Monika Buch

Monika Buch - Untitled

Technique: Gouache on cardboard

Artist Biography: Monika Buch is a Spanish-German artist, born in Valencia in 1936. During her childhood, her family moved between Spain and Germany to avoid the Civil War and World War II. In 1955, after finishing her studies at the German School in Barcelona, her mother encouraged her to leave Spain and study at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) in Ulm, Germany. Monika Buch became the only Spanish woman to study at this prestigious design school, founded by Max Bill to continue the Bauhaus legacy after World War II.At the HfG, Monika Buch became familiar with the works of Max Bill and Walter Zeischegg, as well as with the objects of the students' own workshop participants. The school proposed a study of abstract and non-objective visual perception, interested in contradictory readings, analysis of depth indicators and linear perspectives. HfG methodology included the generation of form by movement to reactivate the geometric sense, resulting in a new way of looking at art as a total element, seriality, perception and the relationship between craft and mechanical production.Monika Buch is a multidisciplinary artist whose work includes painting, drawing, sculpture and installation. Her work is characterized by rigorous geometry, formal experimentation and the use of light and color. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work, including the National Plastic Arts Award from the Generalitat Valenciana in 2019. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world, and is part of important public and private collections.

 

For MONIKA BUCH (Spanish author of German origin born in Valencia in 1936; lives and works in Utrecht) this will be her first time at the fair, with a journey through her career that will include both historical works -created since the 70s of the 20th century- and current works by the only Spanish student of the Ulm School (HFG), heir of the Bauhaus. There, she forged a very particular plastic language that has made her an indisputable reference in optical and kinetic art. The work of this great silent artist, linked to geometry, has always been directed to "perception": "I always start from an idea or question that I want to solve: what I see and why. That's why I like to work on a theme and its variations; a work has to have something more than aesthetics, something that attracts your gaze and makes you discover what makes you restless". In his work, on board or paper, we can appreciate the permanent and incessant search for the perfect relationship between form and color, the study of the application of his color progressions and their combination with geometric structures whose superimposition gives rise to new visual impressions, even contradictory perceptions that can only be understood in all their magnitude and complexity to the extent that the viewer is able to interact with them.