Van Doesburg

This kaleidoscopic exhibition catalogue presents Theo van Doesburg as a nomadic propagandist on an ongoing quest for a new aesthetic which, in interaction with contemporary science and technology, seeks to reform the world. The publication opens with a presentation of the art and ideas of the Dutch movement De Stijl, the review and art movement of the same name having been founded in 1917 in Leiden. The show then explores the various facets of the artist's work: the Neo-Plasticist and Dadaist creations produced under the pseudonym I.K. Bonset; then, breaking with Mondrian, Elementarism (1924-6) and lastly Concrete art, a collective centred around abstract geometric art, founded by the artist in 1930. Attention is also given to the collaborations between van Doesburg and other eminent artists of the avant-garde, with works by leading members of the movement De Stijl on show such as Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck, Vilmos Huszár, Jacobus Johannes Oud, Gerrit Rietveld, Cornelis van Eesteren, Georges Vantongerloo, and by some contemporaries such as El Lissitzky, Kurt Schwitters, Hans Richter, Hans Arp, César Domela, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, Jean Hélion, Otto Gustaf Carlsund, etc. This exhibition and accompanying catalogue highlights the importance of the interdisciplinarity and interaction that contributed to the development of a new style, in agreement with a new way of living, which simultaneously brings together art and architecture, cinema, poetry, literature, design, typography, etc. The creative dynamic of the avant-garde therefore takes centre stage. A dynamic which, through different aesthetic principles and politico-cultural ideologies and based on the fundamental principles of Neo-Plasticism, would lay the foundations for a distinct contemporary art, no longer individual but universal. The exhibition will consist of over 100 paintings, drawings, photographs, reviews, publications, pieces of furniture, models and reproductions of architectural plans. Most of these works come from museums in the Netherlands. A unique opportunity because the work of Theo van Doesburg and the Dutch avant-garde has never before been the object of a major monograph in Belgium.