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== The Grid in Modern and Contemporary Art ==

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In the 1960s and 70s, artists moved away from the raw emotion of abstract expressionism, the dominant current of the 1950s. Newer movements such as op-art and minimalism, and the continued line of constructivism in Europe engendered a body of rational, calculated visual art that utilized even spacing and grids to define order. A tour through any major American modern art museum will reveal Frank Stella canvas' of regular lines, Ad Reinhardt's hard-edge grids of barely distinguishable tones, Carl Andre's grids of metal arranged on the floor, Donald Judd's regularly-spaced steel fabrications, Dan Flavin's neon matrices, and Agnes Martin's exquisite, subtle grids of paint on canvas. This list could continue for pages and move forward in history, but you get the point.

+

In the 1960s and 70s, artists moved away from the raw emotion of abstract expressionism, the dominant current of the 1950s. Newer movements such as op-art and minimalism, and the continued line of constructivism in Europe engendered a body of rational, calculated visual art that utilized even spacing and grids to define order. A tour through any major American modern art museum will reveal Frank Stella canvas' of regular lines, Ad Reinhardt's hard-edge grids of barely distinguishable tones, Carl Andre's grids of metal arranged on the floor, Donald Judd's regularly-spaced steel fabrications, Dan Flavin's neon matrices, and Agnes Martin's exquisite, subtle grids of paint on canvas. This list could continue for pages and move forward in history, but you get the point. This American tendency to move toward minimal forms was expressed well by Ad Reinhardt's in Art-as-Art in 1962:

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In Europe at the same time, a massive number of artists were working with grid systems and they were often doing so with more explicit focus and rigor. This energy was frequently channeled into groups that formed in different cities. For example, there was GRAV (?? et al) in Paris, ZERO (?? et al) based in Dusseldorf and extending a wide net across Europe, and ?? (?? et al) in London and the Zuricher ?? (Max Bill, et al.). Although it's difficult to discern in only looking at the work, there was tension between the primacy of mathematical form championed by Max Bill and the ZERO artists who maintained a desire to imbue subjectivity and emotion. The most iconic artist to work with grids might be the French optical artist Victor Vasarely. His work was so systemized that he invented a notation system to enable a team of assistants to assemble his works from modular, prefabricated colored pieces. This global tendency to move toward minimal forms was expressed well by Ad Reinhardt's in Art-as-Art in 1962:

The one object of fifty years of abstract art is to present art-as-art and as nothing else,

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making it purer...

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These late-century visual works arose from earlier lines of visual exploration. Within the context of the grid, pioneers Piet Mondrian, Theo Van Doesburg and other artists affiliated with De Stijl, further abandoned representation and moved beyond the abstract visual language opened by Wassily Kandinsky and new advanced painting originating from impressionism and cubism. Van Doesburg coined the term “concrete art” in 1930 to signify works that are conceived without reference to nature and symbolism. Works like Mondrian's Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray, 1921 (1921) and Van Doesburg's Counter-Composition VI (1925) were composed exclusively with orthogonal lines to form a grid. Even earlier in Russia, Kasimir Malovich and Alexen?? Rodchenko [MORE]

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In Europe at the same time, a massive number of artists were working with grid systems and they were often doing so with more explicit focus and rigor. This energy was frequently channeled into groups that formed in different cities. For example, there was GRAV (François Morellet, Julio Le Parc et al) in Paris, ZERO (Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, et al) based in Dusseldorf and extending a wide net across Europe, and The Systems Group (Jeffrey Steele, Peter Lowe et al) in London and the Allianz in Zurich (Max Bill, Richard Paul Lohse et al.). The most iconic artist to work with grids might be the French optical artist Victor Vasarely. His work was so systemized that he invented a notation system to enable a team of assistants to assemble his works using instructions and modular, prefabricated colored pieces. Although it's difficult to discern in looking at the work, there was tension between the artists who worked toward the primacy of mathematical form and those who maintained a desire to imbue subjectivity and emotion in their geometric compositions. In critique of the former category of art, Ferreira Gullar, a Brazilian poet and essayist, wrote the 1959 “Neo-Concrete Manifesto” declaring that it was dangerous for art to be concerned only with, “objective problems of composition, of chromatic reactions, of the development of serial rhythms, of lines or surfaces.” (Beyond Geometry, p. 57)

+

These late-century visual works arose from earlier lines of visual exploration. Within the specific context of the grid, pioneers Piet Mondrian, Theo Van Doesburg and other artists affiliated with De Stijl abandoned representation entirely. They moved away from the abstract visual language opened by Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, and Alexander Rodchenko. Van Doesburg et al. coined the term “concrete art” to categorize works that are conceived without reference to nature and symbolism. The manifesto “The Basis of Concrete Painting”, published in April 1930 stated, “The work of art should be fully conceived and spiritually formed before it is produced. It should not contain any natural form, sensuality, or sentimentality. We wish to exclude lyricism, dramaticism, symbolism and so forth. ” (Constructing a New World, p. 187). Van Doesburg continued in “Elementarism (The Elements of the New Painting)” from 1932: “One must not hesitate to surrender our personality. The universal transcends it... The approach to universal form is based on calculation of measure and number” (Constructing a New World, p. 187). Representative works like Mondrian's Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray, 1921 (1921) and Van Doesburg's Counter-Composition VI (1925) were composed exclusively with orthogonal lines to form a grid. Works from this time also experiment with rotating the grid 45 degrees to create a more dynamic composition, which is utilized well with 10 PRINT.

