Angela Thomas

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Angela Thomas (also Angela Thomas Jankowski , Angela Thomas Bill , Angela Thomas Schmid , born November 23, 1948 near Düsseldorf ) is a Swiss art historian, exhibition curator and author of texts a. a. about Max Bill and Georges Vantongerloo .

life and work

Growing up near Düsseldorf and in West Berlin, Thomas studied political science with Harold Hurwitz at the Free University of Berlin from 1969 and also worked for him as a student assistant (student assistant). In 1973, Thomas began studying art history at the University of Zurich , which she completed in 1979 with a licentiate and in 1987 with a dissertation on Georges Vantongerloo.

In 1974 Thomas met the architect and artist Max Bill in Zurich and became his life partner for the next twenty years. After the death of his first wife, she lived with him in the Bill house in Zumikon near Zurich from 1988 , was his wife from 1991 and received Swiss citizenship upon marriage. After Bill's death in 1994, she became the legal heir to half of his estate.

In 1976 Thomas curated his retrospective at the Akademie der Künste in West Berlin together with Max Bill and also with him in 1980 the exhibition on Georges Vantongerloo at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Kunsthaus Zürich . Since then she has been a regular curator. In 1983 she curated the exhibition sophie taeuber-arp . 1889–1943 in the Museo Comunale Ascona , for which Bill designed the catalog. In 1987, Thomas curated the group exhibition angelica, anna and other sisters from yesterday at the Kunsthaus Zürich with 94 works by 40 artists, for which the monograph With an undisguised view , also designed by Bill, was published in 1993 .

She was involved in other exhibitions on Max Bill in Ludwigshafen in 1990 , in Locarno and London in 1991 and in Studen in 1993 , curated another one alone in Esslingen am Neckar in 1995 and, together with Jan Hoet, the retrospective Max Bill in 2008 : no beginning, no end in the museum Marta Herford . She curated other exhibitions on Georges Vantongerloo in London in 1996 (as a double exhibition on him and Max Bill), in 2001 together with Erich Schmid in Zumikon and again in London in 2006. In Zumikon, Thomas has been organizing regular exhibitions in collaboration with Erich Schmid since 1995, the last so far was the group exhibition concrete faktor (2016).

Since 1977, Thomas has published art-critical and art-historical texts, her interest in both "political feminism" and concrete-constructive art. Together with Antje Finger, she initiated and published the magazine Kassandra for feminist art in 1977/1978 , of which two issues could be realized. Together with other women, she founded the feminist group “Macht & Möcht” in Zurich in 1980.

Thomas deals intensively with the work of Max Bill and published the catalogs for Bill's exhibitions at the Saner Foundation in Studen (1993) or for max bill - die grafische rihen (1993) in Esslingen. She also wrote a biography about him and his work, the first part of which in 2008, With subversive shine. Max Bill and his time was published. In the planned second part, for example, Bill's travels and his experiences in Brazil will be discussed. Thomas was also the central eyewitness in the biographical cinema documentary Max Bill - The Absolute Eye Measure (2008), which Erich Schmid realized for Bill's 100th birthday. The film was screened and awarded at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2008 .

Also after completing her dissertation, Thomas continues to work on the work of Georges Vantongerloo. In 1996, Thomas founded the "max bill georges vantongerloo foundation" to manage the estate and to promote the work of Max Bill and Georges Vantongerloo.

As an art critic, Thomas published texts on Max Raphael , Anna Baumann-Kienast, Alis Guggenheim , Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Ulrike Rosenbach , Shirley Goldfarb, Miriam Cahn , Lucia Moholy , Verena Loewensberg and Nelly Rudin . She wrote for magazines such as Kassandra , du , FraueZytig FraZ or the Zytglogge-Zytig in Bern.

In 1996 Thomas met the filmmaker Erich Schmid, they married in 1998. For the wedding, the artist Roman Signer showed an explosives performance in the garden of the Bill house in Zumikon, where Angela Thomas Schmid and Erich Schmid continue to live together. Haus Bill is also open to the public during exhibitions and events.

Publications

Editor

  • with Antje Finger: Kassandra. No. 0, 1977/78.
  • with Antje Finger: Kassandra. No. 1, 1978.
  • Georges Vantongerloo. A traveling retrospective exhibition. (Exhibition catalog). [Ministry of Flemish Culture, Brussels 1980.]
  • With Luciano Caramel: Max Bill. Exhibition catalog. Fidia edizioni d'arte, Lugano 1991.
  • With Luciano Caramel: max bill. Exhibition catalog. Lorenzelli Arte, Milan 1991.
  • own work in the ironworks. sibylle burla, gillian white, elke scheu. (Exhibition catalog). Karl Meyer & Co Allschwil 1992.
  • max bill. Exhibition catalog. Fondation Saner, Studen 1993. (Catalog design: Max Bill.)

