Constant 
listen to Anton Nivenhuis ( Dutch: Constant Anton Nieuwenhuijs / Nieuwenhuys / Nieuwenhuis [1] ; July 21, 1920 , Amsterdam - August 1, 2005 , Utrecht ) - Dutch expressionist painter of the 20th - early 21st centuries , art theorist, poet, social utopian , visionary, musician.
| Constants | |
|---|---|
| Constant nieuwenhuijs | |
 Constant Anton Nivenhays, 1974 | |
| Birth name | Constant Anton Nieuwenhuijs |
| Date of Birth | July 21, 1920 |
| Place of Birth | Amsterdam |
| Date of death | August 1, 2005 (aged 85) |
| A place of death | Utrecht |
| A country | |
| Genre | artist painter , graphic artist sculptor , architect |
| Style | COBRA , surrealism expressionism |
| Awards | [d] ( 1994 ) [d] ( 1960 ) [d] ( 1991 ) [d] ( 2006 ) [d] ( 1985 ) |
Content
- 1 Biography
- 2 Literature
- 3 notes
- 4 References
Biography
Constant Nivenhuis was born in Amsterdam and was a year older than his brother Jan (Eng.) (Also subsequently artist).
He was fond of music since childhood, knew musical notation, sang in the church choir. He mastered playing the guitar and violin, but he performed only improvisational music, and at the age of 45, he mastered playing the cymbals .
After a year of visiting the Sculpture classes (Eng.) In Amsterdam, Constant enters the State Academy of Arts (Eng.) (Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst); studying here from 1939 to 1941 .
Founding member of the COBRA rebellious artists group. At first (since meeting in 1946 ) was influenced by Asger Jorn . Then, in the painting of Constant, images of fantastic animals appear, full of wild aggression, human beings [2] . The period of the highest activity of the CoBrA movement was productive for Constant as well (paintings by White Bird, 1948; Staircase, 1949; Scorched Earth, 1951 - these are some of the significant works created in that period). In the group, Constant invariably performed the functions of a theoretician: he wrote articles for the press and catalogs, coinedly formulated the theses of the COBRA manifestos.
Throughout the long life path of Constant, he (verbally and in print) reflected on the topic of modern society, using Marxist criticism as an instrument. He especially noted the role of the artist in society; the importance of releasing human creative energy [3] . One of the most interesting undertakings hatched by Constant from the beginning of the 50s was a utopian, with an eye to the distant future, architectural project of the city of the future called “New Babylon” [4] [5] .
Literature
- Stokvas, Willemaine; Imans, Gert. COBRA in Moscow: Works from the collection of the Amsterdam Museum Stedelik / State Tretyakov Gallery April 25 - May 25, 1997. - . - Amsterdam: Steidelic Museum, 1997 .-- S. 26, 34, 37, 39, 40, 53, 54, 66. - 72 p. - 2000 copies. - ISBN 9074876129 .
- Wigley, Mark; Constant. Constant's New Babylon: The Hyper-architecture of Desire 1998 . - 010 Uitgeverij, 1998 .-- 256 p. - ISBN 9064503435 .
Notes
- ↑ The spelling Nieuwenhuys or Nieuwenhuis is more common in the literature. But according to the register of civil records, the spelling of the surname is Nieuwenhuijs.
- ↑ See the catalog of the exhibition of the COBRA association held in Moscow in 1997 : COBRA in Moscow: Works from the collection of the Amsterdam Museum Steadelic. - Amsterdam, 1997 .-- S. 66 .-- 72 p.
- ↑ The article by S. Shuripa examines Constrant’s connections with another movement, with the Situational International (SI) :
Many SI architectural ideas were developed by the Amsterdam group Provo, whose representatives were even elected to the city council. SI activist Constant Nivenhuis worked on a project for New Babylon, a city where people are completely free from work and devote themselves to constructing situations. The architecture of New Babylon integrated physical, mental and social spaces, equally combining natural phenomena, social practices, logical and formal abstractions.
- Shuripa, Stanislav. There is no situationism . Art Journal No. 78/80, 2007 (2007). Date of treatment April 13, 2015. - ↑ VIDEO (6 min. 14 sec.): New Babylon / At the exposition in the Municipal Museum ( The Hague ) you can see the man-made designs of houses of the future, which today look new. Also represented are paintings by Constant, inhabited by highly generalized, almost abstract images.
- ↑ VIDEO (4 min. 29 sec.): The plot of the New Babylon is considered from the point of view of Psychological Topography .
