Allianzen

The ex­hib­i­tion high­lights the friend­ship and col­lab­or­a­tion between three major fig­ures of the European avant-garde: Hans Arp (1886–1966), Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943) and Max Bill (1908–1994). The focus lies on their role and par­ti­cip­a­tion in im­port­ant artists' groups and magazines of the 1930s and 1940s.

Al­li­an­zen out­lines the com­mit­ment of avant-garde artists' groups to non-fig­ur­at­ive art. In the 1930s, a time of great un­rest, groups and as­so­ci­ations of artists emerged with the aim of de­fend­ing and dis­sem­in­at­ing non-rep­res­ent­a­tion­al art. Ini­tially in Paris, where groups such as Cercle et Carré and Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion were formed, then in Switzer­land with the Al­li­anz as­so­ci­ation, which brought to­geth­er mod­ern artists and pro­moted their works through joint ex­hib­i­tions and prin­ted edi­tions pub­lished by Al­li­anz-Ver­lag.

The ex­hib­i­tion shows port­fo­lio works that were cre­ated as joint artist­ic and pub­lish­ing pro­duc­tions dur­ing or in the years be­fore the Second World War – at a time of in­creas­ing mar­gin­al­isa­tion of the artist­ic avant-garde. Along­side the port­fo­li­os, activ­it­ies in­cluded the pub­lic­a­tion of books and magazines as well as par­ti­cip­a­tion in ex­hib­i­tions. The show in­cludes draw­ings, paint­ings, sculp­tures and re­liefs by Arp, Taeuber-Arp and Bill, some of which were rep­res­en­ted in im­port­ant his­tor­ic­al ex­hib­i­tions. Let­ters com­ple­ment the ex­hib­i­tion and shed light on the in­ter­ac­tion between the three prot­ag­on­ists. The designs for the sixth issue of Plastique Plastic, the magazine for non-ob­ject­ive art ed­ited by Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, are being shown in an ex­hib­i­tion for the first time ever.

The works come from the Fondazione Mar­guer­ite Arp and the col­lec­tion of Chant­al and Jakob Bill, as well as from in­sti­tu­tion­al and private col­lec­tions. The idea for the ex­hib­i­tion came from Jakob Bill.

Cur­ated by Stefanie Gschwend and Si­mona Mar­tinoli

This ex­hib­i­tion is a co­oper­a­tion with the Fondazione Mar­guer­ite Arp, Lo­c­arno, where a com­ple­ment­ary dis­play is on show from 31 March – 3 Novem­ber 2024.

On the oc­ca­sion of the ex­hib­i­tion, the pub­lic­a­tion al­li­an­zen. arp, taeuber-arp, bill has been pub­lished by Scheide­g­ger & Spiess with texts by Isa­belle Ewig, Wal­burga Krupp and Jakob Bill. Ex­hib­i­tion price CHF 42 in our shop.

1925 /
14–25 Novem­ber: 

Ex­hib­i­tion La pein­ture sur­réal­iste in the Gal­lery Pierre, Paris: First ex­hib­i­tion of the Sur­real­ists around André Bre­ton.

1–21 Decem­ber:

Ex­hib­i­tion L’Art d’au­jourd’hui, or­gan­ised by the­Galer­ie de la Chambre syn­dicale des beaux-arts in Paris: Hans Arp and Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp are rep­res­en­ted with works.

1928 /
Au­tumn:

Group Z is foun­ded in Des­sau by Max Bill and Hans Fisc­hli. Fur­ther mem­bers: An­nemarie Hen­nings, Hilde Rantz­sch, Clem­ens Rösel­er, Freddo Bor­to­lu­zzi.

1929 / 
Spring:

The Group Cercle et Carré is foun­ded in Paris by Michel Seu­phor and Joaquìn Tor­rès-Gar­cia.

6 Oc­to­ber until 3 Novem­ber:

Ex­hib­i­tion Ab­strakte und Sur­real­istische Malerei und Plastik in the Kun­sthaus Zurich: with works by Hans Arp and Georges Van­tonger­loo.

Au­tumn:

Found­a­tion of the (only briefly ex­ist­ing) group Die Augen in Zurich by Max Bill and Hanns R. Welti.

1930 /
15 March:

Pub­lic­a­tion of the first issue of the magazine Cercle et Carré (3 is­sues).

18 April until 1 May:

First and only in­ter­na­tion­al ex­hib­i­tion of the group Cercle et Carré in the Galer­ie 23, 23 rue la Boétie, Paris: 44 par­ti­cipants, in­clud­ing Hans Arp, Wassily Kand­in­sky, Le Cor­busier, Piet Mon­dri­an, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, Georges Van­tonger­loo, Hanns R. Welti.

April:

The group Art Con­cret is foun­ded by Theo van Does­burg, Jean Hélion, Otto Carlsund and Léon Tu­tun­d­jean.

April:

First and only issue of the magazine Art Con­cret with the "Mani­festo of Con­crete Art" by Theo van Does­burg.

Sum­mer:

Dis­sol­u­tion of the group Cercle et Carré.

8 Oc­to­ber until 10 Novem­ber:

Ex­hib­i­tion Produk­tion in Paris in the Kun­st­salon Wolfs­berg, Zurich.

1931 /
15 Feb­ru­ary:

Found­a­tion of the group Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion in Paris by Au­guste Herb­in and Georges Van­tonger­loo. Fur­ther memers are a.o. Kurt Se­lig­mann, Al­bert Gleizes, František Kupka, Hans Arp, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, Léon Tu­tun­dji­an und Georges Valmi­er. At times, the group counts over 400 mem­bers in Europe and over­seas.

Spring / Sum­mer:

Pub­lic­a­tion of the last issue of the magazine De Stijl (spe­cial issue in hon­our of van Does­burgs after his death).

Winter:

The group Der Sch­ritt weit­er is foun­ded in Bern by Tonio Ci­o­lina, Max von Müh­len­en, Hans Seiler and Al­bert Linde­g­ger.

1932 /

Pub­lic­a­tion of the magazine Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion. Art non fig­ur­at­if No. 1, Paris. The board of the Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion group is now com­prised of the fol­low­ing artists: Hans Arp, Al­bert Gleizes, Jean Hélion, Au­guste Herb­in, František Kupka, Léon Tu­tun­dji­an, Georges Valmi­er and Georges Van­tonger­loo.

Septem­ber:

The Bauhaus Des­sau is closed by the Na­tion­al So­cial­ist gov­ern­ment and moves to Ber­lin.

1933 /

Pub­lic­a­tion of the magazine Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion. Art non fig­ur­at­if No. 2, Paris.

Janu­ary:

In Ger­many, the Na­tion­al So­cial­ists come to power under the lead­er­ship of Adolf Hitler.

10 May:

Group33 is foun­ded in Basel on the same day that burn­ing of books take place in Ger­many.

Sum­mer:

Due to in­creas­ing pres­sure fromthe Na­tion­al So­cial­ists, the Bauhaus in Ber­lin is closed and dis­con­tin­ued by Mies van der Rohe.

22 Decem­ber:

The Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion group opens its ex­hib­i­tion space in Paris, 44, Av­en­ue de Wa­gram: A total of 39 group mem­bers are show­ing their works on this oc­ca­sion.

1934 /
19–31 Janu­ary:

First ex­hib­i­tion of the group Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion with Serge Brignoni, Al­ex­an­der Calder, Hans Fisc­hli, Fritz Glarner, Fritz Huf, Main­ie Jel­let, Hans Rudolf Schiess, Georges Van­tonger­loo, Al­berto Var­gas, Gérard Vul­li­amy.

2–14 Feb­ru­ary:

Second ex­hib­i­tion of the group Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion with Etienne Béothy, Henri Jean Clo­son, Louis Fernan­dez, Bar­bara Hep­worth, John War­dell Power, En­rico Pram­po­lini, Kurt Se­lig­mann, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp and Georges Valmi­er.