Monographs

  • Angela Thomas: Georges Vantongerloo (1886–1965) and his involvement in the artist groups of the 30s, with special consideration of abstraction création (Paris). Licentiate thesis. University of Zurich, 1979.
  • Angela Thomas Jankowski: sophie taeuber-arp. 1889-1943. Exhibition catalog. Waser, Buchs 1983. (Catalog design: Max Bill.)
  • Angela Thomas: mental images - materials for the development of georges vantongerloo up to 1921 - taking into account the correspondence with theo van doesburg and piet mondrian . Dissertation University of Zurich. Edition Marzona, Düsseldorf 1987, ISBN 3-921420-31-8 .
  • Angela Thomas: With an undisguised look. Report on three artists: Anna Baumann-Kienast, Alis Guggenheim, Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Benteli Verlag, Bern 1991, ISBN 3-7165-0807-1 . (Catalog design: Max Bill.)
  • Angela Thomas Bill: max bill - the graphic series. Exhibition catalog. Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-7757-0311-X .
  • Angela Thomas: With a subversive glow. Max Bill and his time . Volume 1: 1908-1939. Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-85881-227-8 .

Curated exhibitions

  • 1976: max bill retrospective , Akademie der Künste, West Berlin (together with Max Bill)
  • 1980: Vantongerloo , Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Kunsthaus Zürich (together with Max Bill)
  • 1983: sophie taeuber-arp. 1889–1943 , Museo Comunale d'Arte Moderna Ascona
  • 1987: angelica, anna and other sisters from yesterday , Kunsthaus Zürich
  • 1990: max bill , Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein (together with Max Bill)
  • 1991: Max Bill , Pinacoteca comunale Locarno (together with Max Bill, Luciano Caramel, Pierre Casè)
  • 1991: max bill , Edward Totah Gallery, London (together with Max Bill)
  • 1992: Eigenwerk im eisenwerk , Shed im Eisenwerk, Frauenfeld
  • 1993: max bill , Fondation Saner Studen (together with Max Bill) [right?]
  • 1995: andre, bendgens, bill, blum, clarke, dibbets, fabro, lehmann, lewitt, long, lowe, lüscher, molnar, naraha, weiner, wulffen , house bill in Zumikon
  • 1995: max bill, die grafische reihen , Landratsamt Esslingen near Stuttgart (based on a concept by Max Bill)
  • 1996: Max Bill Georges Vantongerloo , Annely Juda Fine Art, London
  • 1998: darren lago, renée levi, beat zoderer , bill house in Zumikon
  • 1999: ron bladen, cris gianakos, max bill, hans josephsohn, beat zoderer, richard long, christoph haerle, richard serra, beatrice rossi and frédéric dedellay , house bill in Zumikon (together with Erich Schmid)
  • 2001: georges vantongerloo , bill house in Zumikon (together with Erich Schmid)
  • 2006: Georges Vantongerloo. A retrospective . Annely Juda Fine Art, London
  • 2008: Max Bill: without beginning, without end . Museum Marta Herford (with Jan Hoet)
  • 2011: max bill. five decades , Annely Juda Fine Art, London
  • 2016: specific factor , house bill in Zumikon (together with Erich Schmid)

literature

  • Caroline Hauger: Max Bill would have loved the exhibition. Culture in the Bill house. In: Schweizer Illustrierte. 1995, pp. 38-40.
  • Michael Hiltbrunner: Conversation with Angela Thomas. Feminism and Concrete Art. In: Helmhaus Zurich (ed.): The triangle of love. Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2015, ISBN 978-3-85881-506-4 , pp. 107–111.
  • Péter Emőd: Max Bill and the promise of happiness. Angela Thomas Schmid interviewed in Budapest in September 2017. Translated from the Hungarian by Olga Majumder-Rózsa. (published in Hungarian in MŰÉRTŐ, December 2017, p. 13), (online)

Movies

  • Erich Schmid (director): max bill - the absolute eye measure . Ariadnefilm, Switzerland 2007. (feature documentary, with Angela Thomas and others) (maxbillfilm.ch)
  • Angela Thomas [via Max Bill]. In: Slanted Magazine. ( Tour de Suisse, No. 23, 2014). (on-line)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Hiltbrunner: Feminism and concrete art. Conversation with Angela Thomas. In: Helmhaus Zurich (ed.): The triangle of love. (Exhibition catalog). Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2015, pp. 107–111, here p. 107.
  2. ↑ Angela Thomas: Georges Vantongerloo (1886–1965) and his involvement in the artist groups of the 30s. [...] (Licentiate thesis). University of Zurich, 1979; Angela Thomas: mental pictures - materials for the development of georges vantongerloo until 1921 […]. Dissertation. Egidio Marzona , Düsseldorf 1987.
  3. ↑ Hiltbrunner 2015, p. 109.
  4. ↑ Angela Thomas
  5. ↑ Museo comunale Ascona (ed.): Sophie taeuber-arp. 1889-1943. Exhibition catalog. Waser, Buchs 1983.
  6. ↑ Angela Thomas: With an undisguised look. Report on three artists: Anna Baumann-Kienast, Alis Guggenheim, Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Benteli Verlag, Bern 1991.
  7. ↑ Hiltbrunner 2015, p. 107.
  8. ↑ Hiltbrunner 2015, p. 108.
  9. ↑ Angela Thomas
  10. ↑ Erich Schmid (director): max bill - the absolute eye measure. Ariadnefilm, Switzerland 2007. (maxbillfilm.ch)
  11. ^ Website Erich Schmid
  12. ↑ max bill georges vantongerloo foundation zumikon
  13. ↑ Angela Thomas
  14. ↑ max bill georges vantongerloo foundation zumikon
personal data
SURNAME Thomas, Angela
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thomas Jankowski, Angela; Thomas Bill, Angela; Thomas Schmid, Angela
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss art historian
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf