untitled | serigraph | limited edition | signed in pencil by the artist
Jo Niemeyer is one of the leading representatives of concrete art. His works impress with their precisely planned interplay of geometric forms, lines, and areas of color. The harmonious division of a surface in the sense of the golden section is a focal point of his scientific and artistic exploration. This mathematical calculation of two partial surfaces has played a prominent role in art and architecture since antiquity as a particularly harmonious measure. A shorter form is in the same relationship to the longer one as the latter is to the whole.
Jo Niemeyer works with serial principles and organizing systems. In his Land Art projects, he leaves the protected space of galleries and museums. He began in 1989 with “20 steps”, recorded in 1997 in Ropinsalmi, Finland and Nickle, CIS. With 20 stainless steel columns on different continents, he circumnavigates over 40023 km, divided into 20 virtually growing, logarithmic steps.
In the works of the Koenigshof Collection, which are created in collaboration with his wife Tuula, the composition of the pictures is also based on the proportions of the golden ratio.
Eva Mueller | Art Consultant
Curator of the Koenigshof Collection
VITA JO NIEMEYER (short form)
1946 born in Alf an der Mosel | 1962-65 studied graphics and photography | 1966 first paintings of geometric structures | 1966 studies in Canada, USA, and Scandinavia | 1967-68 Studies at the Helsinki Institute “Atheneum” for Industrial Design | from 1970 Freelance artist | 1971 First paintings based on serial principles | 1979 Project “Modul 618” | 1983-86 Lectureship at the Finnish Academy of Arts in Helsinki | 2005 “light” project at Mount Toubkal, Morocco | 2005 “Oxford2Oxford” at “The Queens College, Oxford, England
WORKS IN PUBLIC SPACES (selection)
Museum of Modern Art, (MoMA), New York | Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich | Tel Aviv University | Museum Pécs, Pécs, Hungary | Forum konkrete Kunst, Erfurt | Bauhaus Archive, Berlin | Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt | Stiftung für konkrete Kunst, Reutlingen | Museum Ushiroyama, Higashiawakura, Japan | Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, Finland | Mondriaanhuis, Amersfoort, Netherlands | Nickle Arts Museum, University of Calgary, UAS | Institute for Concrete Art, Rehau | Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland | Kunstsammlung Stadt Biel, Biel/Bienne, Switzerland