Constant

Born, 1920 in Amsterdamn, Netherlands

From the archived Documenta 11 website : www.documenta12.de//archiv/d11/data/english/index.html

“Constant, known for his radical artistic projects and theoretical writings, founded the Dutch Experimental Group in 1948, and in the same year, started the artists’ group CoBrA. In 1951, Constant left the group. His painting became quieter, and increasingly abstract; he began working with a combination of painting and sculpture and making sculptures of metal, Plexiglas, wire, and wood, which ultimately became the models for New Babylon. From 1956 to 1974, Constant worked on this project developing models, drawings, prints, collages, and paintings. New Babylon is not an urban planning project, but a kind of thinking, of imagining, a way to look at things and life. New Babylon is based on the idea of futuristic mechanization, which would make it possible to dispense with human workers. People could use their energy to be creative, in order to shape the world according to their desires. With its flexible structure, New Babylon would be a suitable environment for this new type of human, and at the same time, provide a solution for increasing population and traffic. While developing New Babylon, Constant’s works became increasingly abstract, eventually seeming to almost dissolve. In 1974, Constant turned exclusively to painting, which he continues to pursue to this day.”

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