Max Bill

The curatorial and editorial project for systems, non-objective and reductive artists working in the UK

Website: Chestnuts Design

Circle! Square! Progress! Zurich's Concrete avant-garde.

Max Bill, Camille Graeser, Verena Loewensberg, Richard Paul Lohse and their times.

Thomas Haemmerli & Brigitte Ulmer (eds.), Scheidegger & Spiess, April 2024.

Switzerland has given rise to two major art movements: Dada and Concrete

art. The latter became a reconnection point for modern art in Europe, after it

had disappeared in Europe due to National Socialism and Communism. Circle!

Square! Progress! marks the first English overview of the Zurich Concretists,

providing a rich exploration of how modernity endured in Switzerland.

Amidst the turmoil of World War II, Switzerland, remaining largely unscathed, was an

enclave where modern art held its ground. Post-1945, Concrete art, Swiss design

and graphics became emblematic of a modern Switzerland and were exported to

European countries. Inspired by De Stijl, Russian Constructivism and the Bauhaus,

the Zurich Concretists aimed to transform society through aesthetics, design, and

architecture.

This was one reason why US military authorities assigned the artist Max Bill the task

of researching a report on education in post-war Germany. With the support of US

funds, this effort later led to the founding of the Ulm School of Design (Hochschule

für Gestaltung Ulm). With teachers like Josef Albers, who came from Black

Mountain College, Max Bill wanted to build on the legacy of the Bauhaus.

This book breathes life into the key figures such as Max Bill, Verena Loewensberg,

Richard Paul Lohse and Camille Graeser. Bill, an artist, architect, industrial

designer and graphic designer, studied at the Bauhaus under luminaries such as

Josef Albers, László Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky and

played a pivotal role in disseminating Bauhaus principles. Verena Loewensberg,

Richard Paul Lohse and Camille Graeser were multifaceted figures who excelled not

only as painters but also as textile, graphic and interior designers. The Swiss-American Fritz Glarner, who belonged both to the American Abstract Artists and the

Swiss Concretists, engaged in a lively exchange with Mondrian in New York, and he

was contracted by Nelson A. Rockefeller to design his New York City apartment and

created a large mural in the Time & Life Building.

After exhibitions of the Concretists in São Paulo in the 1950s, their art found fertile

ground in Latin America where geometric abstraction was also embraced due to its

aspiration to contribute to the development of a well-ordered modern society.

In showcasing artists like Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Theo van Doesburg and Georges

Vantongerloo, who laid the groundwork for the emergence of Concrete Art, the

book also delves into the work of their predecessors.

As the Concretists are being unearthed by a fresh cohort of curators and embraced

by prestigious galleries, insights from the art market illuminate the evolving

perception of Zurich Concretists. Notably, the gallery network Hauser & Wirth is

spotlighting Max Bill and presenting an exhibition on Verena Loewensberg in New

York.

This comprehensive volume narrates the trajectory of the Zurich Concretists, who

aimed to reshape society through typography, design, and architecture, playing a

pivotal role in the development of the 'Swiss Style'. Lavishly illustrated, it explores

Zurich as the habitat of highly gifted people as well as their connections to the

European avant-garde, and reconstructs the artist’s life, the historical conditions of

the Concrete art’s inception and its contributions reaching beyond Switzerland

against the backdrop of 20th-century upheavals.

The book:

Circle! Square! Progress! Zurich's Concrete avant-garde.

Max Bill, Camille Graeser, Verena Loewensberg, Richard Paul Lohse and their times.

Thomas Haemmerli & Brigitte Ulmer (eds.), Scheidegger & Spiess, April 2024.

£45.00

Hardback, 336 pages, 187 colour and 71 b/w illustrations, 21.5 x 26.5 cm

ISBN 978-3-03942-163-3