Media release , November 8, 2018

Helmut Federle 19 E. 21 St., 6 Large Paintings

May 25 – September 15, 2019, | Neubau Curator: Josef Helfenstein

In more than four decades, Helmut Federle (b. , 1944; lives in and Camaiore) has created an oeuvre that balances geometric construction with painterly gesture. Federle started carving out his distinctive position in painting in the 1970s, bringing a postmodern sensibility to a reflection on the abstract painterly tradition in American art after the war. Yet unlike some of his colleagues, he did not primarily focus on the juncture in the evolution of Western postwar societies at which abstraction became the ascendant aesthetic. Rather, his interest in abstraction is a genuine fascination, which he pursues by steering a course between gestural painting and rigorous geometric construction.

Federle’s paintings in large formats and his drawings attest to his ongoing engagement with geometric forms and how to achieve a state of equilibrium between them on the pictorial surface. In 1982, the Kunstmuseum Basel’s decision to purchase the painting Asian Sign (1980) for its collection—the composition is based on the shape of a swastika—met with impassioned opposition and prompted a fierce debate. A solo exhibition of the artist’s work was mounted in 1985; Asian Sign was included in the Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart’s permanent presentation.

Since then, numerous museums and private collections, including the Tate Modern, London, and the , Paris, have acquired works by Federle; in 1997, he represented at the Venice Biennale. Yet discussions of his art have tended to eschew the issues at stake in the Basel controversy. Three and a half decades later, the exhibition Helmut Federle. 19 E. 21 St., 6 Large Paintings revisits the episode, presenting six paintings created between 1980 and 2005 and a number of works on paper from the collection of the Kupferstichkabinett (Department of Prints and Drawings) as well as historic non-European ceramics from the artist’s own collection. This juxtaposition underscores Federle’s conviction that abstraction is much more than the absence of representation: it is a personal continuum that extends across time and transcends boundaries of culture.

The exhibition is supported by: Stiftung für das Kunstmuseum Basel Isaac Dreyfus-Bernheim Stiftung

St. Alban-Graben 8, P.O. Box Tel. +41 61 206 62 62 [email protected] CH–4010 Basel Direct +41 61 206 62 80 www.kunstmuseumbasel.ch

Media conference Thursday, May 23, 2019, 11am Kunstmuseum Basel | Neubau, St. Alban-Graben 16, 4051 Basel

Opening reception Friday, May 24, 2019, 6:30pm Kunstmuseum Basel | Neubau, St. Alban-Graben 16, 4051 Basel

Imagery and information on the exhibition www.kunstmuseumbasel.ch/medien

Media contact Karen N. Gerig, Tel. +41 61 206 62 80, [email protected]

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