16–28 Feb­ru­ary:

Third ex­hib­i­tion of the group Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion with Hans Erni and Otto Fre­und­lich.

2–16 March:

Fourth ex­hib­i­tion of the group Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion with Hans Arp, Ben Nich­olson, Max Bill, Hans Erni, Au­guste Herb­in, Mar­low Moss, Wolfgang Paalen, Paul Rou­bil­lotte, Lajos Tiha­nyi, Paule Vézelay.

30 March until 12 April:

Fifth ex­hib­i­tion of the group­Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion with Louis Conne, Otto Fre­und­lich, Al­bert Gleizes, Jean Al­bert Gorin, Jelinek, Taro Okamoto, Al­fred Reth, Uli Schoop and Theo van Does­burg.

April:

Sixth ex­hib­i­tion of the group­Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion as a solo ex­hib­i­tion with John War­dell Power.

30 April until 16 May:

Sev­enth ex­hib­i­tion of the group Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion with Henri Jean Clo­son and Etienne Béothy.

1 June:

Hans Arp and Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp leave the group Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion. Pub­lic­a­tion of the magazine Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion. Art non fig­ur­at­if No. 3, Paris. Leo Leuppi founds the Groupe Suisse Ab­strac­tion et Sur­réal­isme artists' as­so­ci­ation in Zurich.

11 Oc­to­ber until 4 Novem­ber:

Ex­hib­i­tion Ab­strakte Malerei und Plastik in the Kun­sthaus Zurich with works by Hans Arp.

1935 /

Pub­lic­a­tion of the magazine Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion. Art non fig­ur­at­if No. 4, Paris.

24 Feb­ru­ary bis 31 March:

Ex­hib­i­tion These, An­ti­these, Syn­these in the Kun­st­mu­seum Luzern ini­ti­ated by Hans Erni. Hans Arp and Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp are rep­res­en­ted with works.

1936 /

Pub­lic­a­tion of the magazine Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion. Art non fig­ur­at­if No. 5, Paris.

13 June until 22 July:

Hans Arp, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp and Max Bill par­ti­cip­ate in the ex­hib­i­tion Zeit­prob­leme in der Sch­weizer Malerei und Plastik in the Kun­sthaus Zurich, ini­ti­ated by Leo Leuppi. For the first time, a rep­res­ent­at­ive se­lec­tion of sur­real­ist, con­crete and ab­stract paint­ers and sculptors from Switzer­land are united in one ex­hib­i­tion. The cata­logue in­cludes Max Bill's state­ment on "con­crete design".

Dis­sol­u­tion of the group Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion.

1937 /
16 Janu­ary until 14 Feb­ru­ary:

The ex­hib­i­tion Kon­strukt­iv­isten in the Kun­sthalle Basel ded­ic­ates a sep­ar­ate room to Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp.

Feb­ru­ary:

Pub­lic­a­tion of the magazine Plastique Plastic No. 1, Paris / New York, which is ded­ic­ated to Kasimir Malewitsch.

29 April:

Found­a­tion of the group Al­li­anz, Ver­ein­i­gung mo­d­ern­er Sch­weizer Künst­ler by Leo Leuppi, Richard Paul Lohse Hans Rudolf Schiess, Wal­ter Bod­mer and Hans Erni in Zurich. Most of the mem­bers were identic­al to the par­ti­cipants in the Zurich ex­hib­i­tion Zeit­prob­leme in der Sch­weizer Malerei und Plastik of 1936.

Sum­mer:

Pub­lic­a­tion of Plastique Plastic No. 2, Paris / New York, on the topic of Di­men­sion­isme by the Hun­gari­an writer Charles Sir­ato. The issue is ac­com­pan­ied by the Al­li­ance Mani­festo signed by 22 artists.

19 July until 30 Novem­ber:

Ex­hib­i­tion En­t­ar­tete Kunst in the Hofgarten­arkaden, Mu­nich.

1938 / 9 Janu­ary until 2 Feb­ru­ary:

Ex­hib­i­tion Neue Kunst in der Sch­weiz in the Kun­sthalle Basel: First group ex­hib­i­tion of the Al­li­anz group with Otto Abt, Al­fred Bar­to­letti, Max Bill, Wal­ter Bod­mer, Serge Brignoni, Theo Eble, Hans Erni, André Evard, Hans Fisc­hli, Maria Clara Friedrich, Robert S. Gess­ner, Ca­m­ille Graeser, Willy Hege, Karl Hinden­lang, Anna In­der­maur, Er­hard Jac­oby, Paul Klee, Leo Leuppi, Ver­ena Loewens­berg, Ernst Maass, Max von Moos, Wal­ter Moeschlin, Hans Rudolf Schiess, Kurt Se­lig­mann, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, Ger­ard Vul­li­amy, A. Weis­skopf, Wal­ter K. Wiemken. Cata­logue with texts by Leo Leuppi and Wal­ter J. Moeschlin and with an in­tro­duc­tion by Lucas Lichten­han, Cata­logue design and poster: Max Sulzbach­ner.

Spring:

Pub­lic­a­tion of Plastique Plastic No. 3, Paris / New York. Topic: Ab­stract art in the USA.

1939 /
Winter:

Pub­lic­a­tion of Plastique Plastic No. 4, Paris / New York, with col­lect­ive novel L’homme qui a perdu son sque­lette.

Spring / Sum­mer:

Pub­lic­a­tion of Plastique Plastic No. 5, Paris / New York with artists from the Al­li­anz group and the con­tinu­ation of L’homme qui a perdu son sque­lette.

1 Septem­ber:

The in­va­sion of Po­land by the Ger­man Wehr­macht marks the be­gin­ning of the Second World War.

1940 /
May:

In­va­sion of France by the Ger­man Wehr­macht.

Decem­ber:

Pub­lic­a­tion Al­man­ach neuer Kunst in der Sch­weiz, pub­lished by the Al­li­anz, Ver­ein­i­gung mo­d­ern­er Sch­weizer Künst­ler, Zurich. Edit­ing: Leo Leuppi and Richard P. Lohse with il­lus­tra­tions by: Otto Abt, Hans Aeschbach, Al­fred Bar­to­letti, Max Bill, Wal­ter Bod­mer, Serge Brignoni, Theo Eble, Hans Erni, Lili Erzinger, André Evard, Hans Fisc­hli, Maria Clara Friedrich, Robert S. Gess­ner, Fritz Glarner, Ca­m­ille Graeser, Willy Hege, Hans Hin­ter­reit­er, Anna In­der­maur, Wal­ter Kern, Paul Klee, Wal­ter Klinger, Le Cor­busier, Leo Leuppi, Ver­ena Loewens­berg, Richard Paul Lohse, Ernst Maass, Wal­ter Jo­hannes Moeschlin, Max von Moos, Otto Nebel, Meret Op­pen­heim, Hans Rudolf Schiess, Kurt Se­lig­mann, Franz Stirn­i­m­ann, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, Otto Tschumi, Gérard Vul­li­amy, Adolf Weis­skopf, Wal­ter Kurt Wiemken. Texts by Max Bill, Siegfried Gie­di­on, Wal­ter Kern, Le Cor­busier, Leo Leuppi, Di­eter Roth, Kurt Se­lig­mann, Gérard Vul­li­amy. Ty­po­graphy: Richard P. Lohse.

1941 /

Found­a­tion of the pub­lish­ing house Al­li­anz-Ver­lag. The man­age­ment is taken over by Max Bill. Col­lec­tion of poems Jean Arp, poèmes sans prénoms with three draw­ings by Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, pub­lished by Al­li­anz-Ver­lag.

Port­fo­lio 5 con­struc­tion­en + 5 com­posi­tion­en with ten ori­gin­al graph­ic sheets by Max Bill, Serge Brignoni, Hans Erni, Hans Fisc­hli, Hans Hin­ter­reit­er, Max Huber, Leo Leuppi, Ver­ena Loewens­berg,Richard Paul Lohse and Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, pub­lished by Al­li­anz-Ver­lag.

