'Character is destiny' - Piet Mondrian and his horoscope

Recently the Netherlands Institute for Art History acquired the Harry Holtzman Estate on Piet Mondrian. Among the very few documents Mondrian preserved until his death is an interesting one: the horoscope Mondrian had drawn for him late 1911-early 1912.

Already in 1993-1994, as I was working on the exhibition Piet Mondrian 1892-1914. The Amsterdam Years in the Amsterdam City Archives – now housed in the building designed by Mondrian’s co-theosophist Karel de Bazel – I had several talks with my colleague Robert Welsh about the horoscope. I wondered which insights Mondrian had drawn from it, concerning his personality and his career. Judging from the vast network I uncovered during my investigations, it had become clear that Mondrian was not the stiff, introverted man he has always been judged to be. A better characterization would be: a solitary person among his fellow people, someone who weaved in and out of social circles in a receptive and playful, but at the same time reserved, independent and reflexive way. ‘Piet, now you see him, now you don’t’, was the jokey description of him at gallery openings in Paris.

Yesterday, on 7 March 2013, the birthday of Mondrian, the website www.mondriaan.nl was launched. Posthumously Mondrian received an impressive and modern birthday present. In another way Mondrian himself celebrated his birthday on 7 March 1908 by treating himself to the lecture Rudolf Steiner gave in Amsterdam. He kept the Dutch transcription of Steiner’s lectures all his life, together with his horoscope. Apparently they meant much to him.

The Victory Boogie Woogie - a corpse dissected

Last week I received a review copy from the Amsterdam University Press: a new book on Piet Mondrian, Inside Out Victory Boogie Woogie, edited by Maarten van Bommel, Hans Janssen and Ron Spronk. Mondrian started on the painting Victory Boogie Woogie in 1942, but it stayed unfinished because of his death in February 1944. The painting was bought in 1998 from the collector Samuel Irving Newhouse at a whopping price of 82 million Guilders (approx. 37 million Euro’s) through a gift of the Dutch National Bank to commemorate the introduction of the Euro in the Netherlands. The acquisition caused a public outrage, and even the House of Representatives raised questions about the way it was acquired. But now the painting is on victorious display in the Gemeentemuseum of the Hague, and is by now a prominent attraction of the museum.

News and recent activities - Newsletter March 2012

In December 2011 the IFK in Vienna hosted a conference 'Touché. Die magische und technische Evidenz der Medien', to which Bax Art contributed. Gudrun Braunsperger of the Austrian ORF produced the radio program 'Schwarze Löcher der Wissenschaftskultur' in the section 'Dimensionen - die Welt der Wissenschaft'. It was broadcasted on February 14, at 19.05 hrs at oe1.ORF.at. Bax Art received special permission from ORF to give you free access to the audiostream until June 22.

The opening of the Ben Joppe exhibition, performed by the designer Wim Crouwel, was a great success. A few hundred fans attended the opening with performances by the Amsterdam Chamber Theatre and Rusalki Quartet and with superb sushi from Yatta Sushi. Full report is given on the Ben Joppe Facebook page.

The intelligent, beautiful and utterly professional social media expert Jennifer Delano brought Ben Joppe back to life through Facebook and Twitter. Discover how she crept into the skin of Ben Joppe and created a host of fans!

Jan Stap published a book on 'Mondrian the man'. Not his art, but his character and social life is the main focus, with totally new information on Mondrian's youth in Winterswijk. Jan Stap donated his documentation and images exclusively to TheArtArchives for study by others. Many thanks! The files will be uploaded soon.

TheArtArchives recently posted a new portion of the membership list of the Theosophical Society. Now the period 1875-1915 is available, covering nearly 58.000 members. A valuable source for genealogy, art history and social history!

Membership list Theosophical Society online at TheArtArchives

On January 1, 1915 the Theosophical Society registered its 57.762th member at the headquarters in Adyar, India.The popularity of the society had increased immensely. More people joined the society in this decade compared to the 30-year period 1875-1905.

Many new countries are now represented, e.g. Hungary, Finland, Cuba, Egypt, Tasmania, Mauritius, Russia, South-Africa, Greece, Turkey. And the first Japanese member registered.

All 57.761 members can now be studied at TheArtArchives! 

The list shows a colorful bunch of people: Karl Wolfskehl, Piet Mondrian, Yiddu Krishnamurti, Christian Morgenstern, Fritz von Herzmanovsky, Ada Fuller, Emily Lutyens, Ely Star, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Marie Langen-von Strachwitz, Countess Maria Radziwill, Baroness Maya Knoop, Henri Soubeyran de Saint-Prix and Prince Mohamed Riza Khan.

Behind every name is a story, sometimes with a surprising twist. Today the story of the Lithuanian Count Maurycy Prozor

Der aufgeklärte Künstler

Konferenz: Touché! Die magische und technische Evidenz der Medien

Veranstalter: IFK Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften an der Kunstuniversität Linz, in Kooperation mit dem DFG-Forschungsprojekt der Universität Siegen.

Datum, Ort: 15.12.2011-16.12.2011, Wien, Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Wien.

Programm: http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/termine/id=17901
ORF Radio Programm:  http://oe1.orf.at/programm/295462

 Vor zwei Jahren hat die holländische ‚pagan’ Musikgruppe Omnia das CD Wolf love veröffentlicht. Dieses CD trägt ein Motto des bekannten englischen Comicsautors Alan Moore, eine Rasputin ähnliche Erscheinung:

Art is like Magick … It’s the science of manipulating symbols, sounds or images to achieve changes in consciousness. It is not the job of the Artist to give the audience what they want. It’s the job of the Artist to give the audience what they need. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience, they would be the Artist.