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Lot Essay
'A white moon,
white on white,
a new relief
of mine' (Hans Arp, 'Mondsland', quoted in E. Robertson, Arp: Painter, Poet, Sculptor, New Haven & London, 2006, p. 173).
Created in 1932, Configuration is one of the earlier of Hans Arp's white relief objects, and was formerly in the collection of his brother François, before passing in turn to his daughter, Ruth Tillard-Arp. In this relief, Arp has deliberately employed an incredibly elegant, restrained visual language: the organic curves of the two forms, which have been superimposed upon each other, each one made of painted, sawn wood, have a sensuous visual poetry. They recall the amoeba-like forms that so fascinated Arp and which allowed him to explore the way in which biology invisibly yet perceptibly dictates our existence. At the same time, they are curvaceous explorations of pure form, a notion that is only heightened by the rigorous palette, which Arp has limited to white.
While Arp had already created some white reliefs during the 1920s, it was really during the following decade that he further explored and refined the purity of this means of expression, as is clear in Configuration. In this work, the evocative forms teasingly hint at figurative meanings, urging interpretation on our part, yet remain elusive. They find a counterpart, in a sense, in the anamorphic objects that litter the sea-floor-like surfaces of Yves Tanguy's mindscapes. Crucially, though, Configuration acts as a showcase for Arp's increasing interest in pure colours and pure form, which would come to the fore in the sculptures he was pioneering during precisely this period. While echoing with reverberations of the forms of life, the shapes in Configuration are distinctly abstract. They have their own quiddity. White on white, Configuration anticipates many of the developments of the post-war era, for instance the pictures of Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni and Jasper Johns. At the same time, it recalls Mallarmé's exquisite and ecstatic horror vacui. Here, the surface may remain white, but it is far from unarticulated - the looping outlines of these two forms insist on their dynamism and sense of buzzing, biological life.
white on white,
a new relief
of mine' (Hans Arp, 'Mondsland', quoted in E. Robertson, Arp: Painter, Poet, Sculptor, New Haven & London, 2006, p. 173).
Created in 1932, Configuration is one of the earlier of Hans Arp's white relief objects, and was formerly in the collection of his brother François, before passing in turn to his daughter, Ruth Tillard-Arp. In this relief, Arp has deliberately employed an incredibly elegant, restrained visual language: the organic curves of the two forms, which have been superimposed upon each other, each one made of painted, sawn wood, have a sensuous visual poetry. They recall the amoeba-like forms that so fascinated Arp and which allowed him to explore the way in which biology invisibly yet perceptibly dictates our existence. At the same time, they are curvaceous explorations of pure form, a notion that is only heightened by the rigorous palette, which Arp has limited to white.
While Arp had already created some white reliefs during the 1920s, it was really during the following decade that he further explored and refined the purity of this means of expression, as is clear in Configuration. In this work, the evocative forms teasingly hint at figurative meanings, urging interpretation on our part, yet remain elusive. They find a counterpart, in a sense, in the anamorphic objects that litter the sea-floor-like surfaces of Yves Tanguy's mindscapes. Crucially, though, Configuration acts as a showcase for Arp's increasing interest in pure colours and pure form, which would come to the fore in the sculptures he was pioneering during precisely this period. While echoing with reverberations of the forms of life, the shapes in Configuration are distinctly abstract. They have their own quiddity. White on white, Configuration anticipates many of the developments of the post-war era, for instance the pictures of Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni and Jasper Johns. At the same time, it recalls Mallarmé's exquisite and ecstatic horror vacui. Here, the surface may remain white, but it is far from unarticulated - the looping outlines of these two forms insist on their dynamism and sense of buzzing, biological life.