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 been hanging upside down for decades. How exactly this came about is unclear. In any case, the picture should not be reversed.
Strict horizontal and vertical lines, and again and again the basic colors blue, red and yellow: A picture by Piet Mondrian is easy to recognize for art lovers. But do the abstract compositions always hang the right way round? Doubts have now arisen about a major work by the Dutch avant-garde painter.
At the opening of the “Mondrian. Evolution” exhibition on the occasion of Mondrian’s (1872-1944) 150th birthday, the North Rhine-Westphalia Art Collection revealed: The famous tape picture “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 show uses 90 pictures to trace Mondrian’s striking development from landscape painter to master of abstraction. The picture “New York City 1” from 1941 is the highlight and end point of the presentation. And now, of all things, this well-known picture of red, yellow, blue and black adhesive strips that cross horizontally and vertically is hanging the wrong way round?
It has been part of the NRW art collection since 1980. In contrast to the almost identically sized sister painting in oil, which was created at the same time and is hanging in the Center Pompidou in Paris, the adhesive painting has been shown turned 180 degrees since Mondrian’s death in 1944, says Susanne Meyer-Büser. What is also striking is that in a photo taken a few days after Mondrian’s death in 1944 in his studio, the sticker can be seen on the easel in a different orientation: the denser stripes are on the upper edge and thus run exactly like the oil painting in Paris . “Could it be that the orientation shown in the photo is the actual one that Mondrian intended?” Meyer-Büser asked. The course of the adhesive tapes also corroborates their assumption.
Meyer-Büser believes that Mondrian glued from top to bottom. At the top of the picture he still had control over the stripes and applied them precisely. “It babbles down below.” There the strips were uncleanly snapped off, so that half a centimeter was always missing. In the Düsseldorf hanging, however, the unclean edges are at the top. The direction of the adhesive strips ultimately convinced the restorers, according to the art historian. “It should be noted that the painting New York City 1 from the art collection is upside down.”
The problem is that Mondrian didn’t sign the picture. Maybe it was only used as a study object. According to Meyer-Büser, the hanging error may have happened as early as 1945, when the picture was first exhibited in the New York Museum of Modern Art. “Was it a coincidence, was it an accident?” Perhaps it had already been turned over when the transport crates were unpacked. The estate executor Harry Holtzman later wrote “Mondrian” in large letters on the wooden frame. Did he “not look properly” either?
In any case, the picture was included in the catalog raisonné and thus art historically accepted, says Meyer-Büser. The art collection will no longer turn the adhesive tape picture. “We won’t do that,” said Meyer-Büser. After all, it has been upside down for more than 75 years and consists of sensitive adhesive strips. “If I turn the work over, I risk destroying it.” The wrong hanging is now also part of the history of the picture. “And she talks a lot about looking and accepting authority.”
“New York City 1” still gives much reason for speculation. Meyer-Büser said that Mondrian dealt with reflections all his life in order to sharpen his own perception and that of the viewer. “Perhaps there is no right or wrong alignment at all?” The sticker ultimately works like a city map: “New York City 1” runs in all directions – like the “Boogie Woogie” that Mondrian loved so much.