VERA MOLNAR – RANDOM WALKABOUTS

Exhibition
Apollonia venue
From November 27th 2021 to January 23rd 2022
Preview on November 26th at 6:30 p.m.

Vera MOLNAR, Dürer, Pair Impair A, 2021

In 1514, artist and mathematician Albrecht Dürer edited Melencolia I, an emblematic work from the Nordic Renaissance.

Hungarian by his father, Dürer stayed in Colmar, but also in Strasbourg. He theorized the linear perspective, opening new possibilities on perception and representation of the world in paintings.

Born in 1924 to a Hungarian family, Vera Molnar is now considered an exceptional artist, marking our times with her advances in concrete and abstract painting. One of her notable points of interest is Dürer’s magic square, pictured in Melencolia I.
By following this thread, she reinvents pictorial composition with mathematics, playing with algorithms and numeric principles.

In November 2021, Apollonia presents in Strasbourg the exhibit Promenades Aléatoires, by Vera Molnar, highlighting her homages to Dürer, but also her works from cycles such as Sainte-Victoire or Java des Carrés.

Let us embark on a stroll through the paths taken by Vera Molnar through 70 years of creations, her links with Cubism, with Klee, Monet, Mondrian, Morellet and many others.

Let us follow her hand and her gaze, which defined pictorial dreamscapes, opening – as Dürer did in his time – new perceptions of the world and of life itself.

Vera Molnar has been using the computer in her work for decades, without it dictating her artistic choices. What she expects from it are variations, a multitude of possibilities.
She is never surprised of the preview on the screen as she only uses algorithms to sketch her creative ideas. She subtly varies some parameters until she is completely satisfied with the concept and then transposes the work into painting.
Her creations, which are often very detailed and produced on a large scale, explain this method of work where the software tools only provide her assistance.
The machine is really at the service of her artistic freedom and not the other way around.

Vera Molnar about Dürer in two interviews :

“It was in 1948 that I found on an engraving by Dürer – titled Melancolia – on the top right-hand corner, a squared frame with 16 numbers inscribed in it. I attached them in a single line going from 1 to 16.
A wonderful drawing appeared, very simple, symmetrical, crystalline, pure, hard, I really liked it.”

“At that moment I said, it’s a masterpiece but then my inner voice told me ‘maybe we could try this way, or like that’
[…]
So I went back to Dürer’s magic square and tried to implement some form of disorder into it, or some new order.”

The preview takes place the 26th November at 6:30 p.m.

Wearing mask and showing sanitary pass are obligatory.

Open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Wednesday through Friday and from 2 to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Free admission.

Exceptionally closed from the 24th December to the 2nd January included.