Winterthur 1908. Berlin 1994. Max Bill
spanned the 20th century, leaving a
vast output that displays a remarkably
consistent approach to complex and
separate worlds. A student of the
Bauhaus, he was perhaps preordained.
Even his name stands out like a graphic
logo. Undoubtedly an all-round artist,
he was a Renaissance man in the truly
humanist sense. Guiding him through
painting, sculpture, architecture,
graphics and design was a steadily
perfected compositional method that
could be verified and repeated. He
stuck to a principle that helped to
generate the work but was also its end
result. In his view it is not – or not only –
the resulting form that matters, but its
underlying process and reasoning.
One is always surprised by the
freshness and contemporaneity of his
thinking, not only through its
methodological foundations in science,
but also through its artistic and formal
roots in Euclidean and other geometry.
The clarity of his graphic designs, the
spatial intuition of his infinite-surface
sculptures, and the anti-rhetoric of his
architecture have caused him to be
cyclically rediscovered and sometimes
unconsciously cited.
Winterthur 2008. Max Bill would have
been 100. To celebrate the occasion his
native city is dedicating a retrospective
to him. Among the most complete to
have been mounted in recent years, it
will be open until May 12 at two
different venues. On view at the
Kunstmuseum are his paintings and
sculptural works; and at the
Gewerbemuseum his architecture and
original drawings, models and
photographs, as well as his industrial
design, graphics and publications. The
show’s division into two themed areas
is not conducive to a broadly
interdisciplinary picture, but was
necessitated by the large number of
exhibits to be accommodated – most of
them from the Max, Binia + Jakob Bill
Stiftung. This is the first event in
Winterthur’s centenary calendar, to be
followed by a series of venues and
lectures that will reconstruct the
multifaceted life of this kaleidoscopic
Swiss architect.
Roberto Fabbri
Until 12.05.2008
Max Bill
Gewerbemuseum
Kirchplatz 14
CH - 8400 Winterthur
https://www.gewerbemuseum.ch//
Kunstmuseum
Museumstrasse 52
8402 Winterthur
https://www.kmw.ch/
Instinctively with the times. A hundred years of Max Bill
Winterthur 1908. Berlin 1994. Max Bill spanned the 20th century, leaving a vast output that displays a remarkably consistent approach to complex and separate worlds.
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- 07 March 2008