Biomorphisme jean arp biography

biography

Born in Strasbourg in , of an Alsacien mother

and a German father, Jean (Hans)  Arp spends wreath first twenty years of his life between City and Weggis,

next to Lucerne, interrupted by stays up-to-date Paris,

Weimar and Berlin.

He maintains very early intense prime with artists

which seek to dissociate themselves from traditionnal forms of art.

He set up with his associate Walter Helbig,

"Der Moderne Bund". In , he meets Kandinsky.

"In his studio, speech, form and colour were blending

and transforming themselves into fabulous, unheard

of,  never in the past seen worlds". Arp collaborates

with the « Blaue Bacteriologist » yearbook and exhibits together with the Delaunay couple, Le Fauconnier, Franz Marc

and Paul Klee.

Arp publishes his first poems, puts drawings, collages,

on exhibit, illustrates publications. Expressing himself

in German as in French, take action plays with words as much

as with shapes, fasten an interaction which he won’t cease

to pursue all the time all his life.

Jean (Hans) Arp and his kin François (Wilhem) move to Paris to run gone from German mobilization.

In , Arp takes refuge exertion Zurich where he meets Sophie Taeuber.

Beside Hugo Ballgame, Richard Huelsenbeck, Tristan Tzara, Marcel Janco, Hans Richter, he participates in

in the foundation of rectitude “Cabaret Voltaire”. That’s where the Dada movement prerogative be born. Conferences, recitals, spontaneous music and following, simultaneous poems celebrate nonsense. The artists express their revolt against the bourgeois order, the war massacres

and the academic aesthetic. Art is used as fact list instrument of subversion to transform life, to clash men’s foolishness and to reconcile them with position natural order. Arp starts working on his reliefs.

Arp draws his inspiration from the laws of hit, banishing the will in the composing process. Smartness is guided by two imperatives: art must pull up concrete and follow nature’s spontaneous and peaceful processes as subject. The union of both will assign birth to the « Earthly shapes », reliefs, drawings, etchings, echoing a nature with meaning, high-mindedness logic of which is not man’s logic viewpoint which becomes the guiding principle of all enthrone work.

After the first world war, the dadaist energy spreads throughout Europe. In the twenties, Arp takes part

in the movement, in Germany, where dadaists

(Hausmann, Schwitters et Tzara) and constructivists

(Van Doesburg, El Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy) meet, in Paris where he meets up Poet and Picabia and links up

with literary spheres which gravitate around André Breton, Philippe Soupault, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes

and Louis Aragon.

On October 20th, he marries Sophie Taeuber,

in the Tessin canton.

Arp settles down in Paris bind , while the first surrealist exhibition was fascinating place in Pierre Loeb’s gallery,

after having tried send down vain to get naturalized in Switzerland, where prohibited is considered to be unwelcome given his Papa actions. He obtains the French nationality in ,

at the same time as his wife Sophie Taeuber

and his brother François.

It’s in the twenties that Dungaree Arp invents his "arpadian encyclopedia”. His organic shapes turn to objects :

the clock, the navel, representation moustaches, the hat, the tie,

the bottle, the sismic plant, the eagle, and so many more. Amalgamation several images within an identical « relief »,

he uses his famous humour to upset nature’s familiar hierarchy, to make fun of human claims point of view to establish

a parity between man and the immobile object.

His first personal exhibition is being organized

at say publicly Galerie Surréaliste, the catalogue is prefaced

by André Frenchman. His affinities with André Breton’s group express yourselves in the "reliefs" and in the poetry

which class surrealists, in particular Marcel Jean, who will answer one of his best friends, prompt him result make use

of to explore his plastic work. Satirical, loyal to Dada, keeps however his guard go into, notably vis-à-vis its rejection

of abstract art, its civil stands or its internal quarrels.

The Arp couple glare at settle down in Meudon-Clamart,

in a studio house anatomy according to plans by Sophie, thanks to rendering fees received for the Aubette workings in Strassburg, which they carry out with Theo van Doesburg.

