Mies van der Rohe Haus

Curators: Zsófia Kelm, Romina Quindós

The Mies van der Rohe Haus is dedicating a concentrated selection from the estate of concrete artist Horst Bartnig, to his work. The exhibition spans a range from early abstract explorations of form to late, complex systems of form, colour and structure.

The house, built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1932/33 for the Lemke couple, has been used as an exhibition venue since 1990 and was a familiar place for Bartnig: he presented two solo exhibitions here in 1994 and 2003.

Horst Bartnig is one of the most important representatives of concrete art in the GDR and in reunified Germany. In the mid-1960s, the trained stage painter developed a geometric abstract visual language that would shape his entire oeuvre.

Step by step, he made the transition from figurative to concrete painting. Influential figures for him were Kasimir Malevich (1879-1935), founder of Suprematism, and the Zurich Concrete artists Richard Paul Lohse (1902-1988) and Max Bill (1908-1994).

In the 1970s, he began developing serial systems. In his ‘Variations’, he created potentially infinite combinations of geometric shapes, adding colour as an activating element. As his work became increasingly complex, he collaborated with mathematicians and physicists. Despite the cultural and political conditions of the GDR, he continued to develop his work with remarkable consistency. Since the 1980s, he has been creating the ‘Interruptions’—vertical line structures whose rhythmic gaps set the viewer‘s vision in motion.

Bartnig remained closely connected to the house on Obersee for decades. Now, selected works from his personal estate are returning to the place whose clear architectural language reflects his idea of art as a thought process in a particularly striking way.