Review: Van Doesburg & the International Avant-Garde: Constructing a New World; All or Nothing: Robert van ’t Hoff, Architect of a New Society

Abstract

Van Doesburg & the International Avant-Garde: Constructing a New World . Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden. 20 October 2009–3 January 2010. Tate Modern, London. 4 February–16 May 2010. All or Nothing: Robert van ’t Hoff, Architect of a New Society . Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo. April 2–August 24, 2010 Two Dutchmen of contrasting destinies, whose lives overlapped and whose architectural influence greatly exceeded the relatively modest number of buildings they executed, were celebrated last year in related but very different exhibitions. Typical Netherlanders of their generation in their utopian leanings, each left his birthplace to live—and die—abroad, but in many respects they were polar opposites. Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931), a volatile chameleon who adopted multiple personae and unleashed a veritable eruption of paintings, ornamental designs, typography, and manifestos, was an incandescent but apolitical showman dedicated to dramatic aesthetic transformation, whereas Robert van 't Hoff (1887–1979), a social radical of feminist and communist sympathies, shunned the spotlight, husbanded his production, and sought to reform society through political action as well as architecture. Linked through membership in De Stijl (the movement founded in 1917 that, although not cited in either title, ran like a leitmotif through each exhibition), both realized collaborations with its members and published in its eponymous periodical, established and edited by Van Doesburg and financially supported by Van 't Hoff. Both installations aimed to reconstruct a life as well as a career. Memorabilia and photos—in Van 't Hoff's case the books he owned and the bicycle he fashioned out of spare parts, in Van Doesburg's the many international journals he devoured and recordings of the music he enjoyed, some played by his pianist wife Nelly van Moorsel—communicated the interplay between the personal and the professional. In other regards the exhibitions, like the subjects, were necessarily antithetical in character and scope. Tate Modern documented the intricate web of connections woven by the expansive impresario among the avant-garde.1 Some eighty-four figures from more than fifteen European countries with which Van Doesburg made contact were represented across thirteen galleries. Three rooms sufficed at Otterlo for the key contributions of the …