Hartmut Böhm
Untersuchungen eines Quadratsystems, IV, 1964/68
Silkscreen on paper, 40 x 40 cm
Photographer: Grzegorz Zabłocki

May 8 – June 12, 2010

MINUS SPACE is delighted to announce the exhibition Hartmut Böhm: Graphic Systems, Prints 1965-1975. This is the Berlin-based artist’s first solo exhibition in New York City and it will feature ten silkscreen prints produced between 1965 and 1975.

For more than fifty years, Hartmut Böhm has been working in installation, sculpture, drawing, and printmaking. His work focuses almost exclusively on the aesthetics of systems that highlight the relativity of perception. Böhm’s practice is organized around four primary areas of investigation: Systems (serial structures), Perception (transparency and visual ambiguity), Gestalt (partition and outline), and Concept (linear principles and infinite progressions).

Perception is the dominant facet of the work he produced during the 1960s and 1970s, which includes the prints on view at MINUS SPACE. About his work of this period, Böhm states, “It was about investigation, comprehension, and perception as active learning…it wasn’t about optical sensations.” Böhm views the systems in his work as pictorial strategies, rather than metaphysical vehicles pointing toward the realm of utopia. He continues, “The fascination for me lies in the simultaneous logical combining of the visible and invisible elements, and their derived principal separation from that same logic.”

A comprehensive interview with Hartmut Böhm, his first in English, was conducted by Matthew Deleget and published on MINUS SPACE in February 2004. Böhm’s work was recently included in the group exhibitions Open House for Butterflies at MINUS SPACE in 2009, and MINUS SPACE at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in NYC in 2008.

Hartmut Böhm is one of the most important European reductive artists of his generation. He was born in Kassel, Germany, in 1938, and studied with Arnold Bode, the founder and curator of Documenta, at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Kassel. Böhm produced his first systems-based work in 1959. Several years later, he was included in the seminal constructivist exhibition Nouvelle Tendance: Propositions visuelles du mouvement international at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, France in 1964. The exhibition heralded in the Op, Kinetic, and Zero Art movements.

Böhm has mounted more than sixty solo exhibitions and has participated in hundreds of group exhibitions internationally. His work is included in nearly seventy public collections worldwide. The Chelm Museum Collection of Contemporary Art in Chelm, Poland, mounted a retrospective of Böhm’s prints in 2008.

SUPPORT
MINUS SPACE’s programming is made possible by the generous support of The Golden Rule Foundation, as well as individual donors. We thank you!

MINUS SPACE
98 4th Street, Buzzer #28
Brooklyn, NY 11231
> directions

Installation view
Photo: Alistair Overbruck

April 11 – June 27, 2010

SYSTEM MIT ÜBERRASCHUNGEN
“Böhm verbirgt nichts, verschleiert nichts und breitet alles unmittelbar vor dem Besucher aus, doch die eigenwillige Verbindung von rigoroser Ordnung und ständiger Wandelbarkeit, Muster und Variation, Volumen und Leere aktiviert den gesamten Raum und ist schließlich von einer ausgesprochen kathartischen Wirkung.”

–Gregory Volk, Stiftung für konkrete Kunst, Reutlingen, 2000

Charlotte Posenenske, Vierkantrohre Serie D, 1967
(Reconstruction 2009)

March 12 – May 30, 2010

The initial exhibition at Daimler Contemporary in 2010 will show major 1960s trends in German abstract art from the Daimler Art Collection: Constructivism, Zero, Minimal Art, Concept and Seriality. Starting with 1950s predecessors – such as Josef Albers, Norbert Kricke and Siegfried Cremer – the show considers abstract art developments in the cities of Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Krefeld, Stuttgart, Berlin and Munich, but also looks at contiguous Swiss positions. About 60 works by 28 artists are being presented, all developing a specifically German Minimalism in the period from 1954 to 1974 in various media (sculpture, painting, film and drawing).

