Photo By Gail
Interlocking organic shapes of dull and sharp appendages support one another like a monument in the characteristic space of Yves Tanguy’s My Life, Black and White (1944). Having met the poet Andre Breton in 1925, Tanguy remained true to the Surrealist movement throughout his work, borrowing shapes and motifs from Jean Arp and Joan Miro.
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
Photo By Gail
In his later years, Jean Arp produced three-dimensional sculptures that he modeled in plaster and translated into stone and bronze. Plaster enabled Arp to experiments with new, unique forms, such as the amoeba-like shapes in Configuration in Serpentine Movements (1950). Referring to his biomorphic art as “l’art concret” (concrete art), Arp emphasized how this style evoked natural forms without imitation or specific definition, as if the sculpture had been created by natural forces rather than his own hand.
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
Photo By Gail
Jean Arp, also known as Hans Arp (September 16, 1886 – June 7, 1966) was a German-French sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper. When Arp spoke in German he referred to himself as Hans, and when he spoke in French he referred to himself as Jean. Interesting!
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Jean Arp, Constellation with Five White and Two Black Forms: Variation 2