Port­fo­lio Max Bill, 10 ori­gin­al-lithos, pub­lished by Al­li­anz-Ver­lag. Ex­hib­i­tion Al­li­anz, Ver­ein­i­gung mo­d­ern­er Sch­weizer Künst­ler in the Kun­sthaus Zurich with Otto Abt, Al­fred Bar­to­letti, Max Bill, Wern­er Bis­chof, Wal­ter Bod­mer, Serge Brignoni, Theo Eble, Hans Erni, Lili Erzinger, Hans Fisc­hli, Robert S. Gess­ner, Ca­m­ille Graeser, Marthe Hékimi, Karl Hinden­lang, Hans Hin­ter­reit­er, Max Hu- ber, Anna In­der­maur, Wal­ter Kern, Paul Klee, Wal­ter Klinger, Jean Kohler, Le Cor­busier, Leo Leuppi, Ver­ena Loewens­berg, Richard Paul Lohse, Ernst Maass, Max von Moos, Wal­ter Moeschlin, Meret Op­pen­heim, Petra Petit­pi­erre, Hans R. Schiess, Jean Pierre Schmid, Jürg Spiller, Chris­ti­an Staub, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, Otto Tschumi, Hugo Weber, Wal­ter Kurt Wiemken. Ex­hib­i­tion or­gan­isa­tion: Leo Leuppi and Max Bill. Cata­logue with a text by Max Bill. Ty­po­graphy of the cata­logue and the poster: Max Bill.

1943 /
1 Janu­ary:

Pulic­a­tion of the port­fo­lio 10 Ori­gin, second port­fo­lio ot the Al­li­anz-Ver­lag, with partly mul­ti­col­oured ori­gin­al graph­ic sheets by Hans Arp, Max Bill, Sonia Delaunay, César Domela, Wassily Kand­in­sky, Leo Leuppi, Richard P. Lohse, Al­berto Mag­nelli, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, Georges Van­tonger­loo. With texts by Hans Arp, Max Bill, Wassily Kand­in­sky and Al­berto Mag­nelli.

Pub­lic­a­tion les derniers 9 dess­ins de soph­ie taeuber-arp with draw­ings by Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp and a fore­word by Gab­ri­elle Buf­fet-Pic­a­bia, pub­lished by the Al­li­anz-Ver­lag.

1944 /
18 March until 16 April:

Max Bill or­gan­ises the ex­hib­i­tion konkrete kunst at the Kun­sthalle Basel, in which Bill, Hans Arp and Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp are rep­res­en­ted. Max Bill pub­lishes the Bul­let­in ab­strakt/konkret for the Galer­ie des Eaux Vives in Zurich, which ap­pears from 1944 to 1945 in twelve is­sues (el­ev­en is­sues – no. 9/10 is one issue). The spe­cial issue 6 is ded­ic­ated to Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp and Hans Arp with a cover de­signed by Arp and graph­ics by Arp and Taeuber-Arp.

1945 /

Pub­lic­a­tion arp: 11 con­fig­ur­a­tions with el­ev­en ori­gin­al wood­cuts by Hans Arp and texts by Hans Arp, Max Bill and Gab­ri­elle Buf­fet- Pic­a­bia, pub­lished by the Al­li­anz-Ver­lag.

8 May:

Ger­many's ca­pit­u­la­tion.

1947 /

Hans Arp and Max Bill are work­ing on the ul­ti­mately un­pub­lished edi­tion of Plastique Plastic No. 6.

18 Oc­to­ber until 23 Novem­ber:

Ex­hib­i­tion Al­li­anz, Ver­ein­i­gung mo­d­ern­er Sch­weizer Künst­ler in the Kun­sthaus Zurich, with Otto Abt, Hans Aeschbach­er, Hans Arp, Al­fred Bar­to­letti, Max Bill, Wal­ter Bod­mer, Jo­hannes Burla, Ger­trud Debrun­ner, Theo Eble, Hein­rich Eich­mann, Lili Erzinger, Isa­belle Farner, Hans Fisc­hli, Heini Ganten­bein, Ca­m­ille Graeser, Diogo Graf, Hanseg­ger (i. e. Hans Egger), Paula Heuer, Hans Hin­ter­reit­er, J. J. Honeg­ger, Max Huber, Wal­ter Klinger, Jean Kohler, C. A. Laely, Le Cor­busier, Leo Leuppi, Ver­ena Loewens­berg, Richard P. Lohse, Ernst Maass, Charles Mey­stre, Wal­ter Moeschlin, Meret Op­pen­heim, Julia Ris, Hans R. Schiess, Kurt Se­lig­mann, Jürg Spiller, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, Otto Tschumi, Rudolf Urech, Max Von Moos, Gérard Vul­li­amy, Al­bert Währen, Nell Walden, Hugo Weber.

1954 /
23 Janu­ary until 24 Feb­ru­ary:

Ex­hib­i­tion Al­li­anz, Ver­ein­i­gung mo­d­ern­er Sch­weizer Künst­ler in the Helm­haus Zurich (last ex­hib­i­tion under the col­lect­ive term «Al­li­anz») with Hans Aeschbach­er, Max Bill, Wal­ter Bod­mer, Serge Brignoni, Elsa Burkhardt, Ger­trud Debrun­ner, Ar­thur Dil­li­er, Theo Eble, Lili Erzinger, Hans Fisc­hli, Robert Gess­ner, Jean Georges Gisiger, Diogo Graf, Ca­m­ille Graeser, Hans Hof­mann, Anna In­der­maur, Wal­ter Klinger, Jean Kohler, Leo Leuppi, Ver­ena Loewens­berg, Richard Paul Lohse, Hans­jörg Mattmüller, René Mon­ney, Petra Petit-pierre, Julia Ris-Eble, Di­eter Roth, Jürg Spiller, Rudolf Urech, Maria Vie­ira, Hugo Weber, Mar­cel Wyss. Cata­logue with a text by Leo Leuppi.

Bio­graphy

Jean / Hans Arp

1886 /

Born on Septem­ber 16 in Stras­bourg. His fath­er has roots in Kiel, his moth­er in Alsace. He grows up bi­lin­gually. He would later use both his Ger­man first name Hans and his French name Jean.

1905-1907 /

Stud­ies at the Grossherzog­lich-Säch­s­is­che Kun­st­schule Wei­mar under Lud­wig von Hof­mann.

1908 /

At­tends the Académie Ju­li­an in Paris.

1911 /

Co-founder of the paint­ers' group Der Mo­d­erne Bund in Weg­gis (Lu­cerne) with Wal­ter Hel­big, Oskar Lüthy, Wil­helm Gimmi and Fritz Huf.

1912 /

Vis­its Wassily Kand­in­sky in Mu­nich; works on the al­man­ac Der Blaue Re­it­er; par­ti­cip­ates in his second ex­hib­i­tion.

1914 /

Vis­its the Werkbund ex­hib­i­tion in Co­logne, where he meets Max Ernst. Takes refuge in Paris be­fore the out­break of the First World War. Meets Guil­laume Apol­lin­aire, Max Jacob, Pablo Pi­cas­so, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Amedeo Modigliani and oth­ers.

1915 /

Leaves France with his broth­er and flees to Switzer­land. Stays in As­cona, where he meets Ar­thur Segal and Adya and Otto van Rees. Moves to Zurich. Meets Soph­ie Taeuber and be­gins work­ing with her as artists.

1916 /

Co-founder of the Dada move­ment at the Cab­aret-Voltaire in Zurich to­geth­er with Hugo Ball, Emmy Hen­nings, Mar­cel Janco, Richard-Huelsen­beck, Tristan Tzara.

1917 /

First Dada ex­hib­i­tion at the Galer­ie Cor­ray in Zurich. Tem­por­ar­ily with Soph­ie Taeuber on Monte Ver­ità in As­cona.

