I did exhibitions with the Surrealists (in Paris, in 1929) because their attitude revolted against 'art' and their attitude toward life itself was wise, as was Dada's.

Hans Arp

Categorized in : Art Attitude Wise

In 1915 Sophie Tauber and I carried out our first works in the simplest forms, using painting, embroidery and pasted paper (without using oil colors to avoid any reference with usual painting). These were probably the first manifestations of their kind, pictures that were their own reality, without meaning or cerebral intention. We rejected everything in the nature of a copy or a description, in order to give free flow to what was elemental and spontaneous.

color order reality

The vertical and the horizontal are the extreme signs available to man for touching the beyond and his inwardness.

symbols touching men

Ever since my childhood, I was haunted by the search for perfection. An imperfectly cut paper literally made me ill. I would guillotine it.

childhood cutting perfection

It was Sophie ( Sophie Arp Tauber, woman artist and later Arp's wife) who, by the example of her work and her life, both of them bathed in clarity, showed me the right way. In her world, the high and the low, the light and the dark, the eternal and the ephemeral, are balanced in prefect equilibrium.

light artist dark

As the thought comes to me to exorcise and transform this black with a white drawing, it has already become a surface.. .Now I have lost all fear, and begin to draw on the black surface.

drawing black white

The man who speaks and writes about art should refrain from censuring or pontificating. He will thus avoid doing anything foolish, for in the presence of primordial depth all art is but dream and nature.

dream writing art

Artists should work together like the artists of the Middle Ages. by Hans Arp

Artists should work together like the artists of the Middle Ages.

working-together artist age

In recent times, Surrealist painters have used descriptive illusi... by Hans Arp

In recent times, Surrealist painters have used descriptive illusionistic academic methods.

method academic used

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.

struggle spiritual air

I like nature but not its substitutes... Mondrian opposed art to nature saying that art is artificial and nature is natural. I do not share this opinion... Art's origins are natural.

opinion nature art

Already in 1915, Sophie Tauber divides the surface of her aquarelle into squares and rectangles which she then juxtaposes horizontally and perpendicularly as Mondrian, Itten and Paul Klee did in the same period, fh). She constructs them as if they were masonry work. The colors are luminous, ranging from the raw yellow to deep red or blue.

color squares blue

Each one of these bodies (art-works Arp made) certainly signifies something, but it is only once there is nothing left for me to change that I begin to look for its meaning, that I give it a name.

names giving art

We attempted perfection; we wanted an object to be without flaw, so we cut the papers with a razor, pasted them down meticulously, but it buckled and was ruined... that is why we decided to tear prewrinkled paper, so that in the finished work of art imperfection would be an integral part, as if at birth death were built in.

cutting perfection art

Wij wezen allles wat kopie of beschrijving was af en lieten het elementaire en het spontane in volle vrijheid reageren. Omdat de plaatsing van de vlakken en de kleuren en de verhoudingen van deze vlakken louter op toeval schenen te berusten, verklaarde ik dat deze werken, zoals in de natuur, gerangschikt waren "volgens de wetten van het toeval", toeval dat voor mij alleen maar een beperkt onderdeel vormde van een onpeilbare reden van bestaan, van een orde die in zijn totaliteit ontoegankelijk was.

vans chance art