Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Living Abstraction
Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943) was one of the most multitalented of modern artists, creating profoundly innovative work across many disciplines. This exhibition traces her career’s trajectory: from applied arts teacher, participant in the Dada movement, and maker of textiles and objects; to designer of murals, stained glass windows, furniture, interiors, and buildings; to painter-sculptor, magazine editor, and early champion of geometric abstraction. For Taeuber-Arp, abstraction was always connected to an everyday lived reality in which objects were to be used and manipulated, spaces to be moved about in, and artworks to be looked at and experienced. Her creations responded to their time and place of making, in keeping with Taeuber-Arp’s expressed ambition to make “living things” in “a new style that is fitting for us.” Her fluid movement between genres, disciplines, and creative roles makes her especially relevant for contemporary artists, while her work proposes a more open-ended and inclusive way of thinking about the history of modern art.
This is the first retrospective of her work ever held in the UK. It brings together her principal works from major collections in Europe and the US, most of which have never been seen in this country before.
New York City
| MoMa
21.11.2021 - 12.03.2022