Jo Niemeyer (1946) - MKK 2007

Jo Niemeyer: Untitled (MKK), 2006

Freestanding sculpture in wood, hand-painted —, made and painted by hand by the artist. Executed 2006 for Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, 2007.

Four rectangular volumes in blue, red, yellow and dark green interlock without a base: a broad blue horizontal plane held aloft by a red vertical, crossed in front by a yellow column of square section, with a narrow dark green bar running through at the lower right. Nothing is fixed to a plinth — each element carries and is carried by the others, so the construction stands on its own logic. Because the volumes sit at different depths, the composition reorganises itself completely as the viewer moves: from one side the yellow column reads as a foreground bar dividing the blue field, from another it closes the gap between red and green. What appears at first as a Neo-Plastic picture translated into three dimensions turns out to be something the picture cannot do — a composition with no single correct viewpoint.

The colours are the reduced palette of De Stijl, but Niemeyer’s interest lies in proportion rather than in the ideology of the primaries. The overall measure of 18 × 18 × 7 cm belongs to the Fibonacci sequence that underlies much of his work; the relations between the individual volumes follow from it rather than from the eye.

Signed and dated in pencil by the artist, 2006. [edition of 10, this example EA]

Dimensions 21 × 21 × 10 cm. Supplied in its original wooden transport crate as issued.

Condition: good, colours fresh and evenly painted; minor nick to the lower edge of the blue element, see photographs

Provenance: from the artist studio

Jo Niemeyer (b. 1946 in Alf, Germany) is a concrete artist and designer whose work proceeds from the observation of nature by way of mathematics, and above all through the golden section. He has had solo exhibitions in Scandinavia, Italy, Switzerland, Israel, the United States, England, Japan, Argentina and Finland, among them the Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväskylä (1984), the Hans-Thoma-Museum in Bernau (2002), the Institut für Konstruktive Kunst in Rehau (2003), the Rogatka Gallery at the University of Radom (2006) and the Museum Vordemberge-Gildewart in Osnabrück (2007). Earlier solo shows include Felluss Gallery, Washington D.C. (1976), Apogee Gallery, Princeton (1977), Galerie von Bartha, Basel (1980) and Galerie Artek, Helsinki (1983). His murals are installed in public buildings in Switzerland, Germany and Scandinavia, and his work is held in public and private collections in Japan, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Finland and Austria. He lives and works in Germany, France and Finland.