Art Critic Of The Week (6)

Modern abstract art, eh?

Mondrian painted his abstract work, New York City 1, in 1941, a series of adhesive tape lines in primary colours which intersect each other to create rectangles. It was first displayed at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1945 and since 1980 has hung in the art collection of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Dusseldorf. For decades it has been hung to show the yellow, red, and blue lines thickening at the bottom, representing a skyline.

There is no signature on the painting and Mondrian, rather unhelpfully, did not put “this way up” on the back of his creation. Curator, Susanne Meyer-Büser, however, reckons that it has always been hung upside down, pointing out that a similar work of Mondrian’s, New York City on display in Paris, has the lines thickening at the top as does a photograph of the painting on the artist’s easel taken days after he died.

Now the hanging error has been pointed out, other art historians agree with her. It is too late to rectify the mistake, though. The adhesive tapes are extremely loose and hanging by a thread, according to Meyer-Büser, and if it was turned the right way up, they are likely to fall off.

That the mistake was not noticed for 75 years says a lot about abstract art.