Participating Artists:
Karl Heinz Adler, Josef Albers, Joachim Albrecht, Peter Benkert, Hartmut Böhm, Siegfried Cremer, Hanne Darboven, Karl Gerstner, Imi Giese, Mathias Goeritz, Kuno Gonschior, Gerhard von Graevenitz, Hajo Hangen, Erwin Heerich, Gottfried Honegger, Norbert Kricke, Thomas Lenk, Heinz Mack, Karl Georg Pfahler, Verena Pfisterer, Charlotte Posenenske, Christian Roeckenschuss, Peter Roehr, Ulrich Rückriem, Eckhard Schene, Klaus Staudt, Franz Erhard Walther, Herbert Zangs

In the early sixties in Germany, a new kind of Minimalism developed that was initially largely independent from the developments in America at the time. This German Minimalism was in many cases stimulated by, but also in conflict with, Concrete Art and the European Zero avant-garde, which drew attention to it from 1957 on, starting in Düsseldorf, with unusually staged exhibitions and spectacular projects for public space. The steles, cubes, and picture objects produced by the Zero artists, which lay in the space or stood in front of the wall, represent a significant new step for German art in terms of quality around 1959/60. The Düsseldorf Kunstakademie played an important role in the transition to a specifically German Minimalism from 1962 until around 1970. In the sixties, it provided many of its students with a basis for examining minimalized sculpture. Among them, the young Franz Erhard Walther developed his first proto-Minimalist objects starting in 1962, followed in 1964/65 by Imi Knoebel, Imi Giese, and Blinky Palermo. At the same time, Hanne Darboven in Hamburg, Charlotte Posenenske in Offenbach and, outside academic contexts, Peter Roehr in Frankfurt conceived their first attempts at Minimalist works.

On the occasion of this pioneering exhibition there will be a three-day symposium on May 15 -17, 2010, held at Daimler Contemporary in Berlin. The publicly accessible symposium is inviting protagonists, important collectors, curators and active gallery owners of the time, academics, art critics and journalists, who will give insights in talks, panel discussions and specific lectures. By engaging experts from the respective genres the symposium aims to draw an encompassing picture of the minimalist movement in the field of music, literature, film and dance in Germany.

Installation view

December 4, 2009 – January 17, 2010

Bartha Contemporary presents a solo exhibition by German artist Hartmut Böhm (b. 1938). The artist’s second solo show with the gallery entitled ‘Wandzeichnungen’ will showcase site-specific wall drawings, a key aspect in the artist’s oeuvre.

Hartmut Böhm’s investigation of geometric abstraction is routed in a continued interest in the core values of European ‘Konkrete’ Art. Despite the fact that Böhm is not a dogmatist, his use of industrial materials as well as the pure nature of his compositions reflect an untainted believe in the modern, the contemporary and foremost in the man-made. Rather than indulging in romantic notions of early 20th Century modernism Böhm’s works are a contemporary revaluation and evolution of constructivist art. Since the late 60’s the artist’s work has often been attributed to many of the key European post war movements such as ‘Nouvelle Tendance’ ‘Op-Art’ and ‘Konstruktive und Konkrete Kunst’. However in the past two decades Böhm’s work has taken on a much more minimalist sensibility.

For this exhibition a series of radically pared down installations, all encompassing an element of the site-specific, will develop along the gallery’s three main exhibition walls. The installation’s central work entitled ‘Randstand’, is conceived out of four steel elements, which are arranged following a sequential system along the four side of an outlined square drawn with red pencil. This seemingly simple work – balanced and without a doubt formalistic, displays the artist’s outstanding ability to create works, which continue to engage the viewer beyond the purely ephemeral.

Installation view

September 12, 2009 – February 28, 2010

‘Drawing Sculpture’ is presenting a selection from the Daimler Art Collection’s wide-ranging holdings of works on paper for the first time, complemented by sculptures, videos and picture objects. About 60 works by 28 artists are being shown, dating from about 1960 to the present day. In each case the presentation will stage dialogues between classical Minimalist positions from the 1960s and international contemporary art.

The exhibition is not addressing drawing as a tool for sketches and preliminary stages leading to actual works of art, but presenting it above all as an independent and potentially creative medium. Drawing’s conceptual possibilities resulted from developments in the course of the 20th century, especially in connection with the move away from figurative to abstract art. Here the changed perception of the work of art not as a completed unit but that of art as a process has an important part to play.

One further aspect addressed by ‘Drawing Sculpture’ shows drawing’s potential for working in three-dimensions. Again and again it is sculptors who exploit drawing’s ability to explore an exciting relationship between line, surface and three-dimensional presence, and who have paid attention to the creative function of line in outline and internal structure, in other words to disegno. Drawing in the present perception of art, also includes work that has been produced not by classical drawing but as a working process, and that suggests the essential character of drawing as the origin of order and structure, and its quality as a sensual and tactile expressive form.

