What If? Metropolis:Artist Research

JeanArp

About him:

• Jean Arp was a successful German-French abstract artist. He was born on September 16, 1886, in Strassburg, German Empire (now Strasbourg, France). And he died on June 7, 1966, in Basel, Switzerland.

• He was known as Jean Arp, but also as Hans Arp. This is because when he spoke German, he refered to himself as Hans, but when he spoke French, he refered to himself as Jean.

• Arp was a sculptor, a painter and a poet. He was best known for being one of the founders of the Dada movement in 1916. He was the leader of the Abstraction-Creation Group in Paris, 1930’s. And he was also a member of the American Abstract Artist group.

Arp’s Inspirations:• Arp was influenced by the Expressionist artists’ group Der Blaue Reiter

(“The Blue Rider”) by some Modern Art artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Pablo Picasso.• His first wife, Sophie Taeuber, was his primary collaborator and also

his inspiration. During that period, Arp started painting and creating collages in which he was inspired by forms found in the nature.• He was also associated with the Surrealism and the Constructivism.

Arp’s Style:• Almost all his works are sculputures made of bronce, stone and marble.

And in these sculputures he always represents the organic forms he found in the natural world. Growth and fecundity are his main themes.• Arp’s scultures have hard edges, shaper angles and straight lines. But the

most important characteristic is that the elements of his works can be pick up for re-doing another different work.• Apart from this, the paintings, collages, essays and poetry are also

important characteristics of his style.• Bass-relieves.• Mixed works.• It’s always an experiment with abstract form and colour in two and three

dimensions.

Works

Scultures

Famous quotes• ‘Since the time of the cavemen, man has glorified himself, has made himself divine, and his monstrous

vanity has caused human catastrophe. Art has collaborated in this false development. I find this concept of art which has sustained man’s vanity to be loathsome.’

• ‘We do not wish to copy nature. We do not want to reproduce, we want to produce. We want to produce as a plant produces a fruit and does not itself reproduce. We want to produce directly and without meditation. As there is not the least trace of abstraction in this art, we will call it concrete art.’

• ‘A painting or sculpture not modeled on any real object is every bit as concrete and sensuous as a leaf or a stone… … (but) it is an incomplete art which privileges the intellect to the detriment of the senses… ..art must be like) fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant or a child in it’s mother’s womb.’

• ‘In the good times of Dada, we detested polished works, the distracted air of spiritual struggle, the titans, and we rejected them with all out being. ’

• ‘Dada was given the Venus of Milo a clyster and has allowed the Laocoön and his sons to rest awhile, after thousands of years of struggle with the good sausage Python. The philosophers are of less use to Dada than an old toothbrush, and it leaves them on the scrap heap for the great leaders of the world. ’

Bibliography:• http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/jean-arp-hans-arp-667• https://www.artsy.net/artist/jean-arp• http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/11• http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/sculpture/jean-arp.htm• http://www.quotes-famous-artists.org/hans-jean-arp-famous-quotes