1919 / 20 /

Re­peated vis­its to Co­logne. Act­ive in the Co­logne Dada move­ment to­geth­er with Max Ernst. Meets El Lis­sitzky and Kurt Schwit­ters on trips to Ber­lin. The volumes of po­etry Die Wolken­pumpe and Der Vogel Sel­b­dritt are pub­lished.

1922 /

Mar­ries Soph­ie Taeuber in Pura (Ti­cino).

1924 /

Moves to Paris. There he meets Piet Mon­dri­an.

1925 /

Par­ti­cip­ates in the Sur­real­ist ex­hib­i­tion at the Galer­ie Pierre and in the ex­hib­i­tion L'Art d'au­jourd'hui, both in Paris.

1926-1928 /

Col­lab­or­a­tion with Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp and Theo van Does­burg on the re­design of the Au­bette in Stras­bourg.

1929 /

Moves to the house de­signed by Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp in Clamart (Meud­on Val Fleury) near Paris.

1930 /

Start of full-round sculp­ture.

1931–1934 /

Mem­ber of the Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion group.

1937 /

Mem­ber of the Al­li­ance, as­so­ci­ation of mod­ern Swiss artists in Zurich.

1940 /

Flees from the in­va­sion of Ger­man troops in Paris via Nérac and Veyri­er to Grasse in the south of France.

1943-1945 /

Death of Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp. Resides in Zurich and Basel, then re­turns to Clamart. -Mainly po­et­ic pro­duc­tion.

1946 /

Lives with Mar­guer­ite Ha­gen­bach, partly in Clamart, partly in Basel.

1942 /

Tem­por­ary entry per­mit for Switzer­land.

1954 /

Grand Prize at the XXVII Venice Bi­en­nale for sculp­ture.

1959 /

Pur­chases the Ronco dei Fiori es­tate in Lo­c­arno-Sol­duno and mar­ries Mar­guer­ite Ha­gen­bach.

1963 /

Grand Prix Na­tion­al des Arts.

1965 /

To­geth­er with Mar­guer­ite Arp-Ha­gen­bach, he donates a sig­ni­fic­ant part of her art col­lec­tion to the city of Lo­c­arno. Ap­point­ment as hon­or­ary cit­izen.

Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp

1889 /

Born on Janu­ary 19 as the young­est child of the Ger­man phar­macist Emil Taeuber and the Swiss woman Taeuber-Krüsi in Davos-Platz.

1895 / 96 /

After the death of his fath­er (1891), his moth­er moves to Tro­gen with her four chil­dren.

1904 / 05 /

At­tends the Stauffach­er School in St. Gal­len.

1905 /

The moth­er and her two young­est chil­dren re­gain Swiss cit­izen­ship.

1905 / 06 /

At­tends the Mes­dames van Muy­den board­ing school in Vevey.

1907-1910 /

Train­ee at the draw­ing school of the St. Gal­len Mu­seum of In­dustry and Trade.

1910 /

From Oc­to­ber at­tends the teach­ing and ex­per­i­ment­al stu­di­os for ap­plied and fine arts (Deb­schitz School) in Mu­nich.

1912 / 13 /

Stud­ies at the Ham­burg School of Ap­plied Arts, re­turns to the Deb­schitz School in Mu­nich for the 1913 / 14 winter semester.

1914 /

Gradu­ates from the Deb­schitz School and re­turns to Switzer­land in Novem­ber after the out­break of the First World War; fu­ture place of res­id­ence is Zurich.

1915 /

From the sum­mer, at­tends Rudolf von Laban's School for the Art of Move­ment in Zurich and on Monte Ver­ità, As­cona; meets Hans Arp in Novem­ber.

1915-1931 /

Mem­ber of the Swiss Werkbund.

1916-1929 /

Teach­er of design and em­broid­ery at the em­broid­ery school of the arts and crafts de­part­ment of the Zurich trade school.

1917 /

At the end of March, dance per­form­ance at the open­ing of the Dada Gal­lery in Zurich, vari­ous dance per­form­ances with the School for the Art of Move­ment.    

Ma­ri­on­ettes and stage sets for a con­tem­por­ary ad­apt­a­tion of the play Le roi cerf by Carlo Gozzi;

Mem­ber of the as­so­ci­ation Das Neue Leben and par­ti­cip­ated in all four ex­hib­i­tions between 1918 and 1920.

1922 /

Mar­riage to Hans Arp and thereby ac­quires Ger­man cit­izen­ship.

1925 /

Jury mem­ber of the Swiss sec­tion of the Ex­pos­i­tion in­ter­na­tionale des arts décor­at­ifs et in­dus­tri­els mo­d­ernes in Paris.

1926-1928 /

Ac­quires French cit­izen­ship; in­teri­or design work, partly in col­lab­or­a­tion with Hans Arp, in Stras­bourg; she also works with Theo van Does­burg on the cre­ation of the Au­bette as a mul­ti­func­tion­al en­ter­tain­ment com­plex.

1929 /

Moves to the house she de­signed her­self in Clamart (Meud­on Val Fleury) near Paris; gives up ap­plied art, con­cen­trates on paint­ing and draw­ing.

1929-1935 /

In­teri­or design work in Paris and Ber­lin.

1930-1934 /

Mem­ber of the artist groups Cercle et Carré and Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion in Paris.

1936-1938 /

Sculp­tur­al works in wood, some in col­lab­or­a­tion with Hans Arp.

1937 /

Be­comes a mem­ber of the Al­li­anz, an as­so­ci­ation of mod­ern Swiss artists in Zurich.

1937 /

Soph­ie Taeuber Arp presents the most ex­tens­ive col­lec­tion of works at the Con­struct­iv­ist ex­hib­i­tion at the Kun­sthalle Basel.

1937-1939 /

Pub­lic­a­tion of the in­ter­na­tion­al art magazine Plastique Plastic.

1940 /

Es­cape from the in­va­sion of Ger­man troops in Paris via Nérac and Veyri­er to Grasse in the south of France.

1942 /

Tem­por­ary entry per­mit for Switzer­land in Novem­ber.

1943 /

Ac­ci­dent­al death in Zurich on the night of Janu­ary 13-14.

max bill

1908 /

born in win­ter­thur on decem­ber 22nd, cit­izen of moos­seedorf (berne). fath­er erwin bill, vice sta­tion dir­ect­or, moth­er marie gei­ger, sis­ter of forest en­gin­eer and paint­er ernst samuel gei­ger.

1924-1927 /

train­ing as a sil­ver­smith at the school of arts and crafts in zurich.

1927 / 28 /

stud­ies at the bauhaus, col­lege of design, des­sau. teach­ers in­clude paul klee, wassily kand­in­sky and josef al­bers.

1929 /

moves to zurich. works as an ar­chi­tect, paint­er, graph­ic artist, sculptor (from 1933), pub­li­cist (from 1936) and product de­sign­er (from 1944).

1930 /

joins the swb (swiss werkbund).

1931 /

mar­ries the qual­i­fied con­cert cel­list and pho­to­graph­er binia spo­erri.

1932 /

design of the anti-fas­cist magazine -in­form­a­tion, ed­ited by ig­nazio si­lone.

1932 / 33 /

plan­ning and con­struc­tion of his house and stu­dio in zurich-höngg.

1932-1936 /

mem­ber of the ab­strac­tion-créa­tion group, paris.

1936 /

design of the swiss con­tri­bu­tion to the VI. tri­en­nale di mil­ano. text con­tri­bu­tion "konkrete gestal­tung" in the ex­hib­i­tion cata­log zeit­prob­leme in der sch­weizer malerei und plastik at the kun­sthaus zürich.

1937 /

joins the al­li­ance, as­so­ci­ation of mod­ern swiss artists.

1938 /

joins the ciam (con­grès in­ter­na­tion­al d'ar­chi­tec­ture mo­d­erne).

1941 /

found­a­tion of the al­li­anz pub­lish­ing house.ge­burt des sohnes jakob.

1944 / 45 /

lec­ture­ship in mould the­ory at the school of arts and crafts in zurich.

1947 /

found­a­tion of the i.p.c. (in­sti­tute for pro­gress­ive cul­ture).

