For over 75 years
Mondrian’s decal is upside down
10/31/2022, 9:28 am (updated)
Coincidence, oversight or intention? The opening of the exhibition in honor of the famous painter Piet Mondrian in North Rhine-Westphalia begins with a surprise: one of the works has probably hung upside down for decades. How exactly this happened is unclear. In any case, the image must not be inverted.
Strict horizontal and vertical lines, and again and again the basic colors of blue, red and yellow – an image by Piet Mondrian is easy for art lovers to recognize. But do abstract compositions always hang in the right direction? Now doubts have arisen about an important work by the Dutch avant-garde painter.
On the occasion of the inauguration of the exhibition “Mondrian. Evolution”, on the occasion of Mondrian’s 150th birthday (1872-1944), the North Rhine-Westphalia Art Collection revealed: The famous photo on tape “New York City 1 “has probably been hanging upside down for decades. At the press conference for the anniversary exhibition, curator Susanne Meyer-Büser presented several indications of her acceptance.
The exhibition uses 90 images to trace Mondrian’s extraordinary development from a landscape painter to a master of abstraction. The “New York City 1” image from 1941 is the highlight and final point of the presentation. And now, of all, this famous image of red, yellow, blue and black adhesive stripes crossing horizontally and vertically is hanging upside down?
The price of the sticker gives rise to speculation
It has been part of the NRW art collection since 1980. In contrast to the nearly identical-sized sister oil painting that was created at the same time and hangs in the Center Pompidou in Paris, the sticker painting was shown rotated 180 degrees from the Mondrian’s death in 1944, says Susanne Meyer-Büser. It is also striking that in a photo taken a few days after Mondrian’s death in 1944 in his studio, the sticker is seen on the easel in a different orientation: the denser stripes are on the upper edge and therefore flow exactly like the oil paint on Paris. “Could it be that the orientation shown in the photo is the actual orientation that Mondrian expected?” Asked Meyer-Büser. The course of the adhesive tapes also corroborates their hypothesis.
Meyer-Büser believes Mondrian glued from top to bottom. At the top of the image he still had control over the strips and applied them precisely. “Lock down.” There the strips were torn so dirty, so that always half a centimeter is missing. In the Düsseldorf hanging, on the other hand, the dirty edges are at the top. The direction of the adhesive strips eventually convinced the restorers, according to the art historian. “It should be noted that the New York City 1 painting from the art collection is upside down.”
“Was it a coincidence, was it an accident?”
The problem is that Mondrian didn’t sign the photo. Perhaps it was used only as an object of study. According to Meyer-Büser, the suspension error may have occurred as early as 1945, when the image was first exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “Was it a coincidence, was it an accident?” Perhaps he had already been overturned when the shipping crates were unpacked. Executor Harry Holtzman later wrote “Mondrian” in large letters on the wooden frame. Did he “not look good” too?
In any case, the image was included in the catalog raisonné and thus historically accepted art, says Meyer-Büser. The art collection will no longer flip the duct tape image. “We won’t,” Meyer-Büser said. After all, it has been upside down for more than 75 years and is made up of sensitive adhesive strips. “If I turn the work, I risk destroying it.” Even the wrong hanging is now part of the history of the painting. “And he talks a lot about looking and accepting authority.”
“New York City 1” still gives many reasons to speculate. Meyer-Büser said that Mondrian has been involved in reflections all his life in order to refine his own perception and that of the viewer. “Maybe there is no right or wrong alignment at all?” The sticker ultimately works like a map of the city: “New York City 1” runs in all directions, like the “Boogie Woogie” that Mondrian loved so much.
(This article was first published on Thursday, October 27, 2022.)
