Abstraktion ausstellen 1908-15

The years around 1910 are known as the time of the invention of Abstraction in Art History. As Art History goes, Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian, among others, created the first artworks that did not represent anything recognizable anymore. This counts as one of the most important moments of the Art History of the 20 th century. As groundbreaking as this development seems, the present book asks if the artists also exhibited these abstract paintings in public exhibitions before the First World War, the hypothesis being that the abstract works could not have had any impact, had they not been visible publicly. While the origins of Abstraction and its stylistic developments have largely been discussed, the highly consequential exhibition of those works has so far not been addressed in the art historical discourse. For the first time in the History of Art, this book looks at all artworks that the following selected artists exhibited between 1908 and 1915: Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Vassily Kandinsky, Frantisek Kupka, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian and Francis Picabia. Also for the first time, those exhibited works have been categorized as per their degree of abstraction thanks to pre-set criteria such as the presence or absence of recognizable figures, objects and/or landscapes in each piece. This made it possible to compare the degree of abstraction of all the pieces as well as count the number of more and less abstract works that have been exhibited. By studying which artist exhibited what artwork when and where between 1908 and 1915, this book is the first to trace the exhibition activity of the so called fathers of Abstraction during this momentous time in the early 20th century. Thanks to the collection of the data of what was exhibited, it was possible to establish what share of their abstract and figurative artworks they displayed publicly. Most importantly, the analysis of the data shows what effects the exhibition of abstract artworks had on fellow artists and the public alike. In a similar première and in addition to presenting each artists exhibition behaviour in dedicated case-studies, the book further identifies and delves into a series of six exhibitions that were particularly important for the history of the presentation of abstract art. Above all, it identified the first exhibition of the 20th century that consisted only of Abstract Art. Thanks to the systematic collection of around 650 exhibited artworks between 1908 and 1915 displayed in 160 exhibitions in 14 countries and 47 cities around the world, and their quantitative and qualitative analysis, it was possible to study the exhibiting strategies those artists employed, ask which goals they pursued and see if those goals were reached.