Max Bill

bildsäulen-dreiergruppe, 1989

Max Bill, one of the leading Swiss artists of the 20th century, created this tripartite sculpture; its color sequence follows structural and mathematical rules. The sculpture’s ground plan relates to the Mercedes star. Bill strove throughout his life to make architecture, painting and sculpture into an interdisciplinary art form. The bildsäulen-dreiergruppe [sculptures-group of three] shows how such a synthesis can look. The colors were developed from the classical nine-part color disc, the spectrum of primary and secondary colors from yellow via red to blue with the corresponding intermediate shades. The color disc is a sequence of shades running back in itself: yellow, orange, red, on to purple, violet, blue, on to blue-green, green, yellow-green. Instead of the anticipated progression, groups of three colors, summing up to nine modules can be discerned among the 27 individual elements. As each column begins with a different color value, the spectrums do not run in synch, but counter to each other. To prevent the colors from overlapping visually (in terms of sensory physiology), Bill separates the individual modules with narrow, shiny-silver steel bands. The number three defines the mathematical concept of the sculpture: three columns, the columns structured in three sections (band, color sequence, band), modules in three colors, each module repeated three times per column, thus giving nine modules over the height of each column.