CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/7/2017

Constant: Space + Colour

In a 1948 manifesto published in the first issue of Reflex magazine, which he co-founded with likeminded artists Corneille, Karel Appel and his brother Jan Nieuwenhuys, radical Dutch artist, author, designer and musician Constant wrote, "A painting is not a structure of colors and lines, but an animal, a night, a cry, a man, or all of these together." A founder of the CoBrA movement and an important member of the Situationist International, Constant devoted two decades of work to his utopian vision for New Babylon, "a world wide city for the future." Adieu la P. (1962), pictured here, "hints at a farewell to painting," according to Constant: Space + Colour, From Cobra to New Babylon, which features 221 color reproductions and ten texts written by Constant himself, eight of which have never been published before. "Urbanism, for Constant, was not limited to spatial planning; it was an entirely new, all-encompassing art form whereby visual artists and engineers would work together on a new city of the future."

ABOVE: Constant, Adieu la P., 1962, (oil on linen, 112.5 x 145.5 cm, collection Fondation Constant, long-term loan to the Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen) © Constant / Fondation Constant c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2017, photo Tom Haartsen.