Vera Molnar

Overview

All methods are good if they satisfy my curiosity. I'm not an orthodox constructivist. VM

Yet her work is constructive in many ways. The artist elaborates purely visual systems. Simple plastic elements, the line and the square, are declined according to the principle of variation. Looking to aesthetics, she expresses her attachment to Gestalt theory: each of her pieces questions the moment when construction becomes form.

Vera Molnar is the inventor of a serial practice that makes her a precursor of Minimalism. The artist calls her programs "rules of the game". For example, she explores the possibilities of variations of two parallels in a square grid, in a tireless search for the missing piece. From the 1960s onwards, the computer became a privileged ally of the artist's "imaginary machine": it shows, at a glance, the range of possibilities. "Thanks to the computer, you get closer to yourself," she says, and find the form you like more quickly.

The element of chance comes into play. Once the pictorial principle has been established, the computer shows her a multitude of constellations she wasn't expecting, and the drawing, often reworked by hand, freely chooses its line. Minute variations can be as disordered as trembling. Color is another factor in the modification of form.

The artist speaks of her work as a perpetual "repentance", an attempt begun anew every day. You'd also have to repent for doing abstract work," she adds with an air of amusement.

Vera Molnar escapes from pure geometry, wants to "get some fresh air". Nevertheless, she affirms an ever-greater rejection of symbolism. Her signs are not letters. They cannot be read.

She also talks about the importance of speed in her practice of "Signatures", the ones she used to inscribe with boredom on silkscreens. The initials become distorted and become signs.

The artist expresses her interest in Dürer's monogram, and has titled a series of works M for Malevich... However, she doesn't go into detail about the references. However, this series takes up a large part of the artist's "diary", a journal in which she writes her daily lines. An element of subjectivity is half-heartedly admitted when she states that "her whole head" is present in these notebooks...

A few weeks after the end of her solo show at the Centre Pompidou Paris, the “Signature VM” exhibition looks back at Vera Molnar's relationship with writing and the letters of the alphabet: her studies, her signature VM and also some of her latest works.