Vera Molnar — Parler à l’œil — Centre Georges Pompidou — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: February 28 → August 26, 2024

Vera Molnar (born in Budapest in 1924, resided in Paris from 1947 until her death on 7 December 2023 at the age of 99) was a pioneer of digital art. 

Her works, sustained by a knowledge of the psychology of shapes and the laws of vision, designed in a constructivist approach around 1947, became artistic interrogations of perspective. As a cybernetician and computer scientist, Molnar established what she called an “imaginary machine” in the 1960s, before becoming the first artist in France (1968) to produce digital drawings using a computer connected to a plotter. Up until the mid-90s, she engaged in systematic exploration of families of forms, showcasing their mutations while usually prioritising iteration and seriality.

The exhibition begins with the early drawings, Arbres et collines géométriques (Geometric trees and hills, 1946), of Vera Molnar who, even before she moved to Paris in 1947, presented an essentialised vision of familiar landscapes. The 1950s are evoked in compositions that locate the artist firmly in the post-war geometric abstraction movement (Cercles et demi-cercles, Circles and half-circles, 1953, Grenoble Museum; Quatre éléments distribués au hasard, Four randomly distributed elements, 1959).

Vera Molnar, Cercles et demi-cercles 1953 — Huile sur toile, 80,5 x 100 cm Grenoble, Musée de Grenoble © Adagp, Paris, 2024 Photo © Ville de Grenoble / Musée de Grenoble- J.L. Lacroix

Having presented highly radicalised paintings (Icône, Icon, 1964; Neuf carrés rouges, Nine red squares, 1966), Molnár commenced her series of algorithmic drawings entitled À la recherche de Paul Klee (In search of Paul Klee), anticipating her use of the computer.

For the 1970s, several series of drawings made this time on a plotting table illustrate her taste for the introduction of a certain percentage of disorder in simple geometric compositions (Déambulation entre ordre et chaos, A stroll between order and chaos, 1975; 160 carrés poussés à bout, 160 squares pushed to the limit, 1976; Des lignes, pas des carrés, Lines, not squares, 1976; Molnaroglyphes, Molnaroglyphs, 1977-1978).

The 1980s are characterised notably by the appearance in Vera Molnar’s work of her first polyptychs (Transformation, Transformation, 1983), of which the Centre Pompidou preserves several striking examples (Identiques mais différents, Identical but different, 2010). Testifying to Vera Molnár’s long association with the work of Albrecht Dürer, Les Métamorphoses d’Albrecht, The Metamorphoses of Albrecht (1994-2017) organises into four pictures the progressive transition of the latter’s monogram toward her own.

Vue de l’exposition Vera Molnar, Parler à l’œil au Centre Pompidou, 2024 © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI — Janeth Rodriguez-Garcia

Not far from her Carré dévoyé (Square distressed, 1999, Rennes, Fine Arts Museum) in the exhibition, visitors can also discover for the first time, Perspective d’un trait (Perspective on a line, 2014-2019), an original stainless steel and anodised aluminium sculpture whose perception is transformed as the spectator moves about.

Vera Molnar’s photographic work is evoked through several series (Etudes sur sable, Studies on sand, 2009; Ombres sur carrelage, Shadows on tiling, 2012; Par temps couvert, In cloudy weather, 2012), while the twenty-two volumes of her “Diary” are presented in their entirety. Bulging with diagrams, photographs and various documents pasted in among their pages, these ordinary exercise books, constitute unique documents on the artist’s development and the origin of many of her works.

Lastly, several in situ installations (OTTWW, 1981-2010, based on a poem by Shelley; Trapèzes penchés à droite (180%), Trapezium leaning to the right (180%) 2009), including a very recent one (La Vie en M, Life in M 2023), created by Vera Molnar especially for the occasion, manifest her desire to immerse visitors in her universe.