Abstract

At the beginning of the twentieth century, artists developed a new visual language: Rather than depicting the visible world, this imagery was intended to be radically modern and universally understandable.

Science, technology and progress, but also the search for spiritual-emotional realms, became the mainspring for an art form entirely reduced to lines, colours and shapes. Abstraction in its manifold variations continues to fascinate us to this day.

At the heart of this exhibition, featuring around sixty works, are three significant new acquisitions: works by Carmen Herrera, Wassily Kandinsky and Mark Rothko. Supported by other paintings and sculptures from the own collection, they illustrate three different styles of abstraction – detachment from the object, geometric construction and colour field painting. Moreover, these artists with their transnational backgrounds demonstrate that abstraction has always been and continues to be a global movement.

Curated by Karin Schick, Director of the Hilti Art Foundation.

Works by: 

Josef Albers, Hans Arp, Rudolf Belling, Max Bill, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Fritz Glarner, Camille Graeser, Katharina Grosse, Erich Heckel, Carmen Herrera, Leiko Ikemura, Alexej Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Imi Knoebel, Verena Loewensberg, August Macke, Franz Marc, Joan Miró, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock, Hanna Roeckle, Mark Rothko, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Jan Schoonhoven, Sean Scully, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Yves Tanguy, Liliane Tomasko, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, Wols

Wassily Kandinsky
Improvisation 21, 1911 (detail)
Hilti Art Foundation