Gläserne Härten. Konkrete Kunst als Medium

The concrete-constructivist movement that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century had an impact not only on many later forms of visual art (such as conceptualism, op-art, kinetic art, computer art, Fluxus), but also on contemporary music and dance, film and photography, poetry and literature. Today in particular, the importance of concrete art seems to be on the rise again. Due to the digital immaterialization of the world, the distinction between object and image, apparatus and medium, material and form is becoming increasingly blurred. Here, the concrete-constructive movement confronts its viewers with reduced colors, lines, surfaces, forms, and repetitions that refer to nothing outside of themselves and are precisely concrete and on the spot. Such material elements offer the chance to have unexpected experiences and understand fundamental things in the unintentional observation of design concepts and aesthetic principles. With original logics and surprising iterations, concrete art targets invisible barriers, glass ceiling effects that is, and aims to make the unthinkable thinkable: Its themes are, on the one hand, those “glass hardships” in the brain that often stand in the way of reception experiences, and, on the other hand, the “hardness” of the epistemological challenge that is necessary for this.
Gläserne Härten presents works that refuse a superficial meaning, but at the same time always reveal the concepts underlying them. In this respect, such art can be understood as a medium without a message. The selection includes serial reliefs, sculptures, drawings, paintings, wall objects, and spatial installations from 1960 to 2016 by 16 renowned artists from seven countries
Douglas Allsop (b. 1943, UK), Götz Arndt (b. 1962, DE), Hartmut Böhm (b. 1938, DE), Ad Dekkers (1938-1974, NL), Rom Gaastra (b. 1952, NL), Nikolaus Koliusis (b. 1953, AT), Thomas Lenk (1933-2014, DE), Vera Leutloff (b. 1962, DE), Max Hermann Mahlmann (1912-2000, DE), Agnes Martin (1912-2004, CA/US), Guido Molinari (1933-2004, CA), Aurélie Nemours (1910-2005, FR), George Rickey (1907-2002, US), Klaus Staudt (b. 1932, DE), Gerhard Wittner (1926-1998, DE), and Christian Wulffen (b. 1954, DE).