//

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@@ Line 46: / Line 46: @@
 == The Grid in Modern and Contemporary Art ==
-In the 1960s and 70s, artists moved away from the raw emotion of abstract expressionism, the dominant current of the 1950s. Newer movements such as op-art and minimalism, and the continued line of constructivism in Europe engendered a body of rational, calculated visual art that utilized even spacing and grids to define order. A tour through any major American modern art museum will reveal Frank Stella canvas' of regular lines, Ad Reinhardt's hard-edge grids of barely distinguishable tones, Carl Andre's grids of metal arranged on the floor, Donald Judd's regularly-spaced steel fabrications, Dan Flavin's neon matrices, and Agnes Martin's exquisite, subtle grids of paint on canvas. This list could continue for pages and move forward in history, but you get the point.
+In the 1960s and 70s, artists moved away from the raw emotion of abstract expressionism, the dominant current of the 1950s. Newer movements such as op-art and minimalism, and the continued line of constructivism in Europe engendered a body of rational, calculated visual art that utilized even spacing and grids to define order. A tour through any major American modern art museum will reveal Frank Stella canvas' of regular lines, Ad Reinhardt's hard-edge grids of barely distinguishable tones, Carl Andre's grids of metal arranged on the floor, Donald Judd's regularly-spaced steel fabrications, Dan Flavin's neon matrices, and Agnes Martin's exquisite, subtle grids of paint on canvas. This list could continue for pages and move forward in history, but you get the point. This American tendency to move toward minimal forms was expressed well by Ad Reinhardt's in Art-as-Art in 1962:
-In Europe at the same time, a massive number of artists were working with grid systems and they were often doing so with more explicit focus and rigor. This energy was frequently channeled into groups that formed in different cities. For example, there was GRAV (?? et al) in Paris, ZERO (?? et al) based in Dusseldorf and extending a wide net across Europe, and ?? (?? et al) in London and the Zuricher ?? (Max Bill,  et al.). Although it's difficult to discern in only looking at the work, there was tension between the primacy of mathematical form championed by Max Bill and the ZERO artists who maintained a desire to imbue subjectivity and emotion. The most iconic artist to work with grids might be the French optical artist Victor Vasarely. His work was so systemized that he invented a notation system to enable a team of assistants to assemble his works from modular, prefabricated colored pieces. This global tendency to move toward minimal forms was expressed well by Ad Reinhardt's in Art-as-Art in 1962:
   The one object of fifty years of abstract art is to present art-as-art and as nothing else,
@@ Line 54: / Line 52: @@
   making it purer...
-These late-century visual works arose from earlier lines of visual exploration. Within the context of the grid, pioneers Piet Mondrian, Theo Van Doesburg and other artists affiliated with De Stijl, further abandoned representation and moved beyond the abstract visual language opened by Wassily Kandinsky and new advanced painting originating from impressionism and cubism. Van Doesburg coined the term “concrete art” in 1930 to signify works that are conceived without reference to nature and symbolism. Works like Mondrian's Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray, 1921 (1921) and Van Doesburg's Counter-Composition VI (1925) were composed exclusively with orthogonal lines to form a grid. Even earlier in Russia, Kasimir Malovich and Alexen?? Rodchenko [MORE]
+In Europe at the same time, a massive number of artists were working with grid systems and they were often doing so with more explicit focus and rigor. This energy was frequently channeled into groups that formed in different cities. For example, there was GRAV (François Morellet, Julio Le Parc et al) in Paris, ZERO (Heinz Mack, Otto Piene,  et al) based in Dusseldorf and extending a wide net across Europe, and The Systems Group (Jeffrey Steele, Peter Lowe et al) in London and the Allianz in Zurich (Max Bill, Richard Paul Lohse  et al.). The most iconic artist to work with grids might be the French optical artist Victor Vasarely. His work was so systemized that he invented a notation system to enable a team of assistants to assemble his works using instructions and  modular, prefabricated colored pieces. Although it's difficult to discern in looking at the work, there was tension between the artists who worked toward the primacy of mathematical form and those who maintained a desire to imbue subjectivity and emotion in their geometric compositions. In critique of the former category of art, Ferreira Gullar, a Brazilian poet and essayist, wrote the 1959 “Neo-Concrete Manifesto” declaring that it was dangerous for art to be concerned only with, “objective problems of composition, of chromatic reactions, of the development of serial rhythms, of lines or surfaces.” (Beyond Geometry, p. 57)
+These late-century visual works arose from earlier lines of visual exploration. Within the specific context of the grid, pioneers Piet Mondrian, Theo Van Doesburg and other artists affiliated with De Stijl abandoned representation entirely. They moved away from the abstract visual language opened by Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, and Alexander Rodchenko. Van Doesburg et al. coined the term “concrete art” to categorize works that are conceived without reference to nature and symbolism. The manifesto “The Basis of Concrete Painting”, published in April 1930 stated, “The work of art should be fully conceived and spiritually formed before it is produced. It should not contain any natural form, sensuality, or sentimentality. We wish to exclude lyricism, dramaticism, symbolism and so forth. ” (Constructing a New World, p. 187). Van Doesburg continued in “Elementarism (The Elements of the New Painting)” from 1932: “One must not hesitate to surrender our personality. The universal transcends it... The approach to universal form is based on calculation of measure and number” (Constructing a New World, p. 187). Representative works like Mondrian's Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray, 1921 (1921) and Van Doesburg's Counter-Composition VI (1925) were composed exclusively with orthogonal lines to form a grid. Works from this time also experiment with rotating the grid 45 degrees to create a more dynamic composition, which is utilized well with 10 PRINT.
 //