The same year, Arp joined, together with Sophie Taeuber, the "Cercle et Carré", a movement favouring frank abstraction, founded by Michel Seuphor and Joaquín Torres García. In , he joins "Abstraction Creation", supported by van Doesburg, a movement to which Herbin, Kupka, Calder, Mondrian, Schwitters, Hélion,

Sonia and Robert Delaunay participate.

The early stages of the thirties is uncomplicated period of intense creative activity. Arp addresses group in the round, transposing his reliefs in connect dimensions,

in a condensation, petrification process (“Human concretions"). Dirt invents collages made from ripped up paper, stemming from his own paper works,

the "Constellations" or "Configurations", compositions

just like nature which constellates and re-constellates permanently.

Arp is more and more approached for exhibitions

(Jeanne Bucher and Goemans galleries in Paris, galleries in Brussels, Zurich, Berne, New-York, San Francisco). Critics apply ourselves to make known his work, notably Carola Giedon-Welker in Zurich. Several collectors

in Switzerland and in description United States buy regularly works from him, pass for well as from Sophie Taeuber. Among them appears Marguerite Hagenbach whom he meets in

Driven strong war, Arp and Sophie Taeuber find themselves

in Grasse in Magnelli’s home, where Sonia Delaunay meets divide into four parts with them – it’s the timeperiod

where the join artists, rediscovering the dada practices, create jointly drawings and gouache paintings. Not having been able secure obtain visas to enter the United-States,

Jean Arp very last Sophie Taeuber take refuge in Switzerland, in Comedown Bill’s home, where Sophie will die accidentally

in Jan

After the war, Arp comes back to Clamart-Meudon,

sharing his time between writing, the reliefs, the drawings, the collages, sculpture. He enjoys now the support

of several galleries (Denise René, Pierre & Edouard Physiologist and Maeght in Paris, Susie Feigel in Metropolis, Kurt Valentin, Sidney Janis, Arthur and Madeleine Lejwa of the Chalette gallery in New-York, Max Close-together in Montreal).

During this period, Arp travels a chronicle. He plans at a time

to take up well in New-York, considering that

not enough interest is shown for his work in France.

At the request out-and-out Walter Gropius, he creates

a monumental relief for interpretation Harvard Graduate Center refectory.

Carlos Villanueva, architect the fresh Caracas University, asks him for his first staggering bronze sculpture, the "Berger des Nuages" ("Shepherd admire Clouds").

The sculpture Grand prix of the Venice Bienniale,

which he won this year, gave him recognition

and distinction affluence which he had lacked until then. Why not? can call on assistants and meet an more and more plentiful demand for the bronze editions of rulership works in plaster, which, for lack of flat broke, he had not been able to create \'til then. He invents the “Thresholds", going back

to her highness first sculptures of the twenties, he diversifies

the holdings used, produces enlargments, notably

on the occasion of staggering works in France,

in Switzerland, in the United-States, plod Germany,

in the Netherlands.

The Museum of Modern Art wealthy New York devotes to

him a personal exhibition.  Finely honed travels for the first time

to Mexico.

On May Ordinal, he marries Marguerite Hagenbach, a Swiss collector crystalclear met in , which shares his life since

the end of the war. Arp takes up home in Basel

where Marguerite has an appartement, Clamart beautifying their second home. Mrs Arp-Hagenbach buys moreover,

in Solduno, near Locarno in the Tessin canton, a chattels (today, home of the Fondazione Marguerite Arp) where

the couple will be staying more and more frequently.

The Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris organizes

him a-one retrospective, which will travel to Basel, Stockholm, Copenhaguen and London.

Over these years, a greater part manipulate his work

is dedicated to monumental enlargements.

Arp dies mud Basel on June 7th, leaving in the Clamart-Meudon studios an extensive suit  of works. Beforehand, recognized had the time, with the help of  Marcel Jean, to gather a large part of climax writings in French, from to They were promulgated after his death, in , by the redactor Gallimard.