Title & Author:

Circle! Square! Progress! : Zurich's concrete avant-garde / editors, Thomas Haemmerli & Brigitte Ulmer.

Publication:

Zurich : Scheidegger & Spiess, [2024]
©2024

Description:

336 pages : illustrations (some color), charts, facsimiles, portraits ; 27 cm

Notes:
"Max Bill, Camille Graeser, Verena Loewensberg, Richard Paul Lohse and their times" -- Cover.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Intro -- Foreword / Andreas Durisch -- Introduction: at the dentist / Thomas Haemmerli -- A short history of the Zurich concretists -- Thomas Haemmerli -- Timeline -- Pioneers, progenitors, pathfinders -- Missionary of a new society. Theo van Doesburg / Brigitte Ulmer -- Translator of universal structures. Georges Vantongerloo / Britta Schröder -- Mentor of the modernists. Johannes Itten / Brigitte Ulmer -- Beaded grenades and rebellious dance. Sophie Taeuber-Arp / Brigitte Ulmer -- Our most active member, our number one. Leo Leuppi / Thomas Haemmerli -- Cooking fats: constructivist. Coke: collaged. Anton Stankowski / Thomas Haemmerli -- The four Zurich Concretists -- Max Bill: responsible for everything from spoons to cities / Thomas Haemmerli -- Richard Paul Lohse: painting by plan, arguing by default / Thomas Haemmerli -- Verena Loewensberg: a leap out of the grid / Brigitte Ulmer -- Camille Graeser: the sentimental rationalist / Brigitte Ulmer -- The concrete universe -- Group theory and twelve-tone music / Vera Hausdorff -- Fritz Glarner: Paris, New York, Zurich: the middleman / Thomas Haemmerli -- Hans Fischli: building, painting, sculpting / Thomas Haemmerli -- My house, Bauhaus / Peter Fischli -- Binia Bill: new photography and Bill advertisements / Thomas Haemmerli -- Anne Indermaur: Zurich's energetic avant-gardist / Brigitte Ulmer -- The venues of the Concretists / Brigitte Ulmer -- A Petri dish of the Zurich avant-garde: the Galerie des Eaux Vives -- Amusement arcadia: Corso -- Rubbing shoulders with Zurich's establishment: Club bel Etage -- A place of refuge: Café Select -- Debauchery: Rhino Bill and birds of a feather / Willi Wottreng -- Scandal: "Bogeyman Bill"? - reconstruction of a dispute / Dora Imhof -- Gottfried Honegger: the lone warrior / Ewa Hess -- Suzanne Bollag: brave, charming, persistent / Brigitte Ulmer -- The Mission: concrete art in the workplace / Muriel Pérez -- Concrete art and self-branding: emblems of rational action / Wolfgang Ullrich -- The global presence of Constructivist aesthetics / Christoph Doswald -- 39 truths -- Essays, Critique, Market -- Of complexity and concrete clarity / Bice Curiger -- "Everyone has always been quoting everyone else" / John M. Armleder -- The infinite loop of pure expression / Martin Heller -- Of cats and dogs / Juri Steiner -- on the untimely relevance of the Concretists / Jörg Scheller -- Belated triumph: the Concretists on the market / Dirk Boll -- Names, Networks, Books -- From a to z -- Network -- Read on! -- Index -- Honors, Rights, Impressum -- Contributors -- Copyrights -- Thank you. Danke. Merci -- Impressum

Summary:

They were reviled, ridiculed, and ignored. Today, the Zurich Concretists - along with Dada - are considered the most important art movement originating from Switzerland. Circle! Square! Progress! tells the story of the city's avant-garde movement, which is rooted in the Bauhaus and renewed the formal language of art, shaped design and architecture, and also positioned itself politically. It traces its relations to the heroes of Constructivist-Concrete art, such as Johannes Itten, Piet Mondrian, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Theo van Doesburg, and Georges Vantongerloo, and looks at the influences that came from graphic art and advertising, jazz music and dance, color theory, and mathematics. Max Bill, Camille Graeser, Verena Loewensberg, and Richard Paul Lohse - a group incidentally thrown together rather than true conspirators - formed the center of gravity of a milieu that wrestled with critics, institutions, and authorities. Lavishly illustrated, the book explores Zurich as the habitat of highly gifted people engaged in lively debates at bohemian cafés, drifting in jazz clubs, celebrating excessively at the legendary annual artists' fancy dress ball, achieving fame and artistic triumphs with creative power and a sense of mission. It illuminates the Zurich Concretists' successes of the 1960s, their at times extremely violent quarrels of the 1970s, and their disputes about the beauty of form.

ISBN:

9783039421640 English edition paperback
3039421646 English edition paperback

Subject:

Art, Swiss 20th century.
Art, Modern 20th century.
Avant-garde (Aesthetics)
Art 20e siècle.
Art suisse 20e siècle.
Art, Modern
Art, Swiss
1900-1999

Added entries:

Haemmerli, Thomas, 1964- editor.
Ulmer, Brigitte, 1963- editor.

Zurich's concrete avant-garde

Holdings:

Location: Library main 327984
Call No.: 327984
Copy: 1
Status: Available