1949 /

design of the ex­hib­i­tion die gute form on the oc­ca­sion of the swiss werkbund sample fair in basel.

1951 /

grand prize for sculp­ture at the bi­en­al de arte são paulo.

grand prize of the IX tri­en­nale di mil­ano.

1951-1956 /

co-founder and ar­chi­tect of the uni­ver­sity of design, ulm; from 1952 rect­or and head of the ar­chi­tec­ture and product design de­part­ment.

1956 /

joins the ger­man werkbund.

1959 /

joins the bsa (swiss ar­chi­tects as­so­ci­ation).

1960 /

or­gan­isa­tion of the ex­hib­i­tion con­crete art - 50 years of de­vel­op­ment at the helm­haus zurich.

1961-1964 /

chief ar­chi­tect of the "edu­ca­tion and design" sec­tor of the swiss na­tion­al ex­hib­i­tion expo 64 in lausanne, 1964.

1961-1968 /

mem­ber of the mu­ni­cip­al coun­cil of zurich.

1961-1969 /

mem­ber of the fed­er­al art com­mis­sion.

1967 / 68 /

con­struc­tion of his house and stu­dio in zu­mikon.

1967-1971 /

mem­ber of the swiss na­tion­al coun­cil (fed­er­al le­gis­lat­ive).

1967-1974 /

pro­fess­or at the state uni­ver­sity of fine arts, ham­burg, chair of en­vir­on­ment­al design.

1968 /

art prize of the city of zurich.

1972 /

elec­ted mem­ber of the academy of arts, ber­lin.

1985 /

chair­man of the bauhaus archiv e.v., ber­lin.

1988 /

death of binia bill.

1991 /

mar­riage to the art his­tor­i­an an­gela thomas.    

1993 /

praemi­um im­per­iale, japan. che­va­lier de la lé­gion d'hon­neur de la France.

1994 /

dr. sc. tech. h.c. of the fed­er­al in­sti­tute of tech­no­logy, zurich. dies on 9 decem­ber in ber­lin.

Con­nec­tion Zurich / Paris, 1925

The first con­tact between Soph­ie Taeuber and Max Bill was at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts. From 1916, Soph­ie Taeuber taught the tex­tiles class. In her les­sons, she wanted to com­bine art, design, crafts­man­ship and every­day life in a cre­at­ive way. She en­deav­oured to dis­solve the bound­ar­ies between genres. The artist wanted to con­vey to her stu­dents a 'concept of the prob­lems of the time' and in this con­text unite the dec­or­at­ive arts with the fine arts. Her teach­ing of form­al ex­pres­sion re­placed the hitherto cus­tom­ary design styles of ap­plied arts tex­tiles, such as or­na­ment­al pat­terns.

Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp left be­hind a rich, me­di­ally di­verse, and inter-dis­cip­lin­ary oeuvre. She was ini­tially a ex­press­ive dan­cer and crafts­wo­man, cre­at­ing tapestries such as Un­titled (ca. 1925), cush­ions and other fur­nish­ings. After mov­ing to Meud­on, FR, in 1929, she fo­cussed on paint­ing and draw­ing, but also cre­ated spa­tial works. With her Com­pos­i­tions ver­ticales-ho­ri­zontales, she cre­ated com­pletely non-rep­res­ent­a­tion­al com­pos­i­tions from 1915 on­wards. These are among the first con­crete / con­struct­ive works of art of mod­ern­ism and were cre­ated around the same time as those of Piet Mon­dri­an and Kazi­mir Malevich. The im­pres­sion is cre­ated that Taeuber-Arp found her way to new ab­stract forms more nat­ur­ally and rad­ic­ally than most of her fel­low artists.

The two stu­dent works by Max Bill, Tab­lett mit zwei Bech­ern und Wasserkanne (Tray with Two Cups and Water Jug) (both 1925) and the stu­dent card, refer to his time as a stu­dent at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts from 1924 to 1927. Dur­ing this time, Taeuber-Arp was a mem­ber of the jury of the Swiss sec­tion of the Ex­pos­i­tion In­ter­na­tionale des Arts Décor­at­ifs et In­dus­tri­els in Paris and was in­volved in the de­cision to ex­hib­it two of Bill's works in 1925. This op­por­tun­ity took the 17-year-old to the French met­ro­pol­is for the first time.

In 1933, back in Paris, the young ar­chi­tect and artist Bill joined an as­so­ci­ation to which Taeuber-Arp and her hus­band Hans Arp also be­longed: the Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion. It was the be­gin­ning of a pro­duct­ive col­lab­or­a­tion and a lifelong friend­ship.

Elect­ive Af­fin­it­ies

In con­trast to Arp, who found his source of in­spir­a­tion in nature, Bill took a clear con­struct­ive stance and sought his in­spir­a­tion in math­em­at­ic­al think­ing. In the years between 1930 and 1939, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp worked on vari­ous themes that over­lapped and re­lated to each other. An in­ter­play between con­struct­iv­ist and bio­morph­ic im­agery emerged in her work. These were years of in­tens­ive and in­spir­ing ex­change in Parisi­an artist­ic circles. Des­pite dif­fer­ent ap­proaches, they pur­sued the same goals: The de­fence and dis­sem­in­a­tion of non-rep­res­ent­a­tion­al art.

Arp, Taeuber-Arp and Bill ex­changed ideas and in­spired each other. There are nu­mer­ous af­fin­it­ies and ref­er­ences to each other in their works.

In 1930, Max Bill painted Ohne Titel, Zwei Köpfe (Un­titled, Two Heads) with flow­ing, soft lines re­min­is­cent of the pictori­al lan­guage of Hans Arp, who com­bined tend­en­cies of con­crete art and sur­real­ism in his work. Des­pite Bill's lim­it­a­tion to basic math­em­at­ic­al prin­ciples, his work al­lows for mul­ti­fa­ceted and un­dog­mat­ic ex­pres­sion.

Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp was in­ter­ested in the ex­pres­sion of form and the ques­tion of rhythm and bal­ance. Circles, rect­angles and tri­angles form dy­nam­ic com­pos­i­tions. Ar­range­ments with ir­reg­u­larly placed col­oured circles al­tern­ate with com­bin­a­tions of circle and rect­angle. In works such as Sechs Räume (Six Rooms) (1932), circles, rect­angles, tri­angles, rods and crosses are com­bined to cre­ate dy­nam­ic shifts in weight. In this jux­ta­pos­i­tion with Arp and Bill, how­ever, Taeuber-Arp's works al­most seem to func­tion as a link.

Max Bill was also a product de­sign­er and ty­po­graph­er. In 1932, he de­signed the cover of the anti-fas­cist magazine in­form­a­tion, on which he jux­ta­posed a sculp­ture by Hans Arp with a socio-crit­ic­al draw­ing by Georg Grosz. This satir­ic­al head is jux­ta­posed with Hans Arp's sculp­ture Bell and Na­vels (1931), which rep­res­ents the artist's in­terest in nature as an al­tern­at­ive to the ra­tion­al­ism. In 1932, Bill again drew on Arp's bio­morph­ic vocab­u­lary for an ad­vert­ising poster for the com­pany Wohn­be­darf.

Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion / Paris, 1932–36

In the 1930s, Paris was the centre of Sur­real­ism, an artist­ic move­ment that had both a dis­turb­ing and mag­net­ic ef­fect on the pub­lic. Sur­real­ism was more widely ac­cep­ted than non-rep­res­ent­a­tion­al art, which had more dif­fi­culties es­tab­lish­ing its po­s­i­tion. Groups such as Cercle et Carré, Art Con­crét and Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion, which in­cluded Soph­ie Taeuber and Hans Arp, were formed to pro­mote and dis­sem­in­ate non-ob­ject­ive art. The young­er Max Bill also be­came a mem­ber of Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion after Hans Arp in­tro­duced him to the group in 1932.

