HUNDERTWASSER : L'Oeuvre Ultime
Friedensreich Hundertwasser was born in Vienna in 1928. His paintings, composed of jubilant forms and rich colors, in addition to his visionary utopian and humanist attitude, distinguish him as one of the most outstanding figures of 20th century art.
Spiritual heir of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, Hundertwasser already manifested a strong attachment to those elements which would constitute the singularity of his work by the end of the 1940s: environmentalism and the denunciation of the straight line which, for him, symbolized uniformity, ugliness, and inhumanity. On the contrary, he believed the spiral represented the antithesis of the straight line and thus it became an emblematic element of his work, encompassing painting and graphic works as well as architectural projects in the 1980s and 1990s.
According to Pierre Restany, his paintings are the expression of “ Naturist Humanism ” The painter despised totalitarian thought, nuclear energy and genetic manipulation, and advocated the protection of the environment and one's right to individualize one's surroundings, including the exterior façade of one's own apartment building. He defended the integrality of his manner of seeing against the contradictions of our post-industrial society. He refused to acknowledge a vision of the world imposed by the idea of a global culture. Likewise, through his resistance as an individual cultivating and enriching the beauty of his personal relationship with the world, Hundertwasser opposed a culture enslaved to the global economy.
For Hundertwasser, an art governed by the ideals of beauty helps one to find his or her way back to nature by reflecting the diverse, irregular and vital forms present in nature. Throughout his life, Hundertwasser strove to impart the spirituality of his work by virtue of his concentric spirals and the alchemy of his colors.
During the last years of his life, Hundertwasser realized three masterworks which constitute his aesthetic testament and which will be presented with nine earlier paintings at the gallery.
HUNDERTWASSER : L'Oeuvre Ultime
Dans les dernières années de sa vie, Hundertwasser a réalisé l’accomplissement de son œuvre à travers trois grands tableaux qui constituent son testament esthétique et qui seront présentés avec neuf autres peintures d’autres periodes.
Héritier spirituel de Klimt et d’Egon Schiele, le peintre viennois Hundertwasser témoigne dès la fin des années 40 d’un attachement très vif pour tout ce qui constituera la singularité de son œuvre, c’est à dire : l’écologie, l’homme vert, la dénonciation des méfaits de la ligne droite.
Suivant les termes de Pierre Restany, sa peinture est l’expression de « l’humanisme naturiste» : «Chaque peinture qu’il nous présente est l’image d’un espace lumineux et le plan d’un lieu qui nous changerait la vie si nous y habitions».