The concept of dialogue between works from different periods and styles will be drawn into focus once more, and taken outside the exhibition gallery by a special exhibition called ‘Auke, Giorgio, Ignaz & Oskar’. The Dutch sculptor Auke de Vries has chosen works from the collections at Daimler, the Gemäldegalerie and the Bode Museum in Berlin and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. These will strike up a conversation, as originals or large-format photographs, with de Vries’s sculptures, which are both abstract and richly allusive in their motifs. The artistic dialogues can be seen at Daimler Contemporary and at Bode Museum in Berlin.

Participating Artists:
Leonor Antunes (P), Eva Berendes (D), Hartmut Böhm (D), Monika Brandmeier (D), Christo (BG), Dadamaino (I), Katja Davar (D), Gia Edzgveradze (GE), Ulrike Flaig (D), Adolf Fleischmann (D), Marcia Hafif (USA), Rita Hensen (D), Georg Herold (D), Oskar Holweck (D), Claude Horstmann (D), Markus Huemer (A), Robert Longo (USA), François Morellet (F), Rupert Norfolk (GB), Silke Radenhausen (D), Eva-Maria Reiner (D), Jan Scharrelmann (D), Oskar Schlemmer (D), Lasse Schmidt Hansen (DK), Jan J. Schoonhoven (NL), Auke de Vries (NL), Andy Warhol (USA), Georg Winter (D)

July 31 – August 29, 2009

We are pleased to announce our summer group exhibition Open House for Butterflies featuring work by seven international reductive artists.

Participating artists include:

Justin Andrews (Melbourne, Australia)
Hartmut Böhm (Berlin, Germany)
Michelle Grabner (Chicago)
Daniel Göttin (Basel, Switzerland)
Gilbert Hsiao (Berlin, Germany / NYC)
Victoria Munro (NYC / Auckland, New Zealand)
Karen Schifano (NYC)

We are also delighted to announce our new flatfiles and bookstore. Our flatfiles feature works by select reductive artists working around the globe, including drawings, prints, photographs, works on paper, editions, and multiples. Some paintings, sculpture, and design objects are also available. Our bookstore features dozens of publications on reductive art and ideas on the international level, including artist monographs, exhibition catalogs, journals, ephemera, and select vintage books.

SUPPORT
MINUS SPACE’s programming is made possible by the generous support of The Golden Rule Foundation, as well as individual donors. We thank you!

MINUS SPACE
98 4th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231
between Hoyt + Bond | Carroll Gardens / Gowanus
Hours: Fridays & Saturdays, 12-6pm
Directions

Hartmut Böhm, Rotation, 2005/2008
Dibond, 120 x 120 x 1.85 cm

May 14 – June 14, 2009

Opening speech by Jiri Valoch.

Klaus Staudt
Weiss-Graue Modulation 2, 1978 
157 x 80 x 7cm

February 5 – March 7, 2009

Bartha Contemporary is pleased to announce the forthcoming group exhibition of works by Hartmut Böhm (DE 1938 – ) Walter Leblanc (BE 1931 – 1986) and Klaus Staudt (DE 1932 – ). The exhibition will showcase selected works from the 1960s to the present day.

Routed in the tradition of geometric abstraction all three artists played a vital role in several influential art movements of the late 20th Century. Exhibiting in groundbreaking exhibitions such as the 1964 ‘Nouvelle Tendance, Positions visuelles du movement international’ at the Musée des Arts Décorative in Paris their work is often attributed to movements such as post war European constructivism, OP-Art and Zero.

It is within this context that these artists work has been exhibited extensively across Europe as well as the United States. In particular recent survey exhibitions such as the OP-Art exhibition at the Shirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, the ‘Neue Tendenzen’ exhibition at the Museum für Konkrete Kunst in Ingolstadt as well as the Leopold-Hoesch Museum in Düren to name only a few have lead to a reassessment of their work and highlighted their crucial contribution to European art of the post war era.

The exhibition will contain a selection of key works from the past forty years, many from the artist’s private collections as well as from the archives of the Walter Leblanc Foundation. The aim of the exhibition is to showcase a selection of the most important works of these artist’s long lasting careers and to highlight their immense contribution to European contemporary art.

