When looking back at 2017 from an art perspective, there is one artistic movement that comes to mind immediately: De Stijl. Founded in 1917 in Leiden, this highly Dutch influenced (and influencing Dutch Design) movement, celebrated its 100th birthday and that didn’t happen unnoticed.
In several cities in the Netherlands that have a historic relationship with De Stijl have been expositions, and other events in this context. Labelled ‘From Mondriaan to Dutch Design’, cities like Den Haag, Utrecht and Amersfoort have been overloaded with De Stijl this year. I want to light out two expositions I have visited this year and how I got inspired by those.
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag
My ‘Stijl’ year starts with a visit to the current home of the De Stijl in the Netherlands: Het Gemeentemuseum in Den Haag. This museum possessions the largest collection of work of Pieter Mondriaan in the world, including the world-famous Victory Boogie Woogie. The first exhibition of the Gemeentemuseum in 2017 was around the friendship between Piet Mondriaan and Bart van der Leck. These two, one a little better known these days than the other, inspired each other in different ways and their friendship lays the content fundament of De Stijl. Both walk a different path in their life to find abstract art. Mondriaan goes via Paris, and finds his way in cubism. Van der Leck uses a method called ‘doorbeelding’, whereby he starts with a real situation/image that he tries to bring back to only geometrical forms. The historic photographs and the copies of letters that the two wrote to each other illustrate the road to the recognisable yellow-red-blue geometrical pieces of art that characterise De Stijl still after 100 years.
Kunsthal KAde Amersfoort
Later this year, brought ‘100 jaar de Stijl’ me for the first time in my life to Kunsthal KAde in Amersfoort. Of course I have been multiple times visiting the exhibitions at the Kunsthal of Rotterdam, this younger ‘sister’ at the edge of Amersfoort positively surprised me architecture wise. An amazing modern building hosting exhibitions around modern art, architecture and design lends itself perfectly for an exhibition of the total art of De Stijl. Next to that, one of the great artists of De Stijl, Piet Mondriaan, was born in Amersfoort. KAde created an exhibition around the colours used by De Stijl artists. Colors used in the designs of almost a 100 years old, have been translated to modern color use by artists that experiment nowadays with colours as being elements on its own. What I remember most of visiting this exhibition are the drawings of Van Doesburg, Mondriaan and Van der Leck of their interior and product design. The mock-up of the yellow-red-blue design for the interior of a KLM-airplane illustrated how art and product design came together. Design vision and guidelines to the maximum applied leads to a complete and true experience wherein everything feels right. Something to remember when creating myself.
It has been an amazing year for someone that loves abstract, cubistic art and is a big fan of the architecture and product design of De Stijl, looking at it in the context of a 100 years ago. As a citizen of Utrecht, I fel in love with the gigantic Rietveld chairs in the city. Maybe a little too much marketing around this centennial of De Stijl, but the attention for this inspiring and characteristic style that is still influencing art and design today, is definitely worth it and will hopefully inspire many others as it does to me.
