Color in Space. Hal Busse's Work 1950-1960

In her PhD project Claudia Kudinova researches on the oeuvre of the artist Hal Busse (Hannelore Bendixen-Busse; *1926, Jagstfeld – †2018, Heilbronn) and specifically her work stage between 1950 and 1960.

The dissertation aims to shed light on a still largely unknown painterly position that moved in the epicentre of the contemporary artistic discourse of the German Post-War Avant-Garde – located between Art Informel, ZERO and concrete-constructive artistic tendencies – and to showcase its unique position within it. The research focuses on the artist's specific approach to color in its interplay of representation and presentation and her creative attention to »color in space«. Therefore the thesis investigates Busse's pictorial strategies with which the artist activates color as matter as well as an optical phenomenon, that is constituted by the act of seeing itself.

The art historical research is largely formed by an approach stemming from the visual studies as a way of rediscovering and reevaluating an artistic position overlooked by the historical and scientific canon via the specifics of pictorial experience that it provides. Vice versa Kudinova aims to expand the research on the German Post-War Avant-Garde through the research on Hal Busse's pictorial strategies and to render its specific artistic relations visible and comprehensible in new contexts.