IN VERENA LOWENSBERG'S STUDIO
Haus Konstruktiv
Selnaustrasse 25 - Zürich
13 December 2012 - 17 February 2013
On 28 May 2012, Verena Loewensberg (1912-1986) would have turned one hundred. To mark this occasion, Museum Haus Konstruktiv is presenting a spatial situation created in reference to this great Zurich artist's studio. Objects personally owned by Loewensberg are to be seen, including, for example: the worktable at which she painted her pictures, an Ulmer stool from her esteemed artist friend Max Bill, and little tables designed by his wife Binia Bill. Also on display, are parts of her comprehensive collection of jazz records, a selection from her collection of ceramic jugs with their glazing effects which particularly fascinated her, and the chair on which she let herself be photographed in the 1970s. However, alongside two works by befriended fellow artists James Bishop and Fritz Glarner, we also present a number of key paintings by Verena Loewensberg, from her later period of work.
The exhibition "In Verena Loewensberg's studio" was realized in close cooperation with her daughter Henriette Coray Loewensberg.
All throughout her life, Verena Loewensberg was intent on taking a back seat as a person, in relation to her work. She did not leave behind any theoretical writings, nor did she reveal anything about her private life, but one thing that is known, is her passion for jazz, serial music and classical music. She was enthusiastic about Miles Davis, Steve Reich and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, among others. Thus, it came about that Loewensberg, alongside her work as an artist, also ran Zurich's first discount record store in the 1960s. "City Discount" was a popular meeting place for young musicians and music enthusiasts. The exhibited record collection includes numerous rarities which bear witness to this love affair.
Indeed, a certain kind of musicality is also evident in the striped paintings which Loewensberg produced in 1974/75. Already in 2011, as part of the exhibition "The fantastic four Zurich concrete," we presented five pieces from this cycle of works. All portrait-format paintings show horizontally arranged colored stripes with varying colors and proportions. Toward the middle, the rhythm of the stripes generally condenses. In addition, the sensitive use of color and the wealth of nuances clearly demonstrate Verena Loewensberg's extraordinary sense of color.
Loewensberg's examination of different color contrasts reaches its climax in her last group of works, the so-called "Zweifärber" (Two-Tones), on which the artist worked from 1983 until her death: in these works, of which there are around 30 and we are exhibiting about one third, the artist reduced her color palette to two tones at a time, exploiting very different color combinations from painting to painting. This principle is already applied in her "Twins" cycle, produced in 1976 and 1977, which we presented in our exhibition "Endless Consequences" in 2006. These delicate, small-format works also provide evidence of Loewensberg's extraordinary proficiency in handling color. In the "Zweifärber," another important element is added, namely a reduced, tension-filled deployment of geometrically arranged forms. The basis is provided by a polygonal interior form, which is developed from a square and surrounded by a differently colored background. Here, Loewensberg succeeded in exploring an interactive effect between interior and exterior form, between figure and ground.
Verena Loewensberg did not title any of her works: an expression of her endeavor to let her painting speak for itself. And the paintings do indeed satisfy this very same aspiration: hiding behind the ostensibly playful and (in terms of their unique coloring) poetic paintings, there are always consistently developed systems which the artist has translated into color forms, employing analytical acumen and great sensitivity. We, the observers, are invited to decode these systems, or simply to allow the strength of the paintings to thrill us.
