Arp Abstract (From The Dada Almanac)

Constellation, 1932


"It was the special achievement of Hans Arp to view the métier itself as the problem.  In this way he gave renewed  emphasis to it and the possibility of nourishing it with a renewed imagination.   

Hans Arp's Studio Window, Basel


For him it was no longer a question of improving and specifying an aesthetic system and making it more precise.  He wanted a direct form of production, one that exactly conformed to the way a stone breaks off from a mountain, a flower blossoms, or an animal perpetuates itself. He wanted imaginative qualities that are not to be found in any museum.   
 

Mirr, 1949-50


A type of animal-like formation with all its wild intensity and diversities.  The creation of a new body outside of us that lives as long as we do, perches on the corners of tables, resides in gardens, looks down from walls.   


He wanted abstraction."

Alexander Partens, “Dada Art,” published in The Dada Almanac, edited by Richard Huelsenbeck (Berlin 1920), English Edition presented by Malcolm Green (London, 1993), London, Atlas Press, 1993.  (Note:  Alexander Partens was the pseudonym of Tristan Tzara, Walter Serner and Hans Arp, the so-called Limited Company for the Exploitation of Dadaist Vocabulary.)

Hans Arp with Sophie Tauber-Arp

Hans Arp, 1926

Head With Green Nose, 1923