Kobro and Strzemiński: Avant-Garde Prototypes (2017) [English, Spanish]

“Kataryna Kobro (1898-1951) and Władysław Strzemiński (1893-1952) are among the silent protagonists of the European avant-gardes, to which they contributed by both fostering and questioning the legacy of modernism with a plastic and theoretical oeuvre that was fertile as it was complex. Dedicated to experimentation on pure forms–Kobro fundamentally in sculpture and Strzemiński in painting–and closely related to international artistic movements like the Bauhaus, neoplasticism and constructivism, their work is pivotal for an understanding of abstract art in the Central Europe of the first decades of the twentieth century.”

With contributions by Jarosław Suchan, Christina Lodder, Gladys C. Fabre, Juan Manuel Bonet, and texts by Kobro and Strzemiński.

Publisher Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, and Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź, 2017
Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License
ISBN 9788480265508, 8480265507
192 pages

Exhibition (Madrid)
Exhibition (Łódź)
Publisher
WorldCat

Kobro and Strzemiński: Avant-Garde Prototypes (English, 13 MB, PDF, Issuu)
Kobro y Strzemiński. Prototipos vanguardistas (Spanish, 13 MB, PDF, Issuu)

Alfred H. Barr, Jr.: Cubism and Abstract Art: Painting, Sculpture, Constructions, Photography, Architecture, Industrial Art, Theatre, Films, Posters, Typography (1936)

The catalogue of the first MoMA’s retrospective of modernism, held 2 March-19 April 1936, laid the theoretical foundation of the museum. Its jacket contains a notorious chart of modernist art history, the Diagram of Stylistic Evolution from 1890 until 1935.

“The catalogue remains an important historical document (as does that for Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism). It set abstraction within a formalist framework that—ignoring the intellectual byways of French symbolism, German idealism, and Russian Marxism of the previous thirty years—was shaped by the scientific climate that had started a century before. … The exhibition together with the widespread dissemination of its influential catalogue, established Cubism as the central issue of early modernism, abstraction as the goal.” (Sybil Gordon Kantor, 2003)

The exhibition later traveled to another 7 cities: San Francisco, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Baltimore, Providence, and Grand Rapids.

Publisher Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1936
249 pages
via MoMA

Commentary: Meyer Schapiro (Marxist Quarterly, 1937), Susan Noyes Platt (Art Journal, 1988), Astrit Schmidt Burkhardt (Word & Image, 2000).

Publisher (incl. master checklist and press releases)
WorldCat

PDF (47 MB)

nul = 0: The Dutch Nul Group in an International Context (2011)

“The legendary art collective Nul was founded in Amsterdam in 1961. Its members–Armando, Jan Henderikse, Henk Peeters, Jan Schoonhoven and (briefly) herman de vries–revolutionized Dutch art, allying themselves with the German Zero group, the French Nouveau Réalistes and the Japanese Gutai group, as well as with artists such as Yves Klein and Lucio Fontana. Alongside these groups, Nul set the tone for the climate of the European avant-garde in the 1960s. The group collaborated on manifestos, happenings and publications, and individually produced serial, minimalist sculptures, installations and assemblages, which they exhibited collectively. Nul = 0 accompanies the Stedelijk Museum’s 2011 survey of the movement, offering extensive historical analysis through interviews, essays, archival photographs and an illustrated chronology. Featuring a die-cut cover (with two concentric zeroes), it constitutes a definitive overview of Nul’s activities, its kindred spirits and its legacy.”

With contributions by Colin Huizing, Antoon Melissen, Tijs Visser, Pietje Tegenbosch, Caroline de Westenholz, Renate Wiehager, Midori Yamamura, and Atsuo Yamamoto.

Edited by Colin Huizing and Tijs Visser
Publisher Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam, and NAi Publishers, Rotterdam, 2011
ISBN 9789056628383
192 pages
via Zero Foundation

Video from The Nul’s 1962 exhibition at Stedelijk
Exhibition, 2011.
Nul at Wikipedia-NL

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (8 MB)