Installation in cafe space

Exhibition in cafe space continues until May 2009.

(Boiler Room exhibition closed on January 26, 2009.)  

MINUS SPACE
Curated by Phong Bui
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
A Museum of Modern Art Affiliate
Long Island City, NY  

The exhibition is curated by artist, Brooklyn Rail publisher, and P.S.1. Curatorial Advisor Phong Bui, and includes the work of 54 artists from 14 countries. The exhibition marks MINUS SPACE’s 5th anniversary.

Participating Artists
Soledad Arias, Shinsuke Aso, Marcus Bering, Hartmut Böhm, Richard Bottwin, Sharon Brant, Michael Brennan, Henry Brown, Vicente Butron, Bibi Calderaro, Melanie Crader, Mark Dagley, Julian Dashper, Christopher Dean, Matthew Deleget, Lynne Eastaway, Gabriele Evertz, Daniel Feingold, Kevin Finklea, Linda Francis, Zipora Fried, Daniel Göttin, Julio Grinblatt, Billy Gruner, Terry Haggerty, Lynne Harlow, Gilbert Hsiao, Andrew Huston, Simon Ingram, Inverted Topology, Kyle Jenkins, Mick Johnson, Steve Karlik, Sarah Keighery, Andrew Leslie, Daniel Levine, Sylvan Lionni, Lotte Lyon, Gerhard Mantz, Rossana Martinez, Juan Matos Capote, Douglas Melini, Manfred Mohr, Salvatore Panatteri, Dirk Rathke, Karen Schifano, Analia Segal, Edward Shalala, Tilman, Li-Trincere, Jan van der Ploeg, Don Voisine, Douglas Witmer & Michael Zahn

Ongoing Performance
Bibi Calderaro: PRESENT
Thursdays, 1-4pm, and Saturdays, 12-3pm, in the P.S.1 Cafe

Exhibition poster

October 19, 2008 – May 4, 2009

(Daniel Göttin’s ceiling work in the cafe continues through summer 2009)

We are delighted to announce our exhibition at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art in New York. P.S.1 is one of the oldest and largest non-profit arts centers in the United States solely devoted to contemporary art.

The exhibition is curated by artist, Brooklyn Rail publisher, and P.S.1. Curatorial Advisor Phong Bui, and includes the work of 54 artists from 14 countries. The exhibition marks MINUS SPACE’s 5th anniversary.

We greatly thank curator Phong Bui and the remarkable staff at P.S.1, the participating artists and their galleries, and our generous donors, whose financial support made this exhibition possible.

Participating Artists
Soledad Arias, Shinsuke Aso, Marcus Bering, Hartmut Böhm, Richard Bottwin, Sharon Brant, Michael Brennan, Henry Brown, Vicente Butron, Bibi Calderaro, Melanie Crader, Mark Dagley, Julian Dashper, Christopher Dean, Matthew Deleget, Lynne Eastaway, Gabriele Evertz, Daniel Feingold, Kevin Finklea, Linda Francis, Zipora Fried, Daniel Göttin, Julio Grinblatt, Billy Gruner, Terry Haggerty, Lynne Harlow, Gilbert Hsiao, Andrew Huston, Simon Ingram, Inverted Topology, Kyle Jenkins, Mick Johnson, Steve Karlik, Sarah Keighery, Andrew Leslie, Daniel Levine, Sylvan Lionni, Lotte Lyon, Gerhard Mantz, Rossana Martinez, Juan Matos Capote, Douglas Melini, Manfred Mohr, Salvatore Panatteri, Dirk Rathke, Karen Schifano, Analia Segal, Edward Shalala, Tilman, Li-Trincere, Jan van der Ploeg, Don Voisine, Douglas Witmer & Michael Zahn

Ongoing Performance
Bibi Calderaro: PRESENT
Thursdays, 1-4pm, and Saturdays, 12-3pm, in the P.S.1 Cafe

Interview
MINUS SPACE: The Art of Reduction, by Phong Bui
P.S.1 Newspaper, Fall/Winter 2008

Press / Blogs
Drunkard’s Walk vs. PMU, Ethan Ham blog, December 18, 2008

MINUS SPACE at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MoMA, Abstract Contemporary Art Blog, December 18, 2008

