Agnes Martin (1912–2004) and her characteristically abstract, geometric works, generously on loan from the Daros Collection.
“Passages – Landscape, Figure and Abstraction” is curated by Dr. Raphaël Bouvier, curator at Fondation Beyeler.
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FROM OUR ART SHOP
Fine Art Print
Claude Monet
Each work of art is an original which is part of what makes it so special. The disadvantage, however, is that the work cannot be in several places at once. As a way of allowing us to look at paintings outside as well as inside the museum, the Fondation Beyeler creates high-quality fine art prints of selected works.
Foulard
Vincent van Gogh
Discover our collection of meticulously crafted foulards featuring masterpieces from the Fondation Beyeler collection. The silk print reproduces the original paintings in all their subtle nuances of color. The top-quality crêpe georgette feels soft and as light as air against the skin.
Puzzle
Wassily Kandinsky
The idea of cutting up a picture into small pieces, and then having fun trying to reassemble it again, is over 250 years old. Doing a jigsaw of one of the works from the Fondation Beyeler collection is a particularly enjoyable way of getting to know a painting in detail.
List of artists
Lucas Arruda
Francis Bacon
Balthus
Constantin Brancusi
Georges Braque
Alexander Calder
Paul Cézanne
Max Ernst
Sam Francis
Paul Gauguin
Alberto Giacometti
Vincent van Gogh
Ferdinand Hodler
Wassily Kandinsky
Ellsworth Kelly
Agnes Martin
Joan Miró
Joan Mitchell
Claude Monet
Barnett Newman
Pablo Picasso
Jackson Pollock
Gerhard Richter
Auguste Rodin
Mark Rothko
Henri Rousseau
Alberto Giacometti
La Rue (Angle de la rue Hippolyte-Maindron et de la rue du Moulin-Vert)
1952
The exhibition is generously supported by:
