Galerie Von Bartha - Contemporary

The Galerie von Bartha will soon be able to look back on forty years of existence. The first exhibition took place in November 1970. Miklós and Margareta von Bartha encouraged and accompanied artists who made the possibilities and varieties of the Image the subject of their research.

One of several trailblazing presentations was the 1976 ‘Hungarian Avant-garde’, which drew attention to artists hitherto almost unknown in the West, such as Etienne Béothy, Alfred Forbat, Béla Kadar, Lajos Kassák, Hans Matthis-Teutsch and László Péri, and gave rise to many projects in official institutions. ‘Horizontal – Vertical’ (1977) and ‘Diagonal and Circle’ (1979) heightened the awareness of Concrete Art among collectors and among the public beyond the Swiss focus on Zürich and the School of Max Bill. The committed cultivation of international collectors and artists led to the building of bridges with South America: the exhibition and accompanying publication ‘Arte Concreto Invención – Arte Madi’ (1994) illustrated the many-faceted nature of the avant-garde of Argentina’s post-war generation. By placing works in exhibitions in Seville, Paris, Cologne or New York, it was possible to correct the Eurocentric view of research into visual phenomena in painting and sculpture. As a result of ‘Arte Madi’, long-term relationships developed with the artists Carmelo Arden Quin, Alfredo Hlito, Enio Iommi, Tomas Maldonado, Juan Mele and Gregorio Vardanega.

The work of the Gallery is not dogmatically limited to the promotion of Concrete Art. Swedish artists, including Olle Baertling, Lars Erik Falk and Eric H. Olson, were for a long time a constant feature of the programme. An interest in Art Nouveau or Swedish design soon allowed discoveries on the periphery of art criticism and created counterpoints in a programme which always declared an interest in elementary aesthetics, in the aesthetic of the elementary. This was also the case with representatives of Kinetic Art, including Pol Bury or Gerhard von Graevenitz; the different positions represented by Andrew Bick, Auguste Herbin, Konrad Klapheck, Imi Knoebel, Yves Laloy, Aurélie Nemours, Bernar Venet or Beat Zoderer demonstrate a receptiveness toward the images and mentality of previous generations as well as the current one. Furthermore, the overlap between Fine Art, Design and Craft marks the Gallery out as a place where a fascination with object is transferred to images, and conversely a fascination with images increases the viewer’s sensitivity towards the sensory nature of objects.

In 2007, a new chapter in the Gallery’s history is opening. After the successful establishment of a second showroom in S-chanf, the opening of an exhibition platform at Kannenfeldplatz 6 in Basel is imminent; von Bartha Contemporary, under the direction of Stefan von Bartha, is to present the work of some of the artists it has already represented, and is to expand its programme in favour of younger artists. The exhibitions , which are curated either jointly or solely by Margareta von Bartha , will continue in the rooms of the gallery at Schertlingasse 16 in Basel.