Vasily Kandinsky
French, born Russia. 1866–1944
Komposition V (Composition V)
1911
Oil on canvas
6′ 2 13/16″ x 9′ 1/4″ (190 x 275 cm)
Private collection
Giacomo Balla
Italian, 1871–1958
Velocità astratta + rumore (Abstract speed + sound)
1913-14
Oil on board
including the artist’s original painted frame
21 1/2 x 30 1/8″, (54.5 x 76.5 cm)
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Peggy GuggenheimCollection, Venice
Inventing Abstraction, 1910–1925 – MoMA, New York ‘Inventing Abstraction, 1910–1925’, on view at MoMA from December 23, 2012, to April 15, 2013, explores the advent of abstraction as both a historical idea and an emergent artistic practice.]]>
Source: MoMA, New York
Commemorating the centennial of the moment at which a series of artists invented abstraction, the exhibition is a sweeping survey of more than 350 artworks in a broad range of mediums—including paintings, drawings, prints, books, sculptures, films, photographs, recordings, and dance pieces—that represent a radical moment when the rules of art making were fundamentally transformed. Half of the works in the exhibition, many of which have rarely been seen in the United States, come from major international public and private collectors. The exhibition is organized by Leah Dickerman, Curator, with Masha Chlenova, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art.
Roughly one hundred years ago, a series of rapid shifts took place in the cultural sphere that in the end amounted to the greatest rewriting of the rules of artistic production since the Renaissance. Invented not just once, but by different artists in different locales with different philosophical foundations, abstraction was quickly embraced by a post-Cubist generation of artists as the language of the modern.
The exhibition takes an international perspective, and includes work by artists from across Eastern and Western Europe and the United States, such as Hans Arp (German/French, 1886–1966), Fernand Léger (French, 1881–1955), El Lissitzky (Russian, 1890–1941), Kazimir Malevich (Russian, 1879–1935), Piet Mondrian (Dutch, 1872–1944), and many others.
Highlights of the exhibition include Pablo Picasso’s “Woman with a Mandolin” (1910), Vasily Kandinsky’s “Komposition V (Composition V)” (1911), Piet Mondrian’s “Tableau No. 2 / Composition No. VII” (1913), Giacomo Balla’s “Velocità astratta + rumore (Abstract speed + sound)” (1913-14), Kazimir Malevich’s “Suprematist Composition: Airplane Flying” (1915), and Fernand Léger’s “Les Disques (The disks)” (1918).
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