Top Ten 2008, by Jerry Saltz, Artnet Magazine, December 15, 2008 (MINUS SPACE is cited in #10)

The Year in Art: The Top Nine Shows (and One Event), by Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine, December 7, 2008 (MINUS SPACE is cited in #10)

Michael Brennan at 210 Gallery and P.S.1, by Paul Corio, November 16, 2008

Interview with Simon Ingram / MINUS SPACE exhibition at P.S.1, New York, Vernissage TV, November 10, 2008

MINUS SPACE, by Eva Lake, November 10, 2008

MINUS SPACE at P.S.1, The James Kalm Report, November 2, 2008

Update, Henri Art Magazine, November 1, 2008

Reductive Art at P.S.1, by Jon Meyer, October 25, 2008

Gallery Credits
Hartmut Böhm courtesy of Bartha Contemporary, London, UK
Richard Bottwin courtesy of Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, NY
Sharon Brant courtesy of Elizabeth Moore Fine Art, New York, NY
Melanie Crader courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX
Mark Dagley courtesy of Abaton Garage, Jersey City, NJ
Julian Dashper courtesy of Esso Gallery, New York, NY
Matthew Deleget courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX
Gabriele Evertz courtesy of Ober Gallery, Kent, CT
Daniel Feingold courtesy of Gabinete de Arte Raquel Arnaud, Sao Paolo, Brazil
Kevin Finklea courtesy of Margaret Thatcher Projects, New York, NY; Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Daniel Göttin courtesy of Hebel_121, Basel, Switzerland
Julio Grinblatt courtesy of Ruth Benzacar Galeria de Arte, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Galeria Baro-Cruz, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Laura Marsiaj Arte Contemporanea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Terry Haggerty courtesy of Andreas Grimm Gallery, New York, NY
Lynne Harlow courtesy of Cade Tompkins Editions, Providence, RI
Gilbert Hsiao courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX
Andrew Huston courtesy of Elizabeth Moore Fine Art, New York, NY
Simon Ingram courtesy of Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
Mick Johnson courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX
Steve Karlik courtesy of Anita Schwartz Galeria de Arte, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Andrew Leslie courtesy of Annandale Galleries, Sydney, Australia; John Buckley Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Sylvan Lionni courtesy of Freight + Volume, New York, NY
Lotte Lyon courtesy of Aoyama Meguro, Tokyo, Japan
Rossana Martinez courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX
Manfred Mohr courtesy of Bitforms Gallery, New York, NY
Dirk Rathke courtesy of Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, TX 
Analia Segal courtesy of DPM Gallery, Miami, FL; Guayaquil, Ecuador
Tilman courtesy of CCNOA center for contemporary non-objective art, Brussels, Belgium
Jan van der Ploeg courtesy of Aschenbach & Hofland Galleries, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Don Voisine courtesy of Abaton Garage, Jersey City, NJ; McKenzie Fine Art, New York, NY
Michael Zahn courtesy of Eleven Rivington, New York, NY

Additional Credits
Poster & Flash Animation: Level Design Studio

Hartmut Böhm, Progression mit den Quadratzahlen 1-16

September 14 — October 19, 2008

Hartmut Böhm, Screenprint, 1971

May 8 — June 30, 2008

Stretching a Point, a new catalog published on the occasion of the show “perplex” with documentation of the shows “ich sehe was, was du nicht siehst” and “inner spaces” and relating to the show “the other sight”.  Edited by MS artist Willi Otremba. Cover image by MINUS SPACE artist Hartmut Böhm.  Hardcover, 144 pages, printed by Kettler, ISBN 978-3-939825-80-7.

Hartmut Böhm, HF 10, 1965

June 27 — August 24, 2007

Features MINUS SPACE artist Hartmut Böhm.

Bridget Riley, Blaze 4, 1963
Emulsion on board, 94.6 x 94.6 cm
(credit: Karsten Schubert, London)

February 17 — May 20, 2007

Features MINUS SPACE artist Hartmut Böhm.

Purchase on Amazon.com

Conceived by Renate Wiehager of the DaimlerChrylser Collection, this new publication provides a much needed, more thorough overview of reductive art  practices — in both Europe and the United States — than previously published.  300 works by 150 artists, including MS artists Hartmut Böhm, Sylvan Lionni, Jan van der Ploeg, and Michael Zahn.  Buy this book.