Film Screening “Dans l’atelier de Mondrian”
Film screening: Sat 07 Apr 2018, 3 – 5 pm
Venue:
Hanoi : AGOhub – 12 Hoa Ma
HCMC : Ca phe thu Bay – 38 Vo Van Tan, District 3
Danang: Room 204, Da Nang University of Architecture – 566 Nui Thanh, Hai Chau District
Hai Phong: LightUp (7th floor) – Bac Viet Café, 4B Ho Sen street, Le Chan district
Vinh: Cafe Mây (2nd floor) – 133 Dang Thai Than
From the organizers:
With the theme “Architecture – Other Perspectives” in 2018, last month the Architecture – Cinema Club introduced the Bauhaus University in Germany (in 1919-1933) and their teaching and practicing philosophy. The “Bauhaus” movement, with Walter Gropuis (1883-1969) as one of the notable architects, has radically changed perceptions about architecture when it comes to functionalism and simplistic architectural morphology. It stated that architecture – as well as other types of art – must be of use to society in a grand scheme.
At that same period of time in Paris, a group of artists (mainly from the Netherlands) formed a group named De Stijl (“The Style” in English). They are artists, architects, composers… who are also searching for their own styles in art and in architecture. Later on, their works and research deeply influenced the creative philosophy throughout the 20th century and until now. These are the people who were counted as among the founders of Abstractism.
This film screening on 07/04 will be about one of the key members of the De Stijl group – painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) – through the film “Dans l’atelier de Mondrian” by François Levy-Kuentz.
Watch the trailer:
Influenced by cubism, Mondrian reposed the fundamental question of the art of painting. Unlike many realistic artists before, who, in his view, wanted to recreate reality in an illusory, subjective way, Mondrian wanted to find a beauty that could represent the whole world. So what image, or rather, what kind of geometry can express that emotion?
In the film, Kuentz reconstructed Mondrian’s studio scene during his years in Paris. The film tells the course of Mondrian’s development of thinking, from his exposure to traditional painting art to his journey to find the essence of painting by excluding everything else – only straight lines with three basic colors: green, yellow, red.
Especially during his search, Mondrian imprinted the process on the walls of his studio, painted and rearranged objects that he used. The whole space becomes a work of art. Mondrian lived “in” his painting. In fact, this is actually Mondrian’s research on space, along with other De Stijl’s members – Theo van Doesburg and Gerrit Rietveid – to bring forth new philosophy for architecture, such as breaking down the notion of a closed “room” into separated architectural “elements”: ceiling, floor, wall – the space becomes more open, more connected. This principle was later applied by architect Mies van der Rohe to his creative philosophy, whose Pavilion Barcelona became a symbol of the 20th-century architecture.
The film also addresses other sources of inspiration for Mondrian’s ideas such as jazz, theosophia, and especially the everyday life of human beings around him – the lonely artist who dedicated his life to art.
Free entry.
Language: Orignial language with Vietnamese subtitles.
The screening will start on time.
Follow updates on the event page.
Translated by Hanoi Grapevine.