The magazine pub­lished by the group, Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion. Art non fig­ur­at­if was pre­ceded by the magazine Cercle et Carré, foun­ded by Michel Seu­phor in Paris in 1930, as well as the only issue of the magazine Art Con­cret, which was pub­lished by Theo van Does­burg in Paris in the same year. Many of the artists who had con­trib­uted to Cercle et Carré joined the Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion as­so­ci­ation. The ideas of Art Con­crét were fur­ther de­veloped with­in the circle of the new group.

In the search for suit­able plat­forms for the dis­sem­in­a­tion of non-fig­ur­at­ive art, a sub­sti­tute term was sought for ‘ab­stract’ art, in other words for art whose ab­strac­tion did not ori­gin­ate from the ob­ject. In the early 1930s, the term ‘art non fig­ur­at­i­f’ was used in Paris, which was also the sub­title of the magazine Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion. The Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion group was char­ac­ter­ised not only by the fact that dif­fer­ent na­tion­al­it­ies and age groups were act­ive, but also by its di­versity. The older gen­er­a­tion ex­pli­citly offered the young­er gen­er­a­tion a plat­form. The artists who took part in the de­bate in­cluded Hans Arp, Theo van Does­burg and Piet Mon­dri­an as well as rep­res­ent­at­ives of the new gen­er­a­tion such as Max Bill.

Arp and Bill also ex­pressed their views on the sub­ject in pro­gram­mat­ic writ­ings. Arp pub­lished his fam­ous text Konkrete Kunst (Con­crete Art) and wrote:

“We do not want to im­it­ate nature. We do not want to re­pro­duce, we want to cre­ate. We want to cre­ate, like the plant cre­ates its fruit, and not im­it­ate. We want to form im­me­di­ately and not in­dir­ectly. Since there is no trace of ab­strac­tion in this art, we call it con­crete art.”

Hans Arp: «Konkrete Kunst», in: Un­sern täg­lichen Traum, Zurich 1955, p. 79.
Trans­la­tion: Kun­st­mu­seum Ap­pen­zell.

Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion at­temp­ted to unite all the forces of non-ob­ject­ive art. Parts of the group were very ‘anti-sur­real­ist’, which led to Arp and Taeuber-Arp leav­ing Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion in 1934 due to dis­agree­ments. Des­pite dif­fer­ent ap­proaches, they pur­sued the same goals by is­su­ing pub­lic­a­tions and ini­ti­at­ing im­port­ant ex­hib­i­tions.

The port­fo­lio from 1970, cre­ated forty years later, con­tains prints by 30 rep­res­ent­at­ives of Ab­strac­tion Créa­tion. The port­fo­lio at­tempts to re­pro­duce the ori­gin­al im­pres­sion of the works, which have often be­come in­ac­cess­ible, and thus bring to life the aes­thet­ic in­ten­tions that the artists of those years ex­pressed in their works.

State­ment-Ex­hib­i­tions

In ad­di­tion to the joint port­fo­lio works, ex­hib­i­tions were an­oth­er im­port­ant plat­form for the dis­sem­in­a­tion of non-rep­res­ent­a­tion­al art, since mu­seums play an im­port­ant role in the ques­tion of what is con­sidered art to this day. In this con­text, the two ex­hib­i­tions on 'con­crete cre­ation', which were shown in 1935 at the Kun­st­mu­seum Luzern under the title These, An­ti­these, Syn­these and in 1936 at the Kun­sthaus Zürich under the title Zeit­prob­leme in der Sch­weizer Malerei und Plastik, were ground­break­ing.

The ini­ti­at­ive for the ex­hib­i­tion at the Kun­st­mu­seum Luzern, which took place from 24 Feb­ru­ary to 31 March 1935, came from the Lu­cerne paint­er Hans Erni, who, to­geth­er with other artists, was as­so­ci­ated with the Ab­strac­tion-Créa­tion group in Paris. The in­ter­na­tion­al ex­hib­i­tion in­cluded works by 22 avant-garde artists of vari­ous artist­ic genres, in­clud­ing con­crete, ab­stract and sur­real­ist art. Among the artists ex­hib­ited were Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, Hans Arp, George Braque, Pablo Pi­cas­so, Juan Gris, Gior­gio de Chirico, Wassily Kand­in­sky, Paul Klee, Fernand Leger, Joan Miro, Piet Mon­dri­an as well as Al­ex­an­der Calder, Hans Erni and Al­berto Gi­ac­ometti. The con­crete sculp­ture Tête et coquille (Head and Shell) (1933) by Hans Arp was also on dis­play in the ex­hib­i­tion.

The ex­hib­i­tion Zeit­prob­leme in der Sch­weizer Malerei und Plastik, which took place at the Kun­sthaus Zürich from 13 June to 22 July 1936, drew at­ten­tion to the avant-garde in Switzer­land and built a bridge to the art centre of Paris. The con­nec­tion to Paris ex­is­ted primar­ily through the ex­change of artists such as Hans Arp, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, Max Bill, Le Cor­busier and Leo Leuppi. The focus was on con­crete cre­ation, which Max Bill de­scribed in the ex­hib­i­tion cata­logue as

“the cre­ation that arises from its own means and prin­ciples, without hav­ing to de­rive or bor­row them from ex­tern­al nat­ur­al phe­nom­ena. visu­al cre­ation is thus based on col­our, form, light and move­ment.”

Max Bill: Con­crete Design, in: exhib. cat. Zeit­prob­leme in der Sch­weizer Malerei und Plastik, Zurich: Kun­sthaus Zurich, 1936, p. 9. Trans­la­tion: Kun­st­mu­seum Ap­pen­zell.

The ex­hib­i­tion in­cluded Max Bill's paint­ing vari­ation­en (1934), two com­pos­i­tions and two re­liefs by Soph­ie Taeuber Arp. The work Cercles mouvementés (1934) and the dy­nam­ic com­pos­i­tion with the ar­range­ment of ir­reg­u­larly placed col­oured circles Kom­pos­i­tion mit fünf Kreis­en, Quad­rat und Rechteck (Com­pos­i­tion with five circles, square and rect­angle) (1931) are shown here as rep­res­ent­at­ives.

Plat­forms of the av­ant­garde move­ments

In ad­di­tion to ex­hib­i­tions, books, port­fo­li­os and magazines be­came im­port­ant plat­forms for artists of the 1930s and 40s. Against the back­drop of the in­ter­na­tion­al avant-garde and the in­creas­ing re­jec­tion of mod­ern art by Na­tion­al So­cial­ism, new col­lect­ive forms of com­mu­nic­a­tion and in­ter­ac­tion emerged. These net­works, ini­ti­ated by the artists them­selves, are il­lus­trated in this room by a se­lec­tion of im­port­ant doc­u­ments.

Be­fore and dur­ing the Second World War, many artists left Europe. The in­creas­ing struggle for sur­viv­al and the os­tra­cisa­tion of mod­ern art, which was fuelled by the Na­tion­al So­cial­ist pro­pa­ganda ex­hib­i­tion 'En­t­ar­tete Kunst' of 1937, con­trib­uted to ex­acer­bat­ing the con­di­tions for avant-garde art pro­duc­tion. Non­ethe­less, nu­mer­ous artists, in­clud­ing Arp, Taeuber-Arp and Bill, en­deav­oured to main­tain the ex­change of avant-garde move­ments across the At­lantic and against all odds. These groups of artists saw them­selves as com­bat­ive com­munit­ies that ad­voc­ated the latest artist­ic trends.

Fol­low­ing the 1936 ex­hib­i­tion Zeit­prob­leme in der Sch­weizer Malerei und Plastik at the Kun­sthaus Zürich, Leo Leuppi foun­ded the Al­li­anz group – As­so­ci­ation of Mod­ern Swiss Artists in 1937.

