Julia Wallner – författare

In the first exhibition highlight of the year, three outstanding artists – Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Georg Kolbe, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe – are being brought together for the first time at Haus Lange in Krefeld.Figurative sculpture, as repeatedly integrated into designs and buildings by the architect Mies van der Rohe, is thus placed in direct dialog with the building, the design, and the gardens of Haus Lange. The background for the interplay between architecture and sculpture is the natural-philosophical climate, which, in the early twentieth century, influenced a wide range of disciplines. On display will be roughly twenty-five sculptures by Lehmbruck and Kolbe as part of the organic body of Haus Lange.

A journey to the art capital of the 1930s: Paris. The avant-garde group abstraction-création and its fifty or so members were an inspiration to the art world with their clear lines and kaleidoscopic experiments with form. Leading figures of abstraction joined together to support artistic freedom and oppose the rise of fascism, before modernism shifted its gravitational centre to New York. Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s distinctly concrete forms and Hans Arp’s organic abstractions, Theo van Doesburg’s compositions of line grids and Jean Gorin’s social utopias transformed into abstract forms – the entire cosmos of non-representational art found a home in the cosmopolitan group abstraction création. This visually superlative volume combines highlights of abstract art with carefully integrated contemporary perspectives, offering an introduction to the group, impressions of Paris in the 1930s and a visual treasure trove. Contemporary Artists: Rana Begum, Angela Bulloch, Daniel Buren, Imi Knoebel, Timo Nasseri, Kai Schiemenz, Beat Zoderer. Artists: Hans (Jean) Arp, Willi Baumeister, Alexander Calder, Robert Delaunay, Theo Van Doesburg, Otto Freundlich, Naum Gabo, Albert Gleizes, Jean Gorin, Jean Hélion, Barbara Hepworth, Auguste Herbin, Mainie Jellett, Laszlo Moholynagy, Piet Mondrian, Marlow Moss, Wladyslaw Strzeminski, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Georges Vantongerloo, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, Et Al.