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Heidi Horten Collection
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EXHIBITION

The Line

 

The picture shows two figures standing very close to each other. They are made up of light-colored, intertwined surfaces. The shapes are beige with a little brown, red and gray. The faces are only hinted at: two black dots per figure represent the eyes. Both figures have thin, straight legs - like lines. A small red heart in the figures is particularly striking. It makes the picture tender and personal. The background is a warm, earthy color - calm and even. The title “Siblings” fits well: the figures seem connected, almost like a unit. You can sense closeness, trust and cohesion - very quietly and delicately.
The picture shows a white canvas. It is not painted, but slashed open. Five long, fine cuts run vertically through the surface. The cuts are straight and elegant, some are slightly curved. The work was created by Lucio Fontana, an artist who became famous in the 1950s with his “Concetto Spaziale” (spatial concept) series. Instead of painting with color, he tears or punctures the canvas. He wants to show that a picture is not just a surface, but also space and depth.
The picture shows a colorful figure with raised arms. It stands in front of a red background with white lines that look like a grid or a sheet of music. The figure is painted in bold colors: the head is blue, the shirt is striped, the pants are blue. The face looks strong, loud and lively, like a mask or a cartoon head. At the top of the picture is written in white: “Red Cross Beginning of Theme (Fig. 1.)” - There are lines of music and many words. On the left are the titles of jazz pieces by the musician Charlie Parker. The artwork combines music, street art and personal feelings. Basquiat has depicted his roots, his role models and his view of the world here. You can recognize influences from pop art, graffiti, neo-expressionism and Haitian culture. It is a homage to life in New York, loud, wild, creative.

Paul Klee, Die Geschwister, 1930 © Heidi Horten Collection

Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale Attese, 1966 © Fondation Lucio Fontana, Milano, Bildrecht Wien

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Red Savoy, 1983 © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat

“Line experiences many fates. Each creates a particular, specific world, from schematic limitation to unlimited expressivity. These worlds liberate line more and more from the instrument, leading to complete freedom of expression.”

Wassily Kandinsky, On Line (1919)

The exhibition Die Linie explores the line as a fundamental element of the visual arts. Moving between subjective gesture and constructive precision, it takes on countless roles: it structures surfaces and defines form, traces contours and boundaries, separates and connects. It documents time and space, describes reality, creates illusion, and captures the imaginary. In the infinite variety of its concepts, functions, and material forms, the line has much to reveal—about its time, its artists, and their concerns.

Starting from the classical medium of drawing, the exhibition examines the line’s potential to create artistic worlds and to respond, through art, to the world we live in. The focus lies on contemporary positions that transcend traditional genre boundaries, expanding the line into space and presenting it as a medium for reflecting on social and political realities.

 

19.9. 2025 to March 2026

 

The artists featured in the exhibition are:

Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Kader Attia, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Angela Bulloch, Rosemarie Castoro, Christo und Jeanne-Claude, Marie Cool Fabio Balducci, Carola Dertnig, Marcel Duchamp, Fred Eerdekens, Amy Feldman, Dan Flavin, Lucio Fontana, Günther Förg, Lucian Freud, Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt), Antony Gormley, Keith Haring, Alexej Jawlensky, Donald Judd, Birgit Jürgenssen, Reena Saini Kallat, Wassily Kandinsky, Žilvinas Kempinas, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Paul Klee, Gustav Klimt, Edgar Knoop, Joseph Kosuth, Brigitte Kowanz, Edward Krasiński, Alfred Kubin, Roy Lichtenstein, Constantin Luser, Piero Manzoni, Agnes Martin, Henri Matisse, Vera Molnár, François Morellet, Nick Oberthaler, Helga Philipp, Pablo Picasso, Giulia Piscitelli, Sigmar Polke, Jackson Pollock, Dieter Roth, Fred Sandback, Sonia Sanoja, Egon Schiele, Chiharu Shiota, Cy Twombly, Franz West, Andy Warhol.