The Al­li­anz was one of the most im­port­ant groups in Switzer­land and brought to­geth­er sur­real­ist and con­struct­iv­ist-con­crete artists who had re­turned to Switzer­land due to the grow­ing re­jec­tion of mod­ern art in neigh­bour­ing coun­tries. The res­ult was an as­so­ci­ation of artists who ad­dressed the cul­tur­al and polit­ic­al isol­a­tion in Switzer­land dur­ing the Third Reich. Mem­bers in­cluded Max Bill, Hans Arp, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp or Ver­ena Loewens­berg. Al­li­anz also po­si­tioned it­self as an in­terest group for artists who did not be­long to the of­fi­cial artists' as­so­ci­ation Gesell­schaft Sch­weizerischer Maler, Bild­hauer und Ar­chitek­ten GSMBA (So­ci­ety of Swiss Paint­ers, Sculptors and Ar­chi­tects) and pro­moted its mem­bers in par­tic­u­lar through the ex­hib­i­tions Neue Kunst in der Sch­weiz (New Art in Switzer­land) 1938 at the Kun­sthalle Basel, Al­li­anz 1942 and 1947 at the Kun­sthaus Zürich and 1954 at the Helm­haus Zürich.

Col­lab­or­at­ive pub­lic­a­tions also be­came im­port­ant plat­forms. The over­view pub­lic­a­tion Al­man­ach neuer Kunst in der Sch­weiz (Al­man­ac of New Art in Switzer­land) from 1940, for ex­ample, en­hanced the vis­ib­il­ity of the group mem­bers. This was sup­ple­men­ted by the activ­it­ies of the Al­li­anz pub­lish­ing house foun­ded by Max Bill in 1941. The port­fo­li­os and artists' books pub­lished by Al­li­anz-Ver­lag, such as Les derniers 9 dess­ins de Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp (1943) and Poèmes sans prénoms (1941) by Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, which was dis­trib­uted by Al­li­anz-Ver­lag, were im­port­ant means of pro­mot­ing and dis­sem­in­at­ing the mem­bers' works.

Max Bill. Themes and Vari­ations

Max Bill was an in­flu­en­tial founder of the Con­crete Art move­ment, not only through his mul­ti­fa­ceted ca­reer as a sculptor, paint­er, in­dus­tri­al and graph­ic de­sign­er, but also as a writer, sci­ent­ist and teach­er. Bill ini­tially trained as a sil­ver­smith at the School of Ap­plied Arts in Zurich from 1924, be­fore study­ing ar­chi­tec­ture at the Bauhaus in Des­sau for two years from 1927. Josef Al­bers, Wassily Kand­in­sky, Paul Klee, László Mo­holy-Nagy and Oskar Sch­lem­mer taught there – a form­at­ive and trend-set­ting time for the young Max Bill. In 1929, Bill re­turned to Switzer­land and settled in Zurich. He star­ted out work­ing as an ar­chi­tect, but then in­creas­ingly de­voted him­self to paint­ing, sculp­ture and product design. In­spired by the ideas of the artist Theo van Does­burg, Bill for­mu­lated the prin­ciples of Con­crete Art by ap­ply­ing math­em­at­ics and geo­metry to his work.

quin­ze vari­ations sur un même thème (1935–38) shows Max Bill's ex­plor­a­tion of seri­al vari­ation. The fif­teen stud­ies in­volve the trans­form­a­tion of an equi­lat­er­al tri­angle into an equi­lat­er­al oc­ta­gon, which spir­als out­wards through fur­ther open­ings in the angles while main­tain­ing the same side length. Ac­cord­ing to Bill, this is based on the real­isa­tion

‘[...] that many art lov­ers are not clear about how works of art are cre­ated and about their inner and outer struc­ture’.

Exhib. cat.: Max Bill – the prints up to 1968, Kun­sthalle Nürn­berg, 15 Decem­ber 1968 – 19 Janu­ary 1969, no. 9–24. Trans­la­tion: Kun­st­mu­seum Ap­pen­zell.

Con­crete Art

Fol­low­ing on from rooms 4 and 5, works are shown here that were on dis­play in im­port­ant ex­hib­i­tions or­gan­ised by the Al­li­anz. Between 1937 and 1954, the Al­li­anz group brought to­geth­er artists from all parts of Switzer­land and from all mod­ern art move­ments. Hans Arp joined Al­li­anz in 1937.

From 1917 on­wards, Hans Arp's wood­cuts and re­liefs in­creas­ingly took on or­gan­ic forms in­spired by the flot­sam of Lake Mag­giore and found ex­pres­sion in bio­morph­ic sculp­tures and wooden re­liefs such as Zeu­gungs­met­ope / Som­mer­met­ope (1946). The work is rhyth­mic­ally di­vided into pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive parts and has a space-an­im­at­ing and or­gan­ising char­ac­ter. Later, he in­creas­ingly cre­ated re­liefs with an ar­chi­tec­tur­al ref­er­ence. Met­ope is re­min­is­cent of Arp's early col­lages, which already com­bined the geo­met­ric with the or­gan­ic. The circles are strik­ing, as they rarely ap­pear as a form in Arp's work and are strongly re­min­is­cent of the works of Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp. In 1947, the re­lief was shown in the Al­li­anz ex­hib­i­tion at the Kun­sthaus Zürich.

As a paint­er and graph­ic artist, Bill worked with line, sur­face, col­our and com­pos­i­tion. He was in­ter­ested, for ex­ample, in the di­vi­sion or group­ing of lines, the con­trast of col­ours as well as the form, geo­metry and rhythm of sur­faces, or the vari­ation of a com­pos­i­tion – for ex­ample through ro­ta­tion. The sys­tem­at­ic or­gan­isa­tion of his paint­ings and prints pre­ven­ted a per­son­al sig­na­ture, which is also ex­pressed in the ra­tion­al titles of his works, such as Kon­struk­tion mit 12-teili­gem Zen­trum (Con­struc­tion with 12-part centre) (1941).

Hans Arp. Con­fig­ur­a­tions

Hans Arp's work stands between Dada, sur­real­ism and con­crete art. He cre­ated his sculp­tures from the in­side out as or­gan­ic ar­che­types. His 'bio­morph­ism' found an ex­pres­sion for the in­vis­ible and the spir­itu­al in art in ve­get­at­ive forms.

Max Bill de­scribed Arp's wood­cuts in 11 con­fig­ur­a­tions (1945) as 'form-ideas' that defy in­ter­pret­a­tion as in­tan­gible land­scapes:

“the flow­ing lines seem to have aris­en by chance, we can in­ter­pret their in­de­term­in­ate-de­term­ined path as de­marc­a­tions between un­seen land and water that had flooded it and is now mov­ing away from it again, whereby the view­er is far re­moved from the event and dis­pas­sion­ately sur­veys the pro­cess. they are im­ages of un­known ob­jects, un­known land­scapes, un­known func­tions.”

Max Bill: Un­titled [one day ...], in: 11 con­fig­ur­a­tions, Zurich 1945, not pa­gin­ated.
Trans­la­tion: Kun­st­mu­seum Ap­pen­zell.

The Al­li­anz-Ver­lag pub­lish­ing pro­spect­us an­nounced the chron­icle arp: 10 con­fig­ur­a­tions (room 5) with wood­cuts from the years 1917 to 1942 for the be­gin­ning of 1943. The pro­ject was post­poned due to the tra­gic death of Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp. Arp, who had been in close artist­ic col­lab­or­a­tion with Taeuber-Arp since 1915, did not re­cov­er from this stroke of fate for a long time. It was not until 13 Septem­ber 1943 that an agree­ment was reached between Arp and the Al­li­anz pub­lish­ing house rep­res­en­ted by Bill, ac­com­pan­ied by a two-page let­ter from Bill. In 1945, the sup­ple­men­ted edi­tion arp: 11 con­fig­ur­a­tions was fi­nally pub­lished in an edi­tion of 200 cop­ies. In the mean­time, the num­ber of im­ages had in­creased by one con­fig­ur­a­tion.

A se­lec­tion from the cor­res­pon-dence between Arp and Bill provides an in­sight into the col­lab­or­a­tion dur­ing the cre­ation of 11 con­fig­ur­a­tions.

