We Will Go Right Up to the Sun: Female Pioneers of Geometric Abstraction /anglais/allemand

Exhibition at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, 16 November 2024-21 April 2025

At the turn of the last century, geometric abstraction was born of an attitude imbued with renewal, utopia and resistance, aiming for the unity of art and life. Even today, the names Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian are mainly associated with non-representational painting. In fact, artists such as Lyubov Popova, Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Sonia Delaunay were pioneers in the development of a geometric and abstract visual language. From the 1940s onwards, artists such as Verena Loewensberg, Aurélie Nemours and Vera Molnár made decisive contributions to the advancement of non-representational art.

Similar developments can be observed beyond the cultural centres of the Western world, for example in Central and Latin America. Artists such as Lygia Clark in Brazil, Lydi Prati in Argentina and Loló Soldevilla in Cuba have developed a unique constructive abstract visual language.

This exhibition catalogue examines the importance of women artists from all over the world in twentieth-century geometric abstraction. It shows how women artists actively participated in major exhibitions, contributed to theoretical discourse and often developed more radical ideas than their male counterparts. It also presents an overview of the development of geometric abstract art and, in addition to the applied arts, considers the female perspective of the global South, with promising new discoveries.