In “Around the Sun,” created during the last five years of his life, Jean (Hans) Arp combines basic shapes and textures in patterns of planes and lyrical color, which are intended to appeal to our emotions. Arp used collages made from colored and painted papers as the basis for a series of wooden forms, which, in turn, became the printing mechanism for the album’s eighteen woodcuts. He then took the process a step further by painting the wooden forms, transforming them into fourteen sculptural reliefs. In this series, Arp demonstrates his continued fascination with the interplay of color—which plays a strong role in his later work—and form, by transforming the two-dimensional surfaces of the collages into three-dimensional sculptures.
Label from Artists in Depth: Arp, Miró, Calder, March 25, 2011–April 15, 2012