Al­li­anz-Ver­lag pub­lished an al­man­ac, books, graph­ic works and port­fo­li­os at af­ford­able prices. 10 Ori­gin was pub­lished in 1942 and con­tains 10 sheets, wood­cuts and linocuts by in­ter­na­tion­al and Swiss artists. The port­fo­lio is sup­ple­men­ted by short pro­gram­mat­ic texts by Arp, Bill, Kand­in­sky and Mag­nelli, which, in the midst of the war, made it clear that they per­ceived the con­crete work of art as a counter-po­s­i­tion to the Na­tion­al So­cial­ists' un­der­stand­ing of art and ideal of beauty and at­trib­uted a trans­form­at­ive po­ten­tial to it.

The port­fo­lio con­tains prints by a who's who of the avant-garde: Max Bill, Hans Arp, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp, Al­berto Mag­nelli, Georges Van­tonger­loo, Sonja Delaunay, Leo Leuppi, Richard Paul Lohse, César Domela and Wassily Kand­in­sky. By look­ing at them, the view­er suc­cess­ively grasps the mo­ment of per­cep­tion sheet by sheet with the spe­cif­ic 'over­all sound' that res­ults from the jux­ta­pos­i­tion of all the prints in a port­fo­lio.

AL­LI­ANZ-VER­LAG II

In 1941, the port­fo­lio 5 con­struc­tion­en + 5 com­posi­tion­en was pub­lished with ten ori­gin­al prints by the artists of the Al­li­anz in­clud­ing Max Bill, Serge Brignoni, Hans Erni, Hans Fisc­hli, Hans Hin­ter­reit­er, Max Huber, Leo Leuppi, Ver­ena Loewens­berg, Richard Paul Lohse and Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp.

The port­fo­li­os were col­lab­or­at­ive artist­ic and pub­lish­ing pro­duc­tions that des­pite the dis­sol­u­tion of the group are re­peatedly re­ferred to in sub­sequent pro­jects. The Al­li­anz was able to re­main an act­ive artists' as­so­ci­ation until the mid-1950s. The last ex­hib­i­tion, which already had a ret­ro­spect­ive char­ac­ter, took place in 1954 at the Helm­haus in Zurich. The vari­ous groups, such as the Sur­real­ists and the Zurich Con­cret­ists, had grown apart. There was no longer any polit­ic­al or avant-garde com­mit­ment, as had been ne­ces­sary dur­ing the war, and there were no longer any com­mon artist­ic goals. The avant-garde had long since re­hab­il­it­ated it­self, the sur­real­ists had lost ground and con­struct­ive and con­crete art was re­vital­ised with new im­pulses by a num­ber of young artists.

Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp Plastique Plastic / Paris – New York – Zurich

This room is ded­ic­ated to the magazine Plastique Plastic and its en­vir­on­ment. To­geth­er with César Domela, A. E. Gal­lat­in and L. K. Mor­ris, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp foun­ded the in­ter­na­tion­al art magazine Plastique Plastic in 1937.

Between 1935 and 1939, five is­sues of the magazine were pub­lished, which were sig­ni­fic­antly in­flu­enced by Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp. As with the artists' as­so­ci­ations, the aim was to link artists and their sup­port­ers. The magazine also pro­moted the transat­lantic ex­change of the con­struct­iv­ist avant-garde at a time when many artists had already turned their backs on Europe.

The artist­ic net­works in which Taeuber-Arp op­er­ated as an act­ive mem­ber of the afore­men­tioned artists' as­so­ci­ations proved to be ex­tremely valu­able for the pro­cure­ment of im­ages and texts. The magazine con­nec­ted the art scenes in New York and Paris and was also a voice tube for artists per­se­cuted by fas­cism in Europe. The out­break of the Second World War led to the magazine being can­celled. How­ever, Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp planned a sixth issue and wanted to re­vive Plastique Plastic in Switzer­land to­geth­er with Max Bill. Un­for­tu­nately, the artist was un­able to real­ise this idea as she died un­ex­pec­tedly of car­bon monox­ide pois­on­ing dur­ing an overnight stay at Max Bill's house in Zurich in 1943.

The designs de­veloped by Max Bill for Num­ber 6 are being shown here for the first time in an ex­hib­i­tion. The ac­com­pa­ny­ing pub­lic­a­tion sheds light on the magazine design and the out­lined con­tent using pre­vi­ously un­pub­lished doc­u­ments and maquettes.

Some of the re­liefs that Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp cre­ated between 1936 and 1938 are con­struc­ted on a “rect­an­gu­lar base with geo­met­ric forms cut out, ap­plied or pro­ject­ing into the space”, as Hans Arp wrote about Soph­ie Taeuber-Arp's work after her death:

“The re­lief we called ‚Muschelrüs­tun­g‘ [‘Shell Ar­mour’], a re­lief on a rect­an­gu­lar, white-painted back­ground with ap­plied, white-painted, swinging forms, is per­fect beauty. The word beauty takes on a liv­ing mean­ing again through such works. This re­lief was cre­ated at the time when Soph­ie Taeuber was draw­ing the meta­morph­oses of vases, leaves and shells for my po­etry book 'muscheln und schirme'.”

Hans Arp, in: Zweik­lang, ed. Ernst Scheide­g­ger, Zurich: Ver­lag Die Arche, 1960, pp. 52–53. Trans­la­tion: Kun­st­mu­seum Ap­pen­zell.

CUR­AT­ORS
Stefanie Gschwend (Direk­t­or­in Kun­st­mu­seum / Kun­st­mu­seum Ap­pen­zell), Si­mona Mar­tinoli (Direk­t­or­in Fondazione Mar­guer­ite Arp, Lo­c­arno)

ARTIST­IC-CUR­AT­ORI­AL EX­CHANGE
Chris­ti­an Meier, Chris­ti­an Hörler

EX­HIB­I­TION IN­STALL­A­TION
Chris­ti­an Hörler, Chris­ti­an Meier, Ueli Alder, Carina Kirsch, Raoul Doré, Bea Dörig, Vanessa Heer

OR­GAN­ISA­TION
Re­gina Brül­isauer, Stefanie Gschwend, Claudia Reeb

ART EDU­CA­TION
Anna Beck-Wörner

MU­SEUM AT­TEND­ANTS
Raphaela Böhi, Domi­n­ique Franke, Mar­grit Gmünder, Roswitha Gobbo, Ian Groll, Mar­grit Küng, Jana Locher, Bar­bara Met­zger, Cristina Mosti, Madleina Ru­tishaus­er, Melanie Scher­rer 

ED­IT­OR
TEXT Stefanie Gschwend, Claudia Reeb

WALL TEXTS Silke Balemi, Il­laria Malyguine, Si­mona Mar­tinoli

CRED­ITS
Aus­s­tel­lung­sansicht, Al­li­an­zen. Arp / Taeuber-Arp / Bill, Kun­st­mu­seum Ap­pen­zell, 2024

PHO­TOS
Ueli Alder

GRAFIK / GRAPH­IC DESIGN
Data-Orbit / Michel Egger, St.Gal­len

AC­KNOW­LEDGE­MENTS
Chant­al und Jakob Bill, Fondazione Mar­guer­ite Arp, Galer­ie Haas Zürich, Mu­seum für Gestal­tung / Kun­st­gew­erbe­s­ammlung, Plakat­sammlung der Schule für Gestal­tung Basel, Heinz Stamm, Zürch­er Hoch­schule der Kün­ste / Archiv ZHdK und Lei­hge­ber­*innen, die nicht na­ment­lich genan­nt wer­den möcht­en / and lenders who wish to re­main an­onym­ous.

THE EX­HIB­I­TION WAS KINDLY SUP­POR­TED BY

Susanne und Mar­tin Knechtli-Krad­olfer-Stif­tung
Steinegg Stif­tung
Hans und Wilma Stutz Stif­tung
Ber­to­ld Suh­ner Stif­tung
Dr. Fred Sty­ger Stif­tung